Wikitribune is Jimmy Wales’ attempt to wage war on fake news

Enlarge / Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales. (credit: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Getty Images)

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales wants to bring together unpaid volunteers and journalists to create a rival news publication-dubbed Wikitribune-that he hopes will battle "fake news" more effectively than long-established newspapers.

Volunteers are encouraged to contribute funds to the project via a crowdfunding campaign. They will then shape the topics that Wikitribune will cover as well as offer up fact checking duties-again, the work of a typical newsroom.

"If we have a community guiding the work and we have people who are paying to be monthly supporters we can do the numbers and say, well for this many monthly supporters we can hire another journalist," Wales told Wired. "Which means if a group wants us to hire a journalist on a particular topic, whatever that might be, then we can do that."

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