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Editorial Wiki Debuts At LA Times
jgarzik writes "The L.A. Times newspaper has launched a new form of editorial, the wikitorial. The LA Times editorial staff introduces the new feature in this editorial, and the first wikitorial, War and Consequences , has already been posted. Is this an innovative new way to interact with readers, or will it be constantly defaced by reactionaries?"
I would think that comments to a news editiorial would do pretty much the same thing. What's the benefit of being able to edit someone else's opinion?
Why would radicals not also be capable of defacing it? And why use the word "deface" anyway? Are any opposing opinions automatically supposed to be "defacing" it?
What's currently important is not the question of "will it be defaced?", but "will it help removing some of the trenches that are in the US public opinion? Will it add positively to a constructive dialogue between the people?"
I think that it will not, because the predominant circles active on the internet today fall pretty nicely in line with the LA Times readership, so there are not that many dialogues between the rivaling parties. But add a editorial wiki to a bible belt newspaper, and there will surely be dialogue going on indeed.
I'm off to go deface it right now!
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Wikis are good if you're trying to build something that does not contain opinionated material. Or at the very least you want to contain the editors to have pretty similar opinions. If you open it up to the public, there is no way you can come up with a coherent, opinionated view, because by definition people have their own opinions. The Wikipedia works because it has as one of its most fundamental rules the Neutral Point of View. Additionally, it's an effort to build an encyclopedia, which is meant to represent facts as they are. Wikis are also good for building documentation, which is pretty objective in its matter. Wikitorial has none of these qualities.
The only difference between the newspaper and the wikitorial is that the parakeet can read and take a dump on the newspaper at the same time. If the parakeet took a dump on my LCD monitor while reading the wikitorial, the cat would have a special treat.
In using wiki to maintain editorials, the paper is effectively telling the users to alter the content to match their own opinions and beliefs (since that's what most people would tend to do). Digestion of news is usually best done through reading many different opinions, each with an accredited source, to be able to form your own from the information. One 'unified' article in the wiki style doesn't seem to fit with this model, and I'm concious that a lot of people are trying to force wiki's to become the new 'blog' style phenomenon of internet publishing.
To me, a traditional comments thread would be far more appropriate for news reporting. A clear example of the suitability of these two methods can be seen here on slashdot as using wiki for a substitute to comments.. clearly something that would be cumberous at best, and most likely completely hopeless at effectively digesting stories.
Business Voyeur
Yes. Kind of like how a crazy shit who agrees with me is an activist, and a crazy shit who disagrees with me is a radical or extremist.
Newspapers need to embrace the Web, but not like this.
When we reporters go out and gather information and write a story, there needs to be a way for readers who know the topic to say, "hey, this is wrong," or "hey, you forgot this key point." After all, the reporter is almost always less knowledgable on any given article that he writes than his sources and certain readers.
I could see a wiki or wiki-like technology being useful in correcting news errors (*cough* avoid jayson blair *cough*) or adding new perspectives (*cough* slashdot writ large *cough*) or even gathering story ideas. What's more, such technology would turn newspaper websites from electronic reprints into something even better than the print edition.
But an editorial is supposed to be the voice of the newspaper itself. It is supposed to be an opinion with special significance, informed by all the reporting and editing the newspaper does over time, backed by an awesome institutional storehouse of knowledge.
In short, the whole point of an editorial is that it represents one particular viewpoint, whether you agree with it or not. If the Wall Street Journal as a collective entity repeatedly slams Congressional Republicans for pork-barrel politics and fiscal irresponsibility, as it has in recent weeks, that carries particular weight, because the WSJ backs the Republicans more often than not and because it arguably keeps closer watch on the intersection between the economy and government than anyone else.
Likewise, there is reason to care when the LA Times forms a new opinion about California government, the entertainment industry or myraid other subjects at which its expertise is authoritative. If you disagree, fine. You can write an op-ed opinion piece, or letter to the editor. You should certainly be empowered to post a comment on the LA Times website or a trackback to your own weblog post.
But why on earth would I, LA Times reader, want you monkeying with the actual text of the LA Times' editorial? Why would I want to read a version of the editorial you defaced? If I care about your opinion -- maybe you're a film director who disagreed with the LAT on an entertainment industry editorial -- I would much rather read something you wrote from scratch than your own "version" of the LAT editorial.
This seems misguided and frankly I am baffled why opinion editor Michael Kinsley, who used to helm Slate.com -- does not know better.