Orit Kopel, the speed of social media broke the news
She applied the logics behind Wikipedia to journalism. Orit Kopel is the co-founder of WikiTribune and the CEO of the Jimmy Wales Foundation for Freedom of Expression. She launched WikiTribune in 2017: an ambitious, collective and independent media trying to fight fake news and defend solid journalism.
The news is really broken. How did it happen ?
Orit Kopel: The news industry has always been relying on ad revenue in order to sustain. This business model has always created problems with maintaining high standards of neutrality. With the development of new technologies, the information revolution and the domination of social media, the competition became fiercer and the financial pressure increased.
The ad revenue only business model and the intensifying competition with the speed of social media practically broke the news. It caused a series of problems, mainly the increasing use of “click-bait” headlines followed by poor content. WikiTribune is attempting to change that by using a hybrid model of hired professional journalists and a wiki-based community of volunteers. Our business model is of a voluntary subscription, where our readers directly fund our project in order to support high quality and neutral journalism.
With the development of new technologies, the information revolution and the domination of social media, the competition became fiercer and the financial pressure increased.
Is there a precise moment when you realized that the situation was dangerous and you needed to go something?
Orit Kopel: Following the Brexit referendum vote, the Vote Leave campaign admitted to have been lying regarding the £350 million that would be available to be invested in the NHS. Beyond the disappointment from the use of dirty political tactics, I felt that the news media failed to do its job by not challenging this claim. The media has such a cardinal role in maintaining a functional democracy.
It must communicate validated information to the public, for them to be able to conduct educated decisions based on verified facts, rather than false propaganda. It’s not necessarily the vote results that stirred me up, it was the spread of unchallenged lies which made me realize that something is fundamentally flawed and must be changed.
What is the price of “free news”? Are them really free?
Orit Kopel: Access to news should not be restricted only for those who can afford it. I see it as a civil right to have full access to reliable neutral news. We all should be free to form our own opinions based on facts. This creates a great challenge of finding a sustainable business model which would allow the production of high quality journalism without being subjected to commercial pressure by relying fully on ad revenue models.
Wiki + journalism = WikiTribune
WikiTribune launched with no ads and no paywall, fully relying on a voluntary subscription model. We aim to reduce the cost of producing content by integrating the community in the process of creating and improving the news articles.
Orit Kopel: WikiTribune was launched by you and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. How does it work?
Orit Kopel: The Jimmy Wales Foundation is a UK-based NGO for freedom of expression. It aims to campaign for bloggers and social media users who are persecuted for speaking out online. It is unrelated to WikiTribune.
WikiTribune was founded by Jimmy Wales and me separately from Wikipedia, but is definitely based on many of the Wiki principles. WikiTribune is practically a wiki platform which means that all its articles are open for edits and improvements by our online community, with a talk page on each article to flag problems and discuss improvements for its content.
Orit Kopel: Journalists write stories on WikiTribune using a shared document between different contributors and readers. Is it your solution to ensure transparency and fact-checking?
Orit Kopel: Journalists and community members are equally welcome to initiate and develop news stories on our wiki-based platform. We also aim to maximize transparency by publishing transcripts and full recordings of interviews, relevant documents and so on. That way our community members will be able to flag and discuss any biases and inaccuracies that might occur in order to make our news stories as neutral and high quality as possible.
How is it possible to fight fake news online ? Quality journalism is really enough?
Orit Kopel: There will always be attempts to spread false information online. The way to battle it is to provide better trusted sources for people to verify or debunk the validity of spread information. We should also separate the term “fake news” from bad journalism. The bigger threat is not so much fake news which is pretty easy to identify and debunk, but mostly biased coverage and poor journalism.
Would you say that journalism is in danger today ? And why would it be dangerous for democracy?
Orit Kopel: The news is broken, but journalism is not in danger. There are many wonderful journalists out there and great new models like WikiTribune to maintain high standards. As I mentioned above, the media has a cardinal role in maintaining a functional democracy. It’s been having problems, but I’m optimistic! There is an increasing awareness to the need for change in current models and WikiTribune is doing its own part in making things better.
We must all reclaim our rights over our privacy and restrict companies’ access to obtain and use it.
Our society is obsessed about innovation and technology. What is the price to pay for this new “tech religion”?
Orit Kopel: Innovation and technological developments are always welcome. We must move forward with technology and learn to reduce its risks. The most common price that we’ve been paying for recent developments is our privacy. We must all reclaim our rights over our privacy and restrict companies’ access to obtain and use it. It might be a price too high to pay and unfortunately irreversible.
Wikipedia is our daily reference to find quick answers on our smartphones. What should be the “next step” for Wikipedia?
Orit Kopel: I see WikiTribune as a natural expansion of the wiki model. The next step is applying the wiki model on more areas to increase our online collaboration for the greater good.
