The co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, is launching a new online publication that aims to combat fake news. The project is called Wikitribune, and will bring together professional journalists and a community of interested readers to produce and publish news stories. The site will be financed by a crowdfunding campaign that launches today, and will focus on a range of issues — from politics to science and technology.
The site’s core mantra will be a dedication to facts, says Wales. Readers will be able to easily see the sources for each published story, and journalists will share materials like the transcripts and audio of interviews. “We want to bring some of that fact-based, fact-checking mentality that we know from Wikipedia to news,” Wales told Wired. “Humans haven’t fundamentally changed from the way we were 100 years ago or 500 years ago. People have a thirst for quality information.”
