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Online Journalism News

Wired.com wins $10,000 Knight-Batten award for Wikipedia coverage

Posted: 10/09/08 By: Laura Oliver
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Wired.com has won the $10,000 Knight-Batten innovation award for its interactive feature on Wikipedia, a release from the Knight Foundation said.

The site asked readers to use WikiScanner, a tool developed by California Institute of Technology student Virgil Griffith, to track edits made by certain companies to Wikipedia pages. These edits were then submitted to a polling widget, where users could vote for the worst offenders.

Award judges said the scheme provided 'an air of accountability to those who edit Wikipedia to fit their own agendas'.

"Of course, you readers should have gotten the award for finding, submitting and rating the spin jobs - a really fine bit of citizen journalism that we are proud to have a small part in sparking," wrote Wired.com's Ryan Singel, in an article accepting the award.

"But being privacy-respecting folks, we don't know who you are and will just have to accept the award on your behalf."

Last month Journalism.co.uk spoke to WikiScanner developer Virgil Griffith about the tool.

PolitiFact.com, a site analysing truth and fiction in the 2008 US presidential campaigns, and Ushahidi.com, which was set up to help Kenyan bloggers and citizen journalists share information about political violence, both received $2,000 special distinction awards.