Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales wants to create a crowdfunded news service that will be run by volunteers and feature content from professional journalists.

Wales said his site, Wikitribune, will be factual and neutral. “The news is broken, but we’ve figured out how to fix it,” states a demo for the site, referring to the dilemma of fake news. The site will have no advertising and will be completely free to read, relying on donations to pay for itself.

In an interview with the BBC, Wales explained, “I think we’re in a world right now where people are very concerned about making sure we have high-quality fact-based information, so I think there will be demand for this.”

Wales said the site needs more support, and with this support journalists can be hired to write serious, collaborative news stories. Initially Wikitribune will start with only a handful of journalists, but Wales said he hopes to hire more writers as time goes on.

Facebook Inc., perhaps the largest distributor of fake news, is currently involved in a multistep plan to combat alleged lies from infiltrating the site. This includes using AI to tackle the problem of fabricated events, hiring third-party fact-checkers, spam-busting to prevent fake “likes” that could be used to add weight to spurious facts, and of course employing Facebook’s own moderating methods after complaints have been made. But as hard as Facebook tries, it likely knows it has a Sisyphean task on its callused hands.

Wales hopes to fix the problem at the roots, rather than stanch the rapid flow of fake news that appears online. He explained that as news media is reliant on advertisers, it has no choice but to occasionally produce “clickbait” and pander to the readers’ need for scandal and controversy. The problem of advertising revenue and reader numbers working with quality journalism has in itself become the big real news of our times.

Wales said Wikitribune will be fact-checked by its volunteers and journalists, while readers will be able to flag issues they have with the story and also submit fixes. Much like Wikipedia, the “truth” will be open to revision.

The announcement has been met mainly with praise, but there are critics, some of whom stated that if Wikipedia couldn’t take care of its own mistakes, then why would Wikitribune be such a reliable source of news? In Wales’ words, his stories “will to the maximum extent possible be transparent about the source of news posting full transcripts, video, and audio of interviews.”

That might be enough to silence the critics, even if it doesn’t exactly mean immutable truths will be published.  “If there is any kryptonite to false information, it’s transparency,” Wales said earlier this year. Even the most paranoid conspiracy theorist would find that hard to disagree with.

The page will go live at the end of May.

Image: opposition24.de via Flickr