Wikinews promotes the idea of participatory journalism because of the belief that citizens know what is news like no others. The Wikinews project is a free content news source of the Wikimedia Foundation that seeks to provide content, free of charge, where everyone is invited to contribute reports about events large and small, either from direct experience, or summarized from elsewhere. Wikinews is founded on the idea to build a unique news environment to enrich the media landscape.
Wikinews' use extends beyond original reports, by providing free, neutral, integrated summaries of the news from elsewhere. This is already useful even when the subject range covered is full of gaps — because we already benefit from the collaborative wiki model in these subject areas. And Wikinews is becoming more useful every day.
While Wikinews aims to one day be a useful resource of its own, it will also provide an alternative to proprietary news agencies like the Associated Press or Reuters; that is, it will allow independent media outfits to get a high quality feed of news free of charge to complement their own reporting. Thanks to free content licensing, anyone can create their own free news source — even a non-neutral one — on the basis of this work.
There are many challenges. Wikinews adopted the key principles that made Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia websites what they are today: neutral, free content and open decision-making processes.
Wales has extended the prohibition on smoking at hospitals, schools, and playgrounds, with violators to face a £100 fine. Wales is the first of the UK nations to introduce this ban.This is in addition to various restrictions on the practice, including a ban on...
