Wikinews talk:Original reporting contest May 2005

Question about the rules

How about if I get some friends and send them into some local campaign meetings to heckle the speakers, so I can file a story with "original reporting" containing quotes from the outraged party officials?

I recently submitted a story, BBC admits sending hecklers into Conservative campaign meeting, which described the BBC using such tactics to make some news. I was surprised that this article was attacked as POV and that it was considered quite reasonable for the BBC to employ such tactics to create a news story.

I would have thought this was an important line in the sand contributors to Wikinews cannot cross, but perhaps I am being overly conservative on this point? I am only assuming that making your own news is not acceptable. Is this really OK?

I don't see that anyone other than the Conservative party in the UK is finding fault with the BBC for using such tactics, so perhaps I need to be more open to such aggressive reporting tactics?

Cheers,

— DV 06:35, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think this begs a whole discussion on news reporters trying to "make" news. I generally am against outrageous cases of this (i.e. setting a building on fire to report on the fire, as one enterprising reporter in the US did a while ago), but new methods of pressing government officials to respond are probably acceptable. For example, Michael Moore employs similar tactics often — but he gets results, and his results are very frequently poignant and insightful. His documentaries aren't NPOV, but the quotes are real. -- IlyaHaykinson 08:26, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouraging guidance, Ilya. If you say it's OK that's good enough for me. — DV 11:52, 2 May 2005 (UTC)