Wikipedia:News On Wiki/Phase Two final report

News On Wiki

Phase Two (2020–21)

Final Report

In this six month campaign, we recruited a number of organizations and individuals to pitch in on writing and improving Wikipedia articles about newspapers in three categories:


 * Black-owned newspapers in the USA
 * Newspapers of the state of Washington
 * Newspapers of and about the Caribbean Community

The work accomplished by our volunteers is already improving the public's understanding of the news media, both through Wikipedia and through websites that republish Wikipedia's contents, such as Google, Facebook, and Bing. In addition, we have established a clear understanding of how to run this campaign successfully, and how to generally improve the availability of information about news media.

As in Phase One, we found great benefit from working closely with university instructors and from participating in events that already have an established following. We also worked with a number of individual participants, benefiting from their knowledge of specific subjects and helping them tie their efforts to the overall campaign. Together, we were able to generate a substantial quantity of wiki content, and to build awareness of the importance of ensuring that news outlets are covered well on Wikipedia. As we complete Phase Two, we look forward to a possible Phase Three, built on the growing infrastructure we have built and informed by the lessons of earlier phases.

Context: Public Trust in Media
According to a 2020 Gallup Poll, about a third of adults in the United States claim to have “not very much” trust to “none at all” when it comes to mass media (27% and 33%, respectively). A 2019 Pew Research study found that 82% of adults in the U.S. go online for at least some of their news.

As readers headed online, print newspaper circulation dropped by 5 million since 2018, with 300 newspapers shutting down, according to a 2020 report by the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. This before the COVID19 crisis exacerbated the decline.

For news readers seeking trusted sources, reputation and credibility are key. For smaller or local newspapers in this environment, they are critical for survival.

In our mission to curtail misinformation and build reader trust in credible news sources, the News On Wiki campaign aims to take advantage of news-seeker online habits by generating content about North American newspapers on the sixth most visited website on the internet, Wikipedia. By improving Wikipedia we indirectly improve content on more influential platforms like Google, Bing, and Facebook, which republish Wikipedia content.

COVID19, a contentious U.S. election season, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other factors prompted a great deal of interest in news media, coinciding with our campaign. Though it was bittersweet, widespread coverage of newspapers shutting down or experiencing economic hardships generated valuable source materials, in the form of reliable information about specific community newspapers.

The Black Lives Matter movement put a strong focus on the importance of a community's ability to tell its own story, which also resonated strongly with our campaign. Our community saw the same values in covering local newspapers in the Caribbean and in Washington, to ensure that the voices of marginalized communities can be part of the online conversation.

Washington state
In this area we were able to draw upon resources and momentum previously developed during Phase One of News On Wiki, in which we had built the infrastructure to address newspapers on a state-by-state basis. We already had a well developed project coordination page for Washington, and several draft articles to work with. Project participants were highly productive in this area, and in addition to generating a number of new Wikipedia articles, we substantially improved the collaboration page, with a prioritized bibliography guiding Wikipedia editors to the best source materials for journalism in the state.


 * See: WikiProject Newspapers/States/Washington

Black-owned newspapers
Our work on Black-owned newspapers resonated strongly with the racial justice reckoning occurring across the United States after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. We found strong interest in this topic area, reflected in everything from strong social media engagement to the enthusiasm of various organizations and speakers to contribute to our events. We found that reference materials about U.S. newspapers often neglect Black-owned papers, leading to challenges in generating articles; but we gained familiarity with the source materials that do exist, and were able to document many on our collaboration page, in addition to generating articles about important newspapers.

In February, the Internet Archive made 120 years of archives of Editor & Publisher freely available on the web; this publication has often published articles about the Black press, so this resource alone opened up many possibilities.


 * See: WikiProject Newspapers/Black owned newspapers

Newspapers of the Caribbean
At the outset of our campaign, Caribbean newspapers were far less covered on Wikipedia than our other topic areas. Campaign participants created several new articles and improved several others; but our primary output was more in the beginning stages. Our greatest success in this area was in laying the groundwork, both in terms of online resources and community-building, for future efforts. A highlight  was when a participant wrote an article on the Port of Spain Gazette, which was featured on Wikipedia's front page in the "Did You Know" section, and as of this writing is under review for the Good Article status.

We also engaged heavily with people from the Wikimedians of the Caribbean group, building a community of practice among Wikipedia editors that will facilitate continued development in this important topic area. Retention from this group was positive, with several individuals attending three or more of our events, and demonstrating strong engagement in each.

We generated a list of about 170 newspapers covering most of the 32 Caribbean islands, expressing the work that needs to be done in a way that will inform Wikipedia editors going forward.

We identified several valuable reference materials to inform the articles. Specifically, we made contact with the publishers of the Digital Library of the Caribbean, enabling possible future collaboration.


 * See: WikiProject Newspapers/Newspapers connected to the Caribbean

Wikidata, lists, and maps
In Phase One, we generated several thousand Wikidata items about newspapers. In addition to serving the public with structured data about newspapers, this work has significant benefits to the coordination of a campaign like ours. It enabled us to generate maps of newspapers, indicating which do and which don't have Wikipedia articles; and to generate and/or vet our lists of newspapers whose articles need to be created or improved.

In the lead-up to Phase Two, leaders of other Wikipedia campaigns strongly validated our emphasis on creating and maintaining lists. Panelists in our Open Publishing Fest webinar emphasized that when running a Wikipedia content campaign, good lists at the outset are of vital importance. We put a strong emphasis on lists at the outset, beginning with a webinar featuring two librarians experienced with Wikipedia. We had a good list for Washington state to begin with, and generated a good list for Black-owned papers early on. In the case of the Caribbean, which we focused on in the later part of the campaign, we have a journey ahead to unlock higher content volume. We were able to complete this phase having generated strong lists that will help to lay the foundation for more.

In Phase Two, we created or improved more than 190 Wikidata newspaper items, as well as items for editors, newspaper chains, books about newspapers (e.g., New Editions, covering newspapers of the Pacific Northwest), and other related topics. (These items extended well beyond our three focus areas.)

We encountered several challenges which could inform a future phase of News On Wiki:


 * Independent of our campaign, a Wikidata user imported tens of thousands of newspaper items into Wikidata shortly before our launch. This increased the number of Wikidata items on newspapers from about 7,000 to about 25,000. Many of these were worthy additions - primarily, historical newspapers from the midwest and plains states. But many of them were duplicates of existing Wikidata items, or even of one another. The quantity of data makes it impossible to run some of the queries we had developed to generate maps and lists. We engaged in discussion on wikidata about how to best proceed, but we have not come to any substantial resolution.
 * Generating a map of Black-owned newspapers is difficult because almost no newspapers were marked as "African-American newspapers" prior to our campaign. We marked many of them, but the campaign would benefit from a more focused and thorough effort to do so.
 * Similarly, there is no established best practice for marking a newspaper as "Caribbean" on Wikidata. We are therefore unable to generate a precise map of all newspapers in the Caribbean in this phase.

Synergy with university instructors
We worked with professors at New York University and Arizona State University to bring students (typically novice Wikipedia editors) into our campaign. Prof. Kristy Roschke of the ASU School of Journalism assigned her digital media literacy students to research, draft, and complete articles from our newspaper lists as part of their Wikipedia assignment. Sixteen students wrote blog posts about their experiences editing Wikipedia (see appendix). The posts reflected learning about Wikipedia's place in the information landscape and appreciation for its collaborative and editorial processes.

One student, in a post with the compelling title "Once a Wikipedian, Always a Wikipedian," described her evolving understanding of Wikipedia since high school, and noted the value of collaborating on Wikipedia with a classmate who happened to choose the same article as her.

Volunteer participation

 * Recruited 65 participants on our Wikipedia collaboration page.
 * Several core participants consistently wrote articles, reviewed drafts by students, amplified and share our message on social media, and participated in multiple webinars we hosted.
 * Events (edit-a-thons, webinars, Wikidojos, etc.) were a new focus, based on what we learned from Phase One and from other campaigns. We found that frequent opportunities to supplement online and text-based communication with live Q&A, demos, and exposition of various aspects of our work fed our community's enthusiasm and knowledge, and helped us find the right fit for both new and experienced Wikipedians.
 * Participants on the Federated Wiki call were enthusiastic about an opportunity to learn about Wikidata and Wikipedia while contributing to knowledge about newspapers.
 * WikiTree mentioned News On Wiki and our partner AfroCROWD in their WikiConference North America lightning talk reporting a positive experience in our Edit-a-thon and a desire to potentially connect for more.
 * Near the end of the campaign, we reached out to all campaign participants to schedule one-on-one or small group check-ins. We found these calls to be highly productive. In the future, we would recommend building such check-ins into the plan, and perhaps doing them more than once.

Instructional materials and social media

 * We built awareness of our campaign, recruited participants, and disseminated instructional materials through social media. We attracted 100 followers on Twitter and 266 on YouTube.
 * Our freely licensed instructional videos will remain as an asset for future News On Wiki campaigns, and for other educational efforts as well.

Next steps

 * We plan to present at academic conferences about the benefits of pairing a Wikipedia campaign like News On Wiki with class assignments. We hope to use these opportunities to recruit additional instructors, librarians, and academics, which would be beneficial to a possible Phase Three.
 * We will share information with relevant WikiProjects, such as the state-based WikiProjects, which may not be aware of the resources we have developed to track newspapers and reference materials on a state-by-state basis. This will allow the infrastructure we have developed to continue to yield positive results without our direct involvement.
 * We will present our findings to several media outlets, and seek opportunities to share the benefits of a Wikipedia campaign like ours with a broad audience.
 * We will reach out to newspaper trade organizations, as well as library and archival efforts like the Chronicling America project of the Library of Congress, to explore synergies.
 * We will seek funding for a Phase Three campaign, which with the lessons we have learned and the foundation we have built could have a substantially greater impact.
 * Our effort to document the key points in assessing the notability of a newspaper will pay off, as discussions about newspaper notability continue on Wikipedia and Wikidata.

Lessons Learned and Recommendations
Several lessons have emerged, which could inform how individuals, organizations, and interest groups can further the goals of this campaign, either in a future phase or in follow-on efforts. (Detailed version available in our full report.).

Above all, efforts like ours benefit a far greater audience than "news nerds." Coverage of source materials like newspapers can influence the coverage of almost any topic area. If a newspaper has a thorough Wikipedia article that describes and documents the trust it has earned throughout its years of publication, Wikipedia editors will be more inclined to regard it as an authoritative source. So, the quality of Wikipedia's coverage of newspapers can impact its coverage of any topic that newspaper reports on.

Newspaper publishers, editors, and trade associations should carefully consider the several ways Wikipedia impacts their field and their community. It is probably in your interest for Wikipedia to write an article about your newspaper or other local journalism topics, and for Wikipedia editors to cite your coverage with footnotes in other articles. A few changes to the content or the code of your website can help bring about these outcomes.


 * Make sure your newspaper's story is visible. Wikipedia editors might not cite your page about your own paper, but helping them understand this history will ease their research. If you don't have a page like the Malheur Enterprise's "About" or "Principles" page, with basic factual and historical information about your paper, add one to your site.
 * Ensure that Wikipedia editors can search and read your contents. If your present and past articles are behind a paywall, the Wikipedia Library program might offer an appealing platform that permits you to offer access to a small set of Wikipedia editors.
 * Make sure that Wikipedia's editing tools generate high quality footnotes from your website. Structure your website in a way that works well with Wikipedia's footnote-creation tools, and you might find that more footnotes to your paper start showing up on Wikipedia. Wikipedia uses the Zotero system to parse metadata and generate footnotes; see the Zotero website for further information.
 * Ensure that your editorial staff is well informed about Wikipedia. Do your reporters or editors have a strong understanding of when it is or isn't appropriate to consult Wikipedia (or other peer-produced publications like IMDB or Ballotpedia) in their reporting? Do they understand the production models they use, and how they differ from a traditional model? If not, consider recruiting a Wikipedia expert to speak to your staff.
 * If another local newspaper, especially one covering a marginalized community, publishes breaking news, or has a milestone anniversary, cover it. Wikipedia relies on authoritative sources like yours to establish facts that may otherwise seem obvious (e.g., "people have turned to Westside Seattle for information about West Seattle since 2013." or "Our reporters consult Portland’s The Asian Reporter for authoritative information relevant to the local Asian community." When the Seattle State Press briefly mentioned in 1896 that "The Cheney Free Press has made its appearance with a rather handsome make-up," it helped its readers to the east understand a significant development in their region; and more than a century later, Wikipedia editors were able to reference that statement to inform their own readers.

Educators and librarians should consider the value to their students of learning about Wikipedia's production model, comparing it to traditional models, and engaging with its community directly. Since at least 2006 university professors have been guiding their students in writing for Wikipedia, and reflecting carefully on what they learn. Many resources exist to support you in offering similar assignments.


 * Many students have been repeatedly told by teachers that Wikipedia should be avoided entirely. A more nuanced understanding of Wikipedia's role in the information landscape may serve them better than a general ban. Consider how you can help your students learn how Wikipedia works and how it compares to other information sources, and help them draw their own, informed conclusions about its best use.
 * A properly designed Wikipedia assignment can be a valuable form of service learning. Writing an article about a local newspaper can yield important educational outcomes around online collaboration, writing skills, critical reading, and digital and print media literacy. The Wiki Education Foundation offers resources to help you design and conduct such assignments.
 * Engage a Wikipedia expert to help you design your assignment, and/or to help you evaluate student Wikipedia submissions. This can deepen the educational experience and lighten the instructor's load. Thematic campaigns like News On Wiki, Wiki Women in Red, or Wiki Loves Monuments can be a great resources to help you connect with Wikipedia experts; consider this as you design your assignment.
 * Where possible, tie your Wikipedia assignment to your university's unique holdings. For instance, if your library's collection includes a significant newspaper, tie your assignment to it.

Editors of Wikipedia and other wiki sites should consider how engagement with WikiProjects, campaigns, or less familiar parts of the Wikimedia ecosystem might help them share their knowledge more widely, and guide aspiring new Wikipedia contributors.


 * Ensure that Wikipedia covers the newspapers relevant to topics you care about, so that it's easier to find and evaluate their articles as citations.
 * Include infoboxes, categories, and thorough Wikidata entries; these will ensure that Wikipedia's content extends beyond Wikipedia's direct readership, to search engine results and social media sites.
 * You have likely developed highly valuable research skills specific to your areas of interest. Seek out ways to share these skills with other Wikipedians or students.
 * Use WikiProject resources (such as state WikiProjects, WikiProject Journalism, etc.) to coordinate with other Wikipedians. Build and curate priority lists for newspapers that need an article, or whose article needs improvement; work on the high priority topics.
 * A Wikipedia campaign like News On Wiki can be a good opportunity to work with new contributors eager for and receptive to your guidance. You can provide useful feedback on their work and share your knowledge about accessing reference materials and information on Wikipedia policies and procedures.