Times launched a "
wikitorial," an editorial that any of the
I know what you're thinking:
wikitorial, when the Los Angeles Times took the well-intentioned but ill-informed step of letting the public edit its editorial.
Another controversial Web innovation occurred at the Los Angeles Times, which launched its "
Wikitorial" page last year that took the open-access Wikipedia format and applied it to online editorials.
By Sunday morning the first
wikitorial had been mired in foul language and photos, and was replaced by a note from site editors apologizing to "the thousands of people who logged on in the right spirit." (See "Wiki: Don't Lose That Number," August/September 2005.)
One (the Los Angeles Times
wikitorial) was an abject failure.
Newspapers have traveled a tough road toward Web/print integration, from the Los Angeles Times'
Wikitorial debacle to consumer complaints about the New York Times requiring payment to read popular columnists online.
Would the "
wikitorial"--a vaguely Polynesian-sounding concoction that invited readers to help write Times editorials themselves--redefine the newspaper's opinion pages?
The Times' trailblazing "
wikitorial" drew lively contributions from readers across the political spectrum.
We begin with just one
wikitorial. Maybe a year from now a link for "wiki this page" will be as common on the Web as "printer-friendly" or "e-mail this article." Or maybe not.
19 Because readers did not behave: The Los Angeles Times aborts its wild '
wikitorial' online editing experiment.
The Los Angeles Times editorial pages snared the media limelight with its bold launch in June of a
wikitorial on the Iraq war--an opinion piece that invited online edits from readers who tussled, pro and con, over the conflict.
Seeking to shake up its editorial pages, the paper launched its first online "
wikitorial," which allowed readers to rewrite editorials and post opinions.