(2017-09-09) Wikitribune How We Built A Newspaper In72 Hours

How we built a newspaper in 72 hours

When bored Macedonian teens deliberately create fake news to make some extra cash, and foreign governments use it to change voters’ minds in the French, British and American elections, something needs to change.

Earlier this year, Impossible Labs was commissioned by Jimmy Wales, to try to come up with a platform that could help combat that problem. In 72 hours.

We effectively had three days to create the nucleus for an online newspaper that could represent an alternative to the ad-driven business models that have contributed to the rise in fake news

We must admit, as a design agency we would have liked to have planned more or took a more strategic approach. But as soon as we started looking at the challenge, we realised it was more of a human problem, not a technical one, and required us to reassess our approach.

when journalists began creating their stories, they weren’t relying or even asking the community for help. One journalist even went so far to say they were horrified at the idea of handing over control to people they didn’t know or trust

comments feature that runs down the right-hand-side.

What emerged at the end of the 72 hours was a rudimentary platform that did one thing very simply: allowed disparate groups of people – journalists, commentators and readers – to have a dialogue with each other that ultimately lead to increased understanding of not only the world around them, but of each other.

Journalism historically has been referred to as the ‘fourth estate’. It’s job was to hold governments, corporations and individuals to account and was controlled and operated by powerful and wealthy individuals. Today, that power and influence no longer resides in the hands of the wealthy, journalists or even the communities that support them. It lies in the gaps in between all of those people. Our approach to Wikitribune was all about making those links more seamless. How to make humans do more together.