Wikipedia:WikiProject Women Do News
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Welcome to WikiProject Women Do News (WDN)! We raise the visibility of women, women-identified and non-binary journalists by increasing the quantity and enhancing the quality of their Wikipedia biographies. We do this in several ways:
- Write new Wikipedia biographies of journalists
- Edit existing Wikipedia biographies to improve their quality
- Identify women journalists who should be on Wikipedia
- Facilitate meetups for edit-a-thons and workshops to research women in journalism, edit their Wikipedia biographies and teach others how to become Wikipedia editors
Check out the articles we've created or improved. We also maintain a nominations list for women journalists without biography articles, or whose existing biography needs improvement.
Women Do News monthly flash edits are a great place to start volunteering for this organization. WDN meets monthly on Zoom to work on articles, update each other on how our Wiki writing has been going, and generally check-in. Flash edits are a very low-key place to connect with other Wiki volunteers and troubleshoot the writing and editing process. Feel free to bring a beverage or a snack and come hang out.
Goal
[edit]Women journalists are underrepresented on Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is one of the most-read websites in the world, increasing the visibility of women journalists here can contribute to improving safety, credibility, recognition and income for women journalists worldwide. That’s where we come in as volunteers, educators and organizers.
Just a few of the women journalists who now have Wikipedia biographies: Lori Matsukawa, who covered high-profile trials for 50 years; Betsy Wade, the first woman news copy editor at The New York Times, as well as the first woman to be chief editor on the foreign desk; Pulitzer Prize-winner Lisa Song; Emmy and Murrow Award winner Tonya Mosley; Emily Ramshaw, founder and CEO of The 19th; and Avis Red Bear, founder of the Teton Times. Unlike male journalists with similar credentials, these and dozens of other accomplished women journalists did not have Wikipedia articles when our project began!
Editors of any gender are welcome in Women Do News. While to date we have been contributing solely to English Wikipedia, we would love to build the capacity for writing, editing and improving articles in other languages.
History
[edit]The Women Do News project grew from a 2019 cohort of journalists participating in Take The Lead, a leadership training program co-founded by Gloria Feldt. It has since evolved to partner with other allies at universities, journalism groups and in the Wikimedia movement to identify women journalists for biographies, train editors and add articles to Wikipedia.
Mission-aligned projects like Women in Red (WIR) and many fellow Wikipedians have supported our work since its beginning.
Funding
[edit]Women Do News is fiscally sponsored by the Bay City News Foundation. We have received funding, grants or donations from NewsMatch, the Wikimedia Foundation, and individual donors, and through a knowledge partnership with McKinsey Global Publishing.
Take the Lead supported our first edit-a-thon, held in NYC in November 2019.
Team
[edit]We comprise a volunteer board, a project manager, WDN event attendees, and other volunteer writers and editors.
List of members
[edit]Not every member of this project has a Wikipedia account, but those who do can add their usernames below. Don't forget to signup for our newsletter!
In the media
[edit]- It's All Journalism podcast: Make sure Wikipedia shows that Women Do News
- Wikimedia Foundation: Women Do News: Tackling the Gender Divide in Journalism Through Wikipedia
- ONA Student Newsroom: Women Do News is closing the gender gap on Wikipedia
- Journalism.co.uk: Why we need more biographies of women journalists on Wikipedia
- The Cohort/Poynter Institute: Most women journalists in history haven’t been ‘notable’ enough for Wikipedia. We’re changing that.
- Women Take the Lead with Gloria Feldt podcast: Podcast Episode 021: How to Right a Wrong: Women Do News on Wikipedia
Events
[edit]Main page: WomenDoNews.org/Events
- Women Do News monthly flash edits are a great place to start volunteering for this organization. WDN meets monthly on Zoom to work on articles, update each other on how our Wiki writing has been going, and generally check-in. Flash edits are a very low-key place to connect with other Wiki volunteers and troubleshoot the writing and editing process. Feel free to bring a beverage or a snack and come hang out.
- Wikidata Day in New York City, an event convened by Wikimedia NYC on Saturday, October 26, 2024, marks the 12th Birthday of Wikidata with a celebration and mini-conference. The event will be hosted by and held at Pratt Institute School of Information in collaboration with Girls Who Code.
- Media Party 2024 A Hands-on Conference and hackathon on the Future of Journalism, AI, and Their Impact on Democracies at The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School will be our partner in hosting a global hub for sparking innovative dialogues around the media ecosystem.
- SRCCON Basic self-defense class with Women Do News Jiujitsu world champion Larissa Dias and Women Do News’ Mariko Lochridge will lead an intro to self defense for journalists. How do you stand your ground if you’re being harassed at a rally or protest? What should you do if you’re pinned against the wall or knocked to the ground?
- Wikipedia Day 2024 NYC
- We appeared on the panel "Bias, AI & Wikipedia: Problems, Progress and Projects Panel" at Wikipedia Day 2024 in New York City, hosted by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia University with Wikimedia NYC.
- We held an edit-a-thon at WikiConference North America 2023 in Toronto.
- We ran an edit-a-thon at the 2023 Online News Association Conference in Philadelphia.
- Women Do News was featured at the annual Journalism and Women Symposium Camp in Chicago. We ran an edit-a-thon and collected nominees (two stubs for women journalists made!) and gave flash talks, bringing more people into our volunteer fold.
- Women Do News was at the Asian American Journalists Association, with a panel and guerrilla editing throughout the conference. Media reporter Ada Tseng hosted two of our board members in a conversation called "Owning the Narrative," about representation and what we can do about improving it.
- Gather, a collaborative community journalism project led by the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism & Communication, hosted Women Do News and The 19th for a lightning chat about women in media: bridging the gender gap in the journalism industry and reporting inclusively on gender, politics and policy.
- We led a workshop at the AEJMC 2022 Midwinter Conference. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is the organization for educators, students and media professionals who are training the next generation of journalists.
- At this event, we gave a 20-minute presentation to attendees of the Journalism and Women's Symposium annual conference on volunteer editing and adding articles to Wikipedia, followed by a 40-minute edit-a-thon.
- We joined Hacks/Hackers London to talk about our work and how Wikipedia can affect the safety and credibility of women journalists. Journalism.co.uk reported on the event.
- We partnered with JAWS, the long-standing American journalism organization that supports women in news, to host a mini edit-a-thon. We discussed our mission and then started creating entries for your nominees. It was held for the public; no JAWS membership was needed.
- In 2019, Women Do News held our first in-person edit-a-thon: Women Do News Edit-a-thon @ Luminary in NYC.
Templates
[edit]You can use {{Women Do News WN}} to encourage users who have edited about women in journalism to join the WikiProject.