User:Retired username/Breaking news

Writing about and managing articles about breaking news stories is tough. It combines all of the disciplines of article writing and management, and requires a lot of finesse to do correctly, in a situation where mistakes can quite easily be embarrassing.

Scope & approach
Breaking news stories usually involve an already notable topic. A sex scandal involves a notable politician, a school shooting takes place at a notable school, a train derailment occurs with a notable company's train, or in a notable town. Before creating an article on a breaking news event, you should find the article(s) on the notable topic the breaking news event is related to. Except with the most obviously notable events, consider starting a section in an existing relevant article. If the section reaches sufficient lenght, it can then be forked off into a separate article.

Rumors & speculation
One of the big problems with breaking news is that sources aren't quite sure yet. It's important to understand the fine points of media reporting - a story with the headline "Source: Jackson named CEO of Acme Widgets" simply means that a source told the publication that Jackson was named CEO of Acme Widgets. Thus, it's hardly definitive - the source could be Acme's spokesman, it could also be a typist who happened to call up the reporter with the scoop, and thus, not quite as reliable or official.

It is critical to attribute information in Wikipedia articles, both in inline citations (see WP:CITE), but also in plain language. If the media is just reporting that "a source" says something, the Wikipedia article should use similar language. However, if a company issued a press release to that effect, and the media is reporting it as official, Wikipedia can do the same.

Often times, there is a temptation to speculate about breaking news. If the Wikipedia article is to contain this, it must simply attribute speculation to the source that made it. For example, instead of a Wikipedia article saying "Jackson will probably do a great job at turning Acme Widgets around", it could say "Bob Smith, senior business analyst for CNN, said that Jackson will probably do a great job at turning Acme Widgets around". Attributing speculation to a reliable source, both in prose and citation, clearly explains to a reader why the speculation is meaningful. Most speculation is not of long-term notability, and it's inclusion should try to anticipate this as much as is possible.

Protection
In general, protection for breaking news articles should be used much more conservatively. Articles that deal with a breaking news story will need to be updated quickly, and may need a lot of work, more than a handful of logged in editors can realistically provide quickly. This creates a situation where we want as many editors as possible, and thus, need to allow IP editors if at all possible. Some argue we should even allow popular articles to be unprotected simply to show the basic aspect of Wikipedia that even IPs can edit.

Vandalism will, of course, sometimes get out of hand, as an article is read by hundreds of people per minute. An article should almost never be protected in anticipation of vandalism, because the name of the game is figuring out how bad vandalism is actually going to be, and acting appropriately. If vandalism does get out of hand, you should protect for a shorter period of time than on a non-breaking news-related article, perhaps just a few minutes or hours, then test to see if vandalism has calmed down.

It has been noted that, especially with events involving an announcement at a given time, there will be a short burst of vandalism as thousands of people visit the article, but it may all die down within minutes. An example of this is the ending of a major sporting event, where a 15 minute semi-protection may be unavoidable even with many people watching the article, but a longer period of protection is overkill that may slow the improvement of the article.

Preperation
Sometimes a notable event is known about months or even years in advance - an election, a sports championship, etc. Preparation for the big day never hurts. While the article should avoid containing excessive speculation, there can often be nearly-complete background sections completed by the time the news event occurs.

Discussion about how to handle the "breaking news" day(s) never hurts. If the editors and admins who plan to be around that day talk in advance and figure out how they will manage the article in advance, it can really help avoiding people tripping over eachother in the excitement of the moment when the event finally happens.