Wikipedia founder Wales sets up community news service Wikitribune

The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has set out plans to create a community news service that links a team of professional reporters with a large network of volunteer 'citizen journalists'.

Wales founded Wikipedia in 2001 as a way for members of the public to contribute to an online encyclopedia, and on Tuesday launched a crowd-funding campaign to create Wikitribune.

According to the internet entrepreneur, the new service was being launched in response to the rise of 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'.

It will be strictly fact-checked and will publish full transcripts of interviews carried out by its army of paid and volunteer employees.

"Wikitribune is news by the people and for the people," Wales said. "This will be the first time that professional journalists and citizen journalists will work side-by-side as equals writing stories as they happen, editing them live as they develop and at all times backed by a community checking and re-checking all facts."

Wikitribune will rely largely on volunteers as well as a team of core writers

Wikitribune will share several features that can be seen in Wikipedia, including the necessity to detail where sources of information were located.

However, changes to a page or story will only go live if they are approved by a trusted editor or staff member.

"In terms of publication, the publish authorisation could be given by a member of staff or a trusted community member. It's more a working together side-by-side approach," he said.

Wales' plan is for contributors to help journalists check facts using an array of sources ranging from transcripts to video and audio interviews.

Following the initial crowd-funding, the content will be free and the paid journalists will receive part of monthly subscriptions by communities, with Wales aiming to avoid resorting to using advertising to fund the project, as with Wikipedia.

“For the people who are monthly supporters, they’re going to have a say in the topics that we’re covering, so for example if you are part of a community -- a small town somewhere -- if you can get together enough supporters then we can put a full-time reporter on that beat to cover whatever it is you’re interested in,” Wales said, adding this approach could be applied to both geographical or topical interests.

The issue of 'fake news' became a big issue last year, with social media giants such as Twitter and Facebook coming in for considerable criticism for not detecting and removing inaccurate stories.