[Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

Fri Nov 11 17:25:04 UTC 2005

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

> Second, if there is any wrongdoing made by someone with an accredited 
> pass, the Foundation will now be liable for it. I mean its liability 
> will come first, even before the liability of the author of the 
> article. This is a famous mechanism meant to protect journalists : 
> instead of pursuing them, it is mandatory to sue their editors first. 
> And if we accreditate people, we will be assimilated to editors, 
> becoming liable at first.
>
> And this leads to my third and more important point. Accreditating 
> people will transform the Foundation from being a publisher to 
> becoming an editor... which means that we will now be liable for any 
> content written on the website by anyone else.
>
> Are you sure that the Foundation is ready to become liable for 
> anything written on Wikinews ?
>
> If yes, I think this would be a major change of the Foundation policy.
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal Officer
>
I am familiar with newspapers that have a very clear distinction between 
the publishers and the editorial board.  There are several right where I 
live right now.  In fact, in Salt Lake City there are two major 
newspapers who have the same distribution agent (read publisher) but 
very different editorial policies and very seperate editorial boards. 
 To make an even further distinction, the "owners" of the newspapers 
also try to keep a hands-off approach to editorial decisions, and there 
is a clear legal seperation between the two entities even for liability 
purposes.

How is Wikinews different than this situation?  The problem with 
Wikinews in this sense is that there are no "leaders" or 
editors-in-chief who can take the legal arrows, so to say.  In this case 
I think it would be more the administrators who are maintaining and 
verifying the credentials of Wikinews reporters who would have the legal 
liability.

Not necessarily something pleasant to think about for that matter, and 
dangerous in a volunteer organization.  Certainly something to 
discourage you from becoming an admin on Wikinews.  Having the Wikimedia 
Foundation take the heat instead would help insulate the admins and 
others on Wikinews but opens up other issues as you have suggested.  The 
real question then is who has the certifying authority and who has the 
liability for the problems?  The two go together.

There is a need for accredited reporters, as there are some news media 
events that can clearly be covered only by accredited press members.  In 
the USA in particular, the government has no role in the accreditation 
process and instead it is from the authority of the news agency they are 
working for.  This is the real meat of this issue, and to decide on how 
the accreditation will happen.

BTW, I was turned down from one media event already where I tried to 
cover the event as a Wikinews reporter but lacked credentials.  There 
will be other opportunities in the future, but this is a real situation.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning