GLAM/Newsletter/April 2013/Contents/Special story

This Month in GLAM – Volume III, Issue IV, April 2013

Special story

Intersections between GLAM and Wikinews

GLAM and Wikinews

Cultural institutions, specifically the traditional Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums, are a group that could benefit from engaging with Wikinews and its reporters. The reporting on Wikinews is neutral, and fact based. Unlike other Wikimedia Foundation projects, it allows original content, known on projects as original reporting. Several Wikinews projects, including English and Spanish, have their stories feed out to Google News; this improves article visibility and views. Articles can get decent views, with a few interviews outperforming Wikipedia articles about the subject of the internet. In English Wikinews, an article can get comparable views to appearing on the front page of English Wikipedia as Did You Know. Wikinews article publishing often involves improvement on relevant Wikipedia articles and, for original reporting, images being uploaded to Commons for use on all WMF projects.

Before explaining more about how and why GLAMs should engage with Wikinews, two things will first be looked at to provide an idea of the current representation of GLAM related content and activity on Wikinews. The first is a look at the current volume of content about GLAM related topics on Wikinews. The second is a look at case studies done with GLAMs on Wikinews.

Wikinews GLAM coverage

GLAM related news appears on 25 different language Wikinews projects. This includes English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, German, Esperanto, Spanish, Greek, Farsi, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Chinese. A category for art related news appears on 18 of these projects. The other projects, including Catalan, Czech, French, Serbian and Turkish languages, either include this material in a general culture or another category, or do not have art related news. The most prolific project for reporting on Art is English Wikinews, with 51 articles. Italian and Russian Wikinews are second with 28 articles each. Arabic Wikinews if the fourth largest project in terms of articles in their Art category. The only other project with double digit articles is Japanese with 10.

Once beyond this broad general category of Arts, GLAM representation based on the acronym becomes less obvious and the uniqueness of each language's contributor base and each project's internal organizing policies becomes apparent. Only one project, Russian Wikinews, has a libraries category. Only one project, English Wikinews, has a galleries category. German Wikinews has 15 different categories relevant to GLAM. French Wikinews has 12. Russian Wikinews has 8. English, Polish and Italian Wikinews only have 6. Arabic Wikinews has 5 categories.

The categories can be highly specific on these projects. For example, Bulgaria's only populated GLAM related category is Irina Bokova. Catalan language Wikinews's two categories include Museums and Maritime Historic Site of Pointe-au-Père. Spanish language Wikinews's two categories include historical memory and Egyptology. Turkish Wikinews has Archaeology. Schneerson Library is found on Russian Wikinews. Serbian Wikinews has Vatican Museum.

There are seven categories that appear on ten language Wikinews projects. The graph above shows the total number of articles found on the nine different language Wikinews projects that have articles in two or more of those seven categories. French Wikinews leads the Archaeology category with 14 articles. English Wikinews leads the Art category with 51 articles. German Wikinews leads the Art exhibitions category with 23 articles. English Wikinews leads the Museums category with 84 articles. Italian Wikinews leads the Paintings category with 16 articles. German Wikinews leads the Sculptures category with 4 articles. German Wikinews also leads the World Heritage Sites category with 18 articles.

While total article counts by category numbers may look somewhat large on some projects for a comparatively small project, there is the issue of time. Wikinews, unlike Wikipedia, is news based. News is news for only a small window of time where you can write about it. After that, news ceases to be news. This begets a question of when historically have GLAM related articles been published? 5 English Wikinews categories, 1 Finnish category, 3 Polish categories, 3 Russian categories and 2 Spanish language categories easily allow for determining of publication dates in bulk. For all these, all articles in the category and their publication date were determined. Articles appearing in multiple categories were removed. The total list of articles was originally 259 and it went down to 220. Years were assigned based on publication date. Understanding that this is a sample of publication dates based on a limited dataset, in 2005 there were 15 GLAM related articles published. There were small increases in 2006 and 2007, before there was a 2 article per year drop in 2008 when only 23 GLAM related articles were published. There was an increase in 2009, before a big drop in 2010 to 18 total articles. 2011 saw a big increase from the previous year to 35. 2012 saw another increase with 41 total articles. As of 20 April 2013, there have been 17 total published GLAM related articles.

The languages/categories with easily available publication date information include English and Russian Wikinews's museum categories. This includes 104 of the 259 total articles. From 2005 to 2012, with the exception of 2010, the total yearly volume of articles published in these two categories ranged between 12 and 16. Year to date, there have only been 3 articles published. While this specific category represents 40% of all articles published, the growth levels have been historically stagnant.

The graph above shows the average total daily views for articles published in 2013 in the local project museum category. Catalan Wikinews is not included because no articles were published in that category in 2013. Russian and German Wikinews are each represented by one article, Венский музей проведёт экскурсию для нудистов and Luthers Sterbehaus wieder zugänglich respectively. English Wikinews is represented by two stories, Science museum hosts first-ever 'Maker Faire' for city of Tyler, Texas and Andrew Sayers resigns National Museum of Australia directorship. French Wikinews is represented by 8 articles, including France : La Liberté guidant le peuple vandalisée, Québec : entente entre le MNBAQ et l'église Saint-Dominique sur une possible conversion muséale, Québec : exposition sur le Pérou précolombien et colonial au Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Québec : le nouveau Planétarium de Montréal ouvrira ses portes le 6 avril 2013, Québec : le SHMP reçoit une subvention pour réaliser deux spectacles sur l'Empress of Ireland, Québec : ouverture du nouveau Planétarium de Montréal ce week-end, Québec : une exposition sur les Beatles au musée de Pointe-à-Callière de Montréal, and Québec : une exposition sur les plasticiens au Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. The dates in the graph above are from 20 March 2013 to 19 April 2013. Both of English Wikinews's articles were published in this period, and 3 of the French articles were published in this period. On average, English Wikinews articles got around 42 more daily views than their counterparts on French, German and Russian Wikinews. As the max average daily views for any single day is 244, this is a large volume of additional daily views that the English project gets. Russian Wikinews only averages 4.3 views a day for their 2013 museum category article. French Wikinews is worse at 2.95. German Wikinews is the worst performer on average at 2.73 daily views.

A similar traffic picture exists for articles in the Arts category. Finnish, German, Swedish and Italian Wikinews had nothing published in this category so far in 2013. English and Farsi Wikinews each had one article published, Andrew Sayers resigns National Museum of Australia directorship and آرجو_يحصد_جائزة_أفضل_فيلم_في_الحفل_السادس_والستين_لتوزيع_جوائز_الأكاديمية_البريطانية_لفنون_الفيلم_والتلفزيون respectively. There were three articles published on Arabic Wikinews between 1 January 2013 and 20 April 2013: مجلة_«شارلي_إبدو»_الفرنسية_تنشر_سيرة_مصورة_للنبي_محمد, فوز_فيلم_آرغو_بجائزة_أفضل_فيلم_في_حفل_الأوسكار_لعام_2013 and آرجو_يحصد_جائزة_أفضل_فيلم_في_الحفل_السادس_والستين_لتوزيع_جوائز_الأكاديمية_البريطانية_لفنون_الفيلم_والتلفزيون. There were ten Russian Wikinews articles published in this period. Like the museums category, English Wikinews had the greatest daily average visits, bearing in mind the sole article was published on 26 March, several days after the start of the reporting period, with 41 views a day. This compares to 2.4 views a day on Arabic Wikinews, 12.0 views a day on Farsi Wikinews, and 1.9 views a day in the Arts category for Russian Wikinews.

Both Russian and English Wikinews did average higher per day views for articles in the Museum category than the Arts category. This suggests that people are more interested in getting museum news on these projects than they are in getting general Arts news.

Wikinews GLAM projects

On English Wikinews, most of the GLAM work completed to date has involved cultural institutions affiliated with sports, including the National Sports Information Center, one of Australia's premiere sports related Libraries that is affiliated with the Australian Institute of Sport. Other work has been done with the Australian Paralympic Committee who have an extensive Archive of historical information on disability sport and disability culture in Australia. Other work has been done with the Spanish Paralympic Committee.

Rollers and Gliders World Challenge

In July, the Australian Paralympic Committee asked if anyone was available to cover the Gliders & Rollers World Challenge in Sydney. The competition was the last domestic tournament for both Australian teams before they headed off to London. The APC wanted license acceptable pictures of the players for Commons.

Two Wikinews reporters volunteered, if funding assistance could be found as the event was several days long and required transport to get there and a hotel. The APC and the University of Queensland covered the costs as there was no time to request funding from Wikimedia Australia. Both reporters had previously covered several sporting events for Wikinews and had taken pictures at these events.

While the funding was secured, we had to set up the press passes on our own by calling Basketball Australia to set it up. Going into the event, the goal was to test some mobile reporting tools we planned to use in London. We had developed a tool for dropbox that allowed mobile uploading to Wikinews for notes. At the same time, the goal was also to see how Wikinews’s reviewers would cope with multiple articles being submitted for review in a short period of time. We were going to publish as many articles as we could. There were no plans to update Wikipedia articles at the time we did this.

Once there, a decision was made to cover games beyond the ones played by Australia in order to provide broader coverage, make our coverage less Australian centric, hopefully encourage contributors from outside Australia to cover their own Paralympians by providing news stories and pictures. Interviews were set up, with a focus on the new Australian players on the women’s team and two of the guys on the Great Britain team. This was set up through team management and the coaches as the Basketball Australia media guy was not present for this event.

Wikinews articles published for this event included:

Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team beat Japan 80-49 in final game of pool play – 425 views on peak day
Australia Rollers victorious against Great Britain men's national wheelchair basketball team – 280 views on peak day
Australian Gliders beat Germany women's national wheelchair basketball team on day two of Rollers & Gliders World Challenge – 223 views on peak day
Australian Gliders glide past China women's national wheelchair basketball team – 369 views on peak day
Australian Gliders squeak out first place victory over Germany women's national wheelchair team – 374 views on peak day
Australian Rollers roll over Great Britain men's wheelchair basketball team – 387 views on peak day
China women's national wheelchair basketball team tops Japan for third place at Rollers & Gliders World Challenge – 270 views on peak day
Wikinews interviews Australian Gliders Leanne Del Toso, Sarah Vinci, Amber Merritt, Clare Nott – 379 views on peak day
Wikinews interviews Great Britain men's national wheelchair basketball player Ade Oregembe – 266 views on peak day
Wikinews interviews Great Britain men's national wheelchair basketball player Joni Pollock – 215 views on peak day

2012 Summer Paralympics in London

The Australian Paralympic Committee provided two press passes for a pair of English Wikinews contributors. 3 IRC workshops were held in advance of the Games to teach people how to contribute to Wikinews and how to support Paralympic reporting.

20 English Wikinews articles were published about the 2012 Summer Paralympics in advance of the Games to teach others how to write for the project and to test how to use it in advance of on the ground reporting. English Wikinews broke one story before traditional Australian media: the Evan O'Hanlon and elite Paralympian sponsorship story.

While in London at the Games, a large amount of Wikinews reporting was done with 70 totals articles being publish. While in London, the pair published interviews on Wikinews with Amber Merritt in the Mix Zone, Tyan Taylor in the Mix Zone, Greg Smith in the Mix Zone, Claire Harvey in the Mix Zone, Michael Hartung, Paul Bird, Duncan Campbell, Trischa Zorn, Samoa Paralympic representatives, Vanuatu Paralympic representatives, Fiji Paralympic representatives, Tonga Paralympic representatives and Solomon Islands Paralympic representatives.

Following the Games, the reporters brought back a number of print materials for archiving at the National Sport Information Center.

IPC Nor-Am Cup

Interview with Australian skier Victoria Pendergast

Following the London 2012 Paralympics, steps were taken to get in touch with the APC regarding the possibility of gaining media accreditation for the Sochi Paralympics. The Wikinews reporters were basically told that they needed to demonstrate competency in covering winter sport to gain accreditation from the APC. They were told by Steve Graham, the APC alpine coach, that the whole team would be at the IPC Nor-Am Cup in Colorado in December 2012.

The reporters indicated they would attend the event as this was a goal myself, another Wikinews reporter and a Commons photographer wanted to work towards. We contacted the APC, the Canadian Paralympic Committee and Paralympics New Zealand to ask about setting up interviews and for more information on reporting from the event. A list of goals was created on English Wikinews at Wikinews:IPC Nor-Am Cup that the reporters wanted to accomplish while covering the IPC Nor-Am Cup. Articles published included:

IPC Alpine World Championships

In late February 2013, with assistance from the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE), an English and Spanish Wikinews reporter attended the IPC Alpine Ski World Championships. The CPE provided a list in advance of Spanish skiers competing and facilitated getting media accreditation. They also provided some print source materials for reference use. Wikinews related accomplishments as a result of this GLAM assistance include:

Two interviews conducted for English Wikinews, including one with a high profile Spanish personality who participates in the sport.
IPC Alpine engaging reporters on Twitter.
Over 13,000 views of Wikinews articles covering the event.
Experience gained on English and Spainish Wikinews for doing bilingual interviews by a member of the Spanish speaking community.
Produced more Wikinews and Wikipedia content, and shared more pictures than traditional media, which excludes Olympic specific news sites and NPCs.
Wikinews coverage of some skiers was the only media coverage they received during and for their participation in the competition. Examples include Ralph Green and Christopher Devlin-Young of the United States, Mitchell Gourley of Australia, Corey Peters of New Zealand, and Laura Valeanu of Romania.
20 English Wikinews articles published about the 2013 IPC Alpine World Championships.
3 Spanish Wikinews articles published.
1 article translated into Russian for Russian Wikinews.
101 para-alpine skiers photographed with their pictures uploaded to Commons. Average skier has 5.8 pictures of them.

Based on daily articles published with data current for 28-Feb, interest in a news article peaks on the first day an article is published. Unlike most new sources though, English Wikinews maintains article traffic at a higher level than more traditional media. Daily average views for the IPC Alpine World Championships on English Wikinews was comparable to daily views on English Wikinews during the London Paralympics and IPC Nor-Am Cup for similar coverage. 16 articles were published on English Wikinews and 3 were published on Spanish Wikinews in this period. Spanish Wikinews articles were published on 20-Feb, 22-Feb and 27-Feb. English Wikinews stories were published on 16 (1), 20 (3), 21 (2), 22 (1), 24 (3), 25 (3), 26 (3), 28 (1) of February and 1 (3) March. There were 13,756 views for event coverage on Wikinews between between 16 and 28 Feb.

How GLAMs can work with Wikinews

If you are a connected to a GLAM or a Wikimedian generally looking to support GLAM work, there are a couple of ways Wikinews and a GLAM can work together.

Training

Training sessions are a great way to share news related to a GLAM. Basic article writing and the review process can be discussed, with contributors writing an article for submission by the time training is complete.

Contact a Wikinews project and ask if there are any local Wikinews contributors who could organize an in person Wikinews workshop.
Contact a Wikinews project and ask if anyone is available to organize a virtual Wikinews workshop.
When doing other GLAM related project work on Wikimedia projects, consider including a Wikinews component.

Wikinews reporter event access

If you are connected to a GLAM and there is a media event, consider dropping a message on a relevant language Wikinews Village Pump/Water Cooler and invite local Wikinews reporters to show up. Some Wikinews projects, including English and Spanish, feed out to Google News, which makes finding any content produced by reporters at the event more likely to be found by people searching for news about that event. Wikinews reporters often take pictures as part of original reporting and upload pictures to Wikimedia Commons for use on other Wikimedia projects. A number of Wikinews reporters will also update relevant Wikipedia articles related to their Wikinews reporting.

Drop a message on a relevant language Wikinews Village Pump/Water Cooler and invite local reporters to an event that you would like news coverage for.
When doing other GLAM related project work on Wikimedia projects, consider including a Wikinews component or invite a Wikinews reporter to cover that other GLAM related work.

Article writing

If there is news in your GLAM's area of interest, consider writing an article about it. Often people connected to GLAMs have access to potential interview subjects related to news stories. There is also the possibility that people may have access to events that are newsworthy and worth writing about that the general public does not. The key to remember with article writing is all writing guidelines should be followed, potential Conflicts of Interest should be discussed on the article talk page or your user page, and submitted articles are not and should not be treated like press releases.

Write and submit interviews for review.
Write and submit photo essays for review.
Write and submit original reporting.
Write and submit synthesis articles.

Subject experts

GLAMs often have subject specialists. Consider making a list of them related to their area of expertise that a local project can use for any reporting they may want to do on a subject. This benefits Wikinews because it enhances our ability to do original reporting. It makes the GLAM look good by having a person affiliated with the GLAM quoted by the media.

Develop a list of experts Wikinews reporters can contact for stories they may write in certain areas.
If there is news, request a Wikinews reporter interview a specific person in affiliated with the GLAM.

Next "Special story" →

← Previous "Special story"