As the news profession increasingly (and justifiably) frets about its future, the blogosphere/Tweetdom/listserve conversation typically boils down to this question: How will we save newspapers? (Often, more specifically, it’s How will we save The New York Times?) That’s a myopic and typically self-serving question, but it implies a bigger one: How will we sustain quality news and knowledge that serves the interests of society? How will people be connected to information that enables them to pursue fuller, more engaged citizenship?
There are no shortage of answers on the table. In fact, we’re witnessing an explosion of experimentation in the knowledge realm around the world, catalyzed both by the rapid implosion of traditional models (those poor newspapers, e.g.) and by technologies that make the reins of content creation and distribution accessible to pretty much anyone with a cell phone or an Internet connection. Witness (to name just a few) Ushahidi, which combines citizen cell-phone reporting with mapping to create real-time visualizations of crisis activity; Grupo Chaski, a Peruvian network of “microcinemas” that equips poor villagers to produce documentary films; and La Silla Vacia, a Colombian start-up that combines professional investigative journalism with A-list political blogging and Facebook-like community tools.
All of that is thrilling to see, of course. Ashoka’s News & Knowledge program, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, is focused squarely on supporting that sort of explosive innovation, and each week in this blog we’ll share stories and ideas the reflect the surge of new information strategies and models.
At the same time, though, we’re wrestling with an even bigger question. That is, how do we construct a new ecosystem for news and knowledge that has effective incentives to stimulate continuous entrepreneurial innovation — but also has mechanisms to safeguard the qualities and values (like accuracy, fairness, credibility, and privacy) that democratic societies historically have enjoyed with traditional media institutions? What will that system look like?
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, neatly articulated this quest when he spoke at an Ashoka event recently in New York City. (You can watch the video here; sorry for the poor quality.) Responding to the question, “Is some information better than other information,” Wales said:
“When you think about creating platforms for people to create content, it’s important not to accept as fact the criticism that it’s going to be of very low quality. Instead, it’s possible to create social structures to encourage people of intelligence and quality to come forward with their information – and to encourage people who are just being a pain in the ass to just knock it off already. We have some pieces of that puzzle [at Wikipedia] already. The question is, how do we refine that, how do we bring about collaborative blog-like environments that are both accessible but also have quality control mechanisms that are scalable.”
Wikipedia, of course, already has a pretty compelling information ecosystem in place. It is a hybrid of democracy and aristocracy: There are 10 million registered Wikipedia users, but just 75,000 actually contribute to the collaborative editing. Of those, 1,690 “administrators” are granted tools allowing them to delete pages that violate standards or block IP addresses. An even smaller volunteer group, 33 “bureaucrats,” are charged with approving requests to become administrators and other functions. Yet another small group, 34 “stewards,” are “users with complete access to the wiki interface on all Wikimedia wikis.”
Part of the brilliance of Wikipedia is that this information ecosystem emerged more or less organically — shaped in part by Wales’ philosophy and theory of management and mostly by the dynamic community itself. As we look at the result — and as Wales points out, it’s changing all the time — we wonder which principles lend themselves to broader application. What is the appropriate tension between democracy and hierarchy, and between professionalism and amateurism (expert or otherwise)? What sorts of regulatory mechanisms are needed to ensure sustained quality? And not least, how do you do that while ensuring financial sustainability?
So many questions. Answering them isn’t just a matter of academic interest. Ensuring flows of quality information is foundational not just to effective citizenship, but to addressing most other social challenges. Social entrepreneurs working in sustainable agriculture, water supply, health care, human rights, community development and most other areas typically depend on people understanding the problems, the opportunities, and how they can engage in solutions. Information is how change happens, and happens faster.
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