Welcome to WikiProjectWomen 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
Facilitatemeetups for edit-a-thons and workshops to research women in journalism, edit their Wikipedia biographies and teach others how to become Wikipedia editors
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 atThe New York Times, as well as the first woman to be chief editor on the foreign desk; Pulitzer Prize-winnerLisa Song; Emmy and Murrow Award winnerTonya Mosley;Emily Ramshaw, founder and CEO ofThe 19th; andAvis Red Bear, founder of theTeton 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 toEnglish Wikipedia, we would love to build the capacity for writing, editing and improving articles in other languages.
The Women Do News project grew from a 2019 cohort of journalists participating inTake The Lead, a leadership training program co-founded byGloria 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 likeWomen in Red (WIR) and many fellow Wikipedians have supported our work since its beginning.
Women Do News is fiscally sponsored by theBay City News Foundation. We have received funding, grants or donations from NewsMatch, theWikimedia 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.
Join Women Do News and WikimediaNYC onThursday, July 17 from 5-9pm ET in Manhattan for an edit-a-thon focus on improving and increasing pages about women and woman-identified journalists on Wikipedia.Learn more andregister at Eventbrite.
More than two dozen people attended the Women Do News and WikimediaNYC onThursday, July 17 from 5-9pm ET in Manhattan edit-a-thon focus on improving and increasing pages about women and woman-identified journalists on Wikipedia.
Media Party 2024: A Hands-on Conference and hackathon on the Future of Journalism, AI, and Their Impact on Democracies atThe Brown Institute atColumbia Journalism School. We attended this event, convened as 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 led 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?
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.
(Note: Women Do News monthly flash edits are currently on hiatus. If you are interested in organizing a flash or virtual edit, get in touch!) Women Do News monthly flash edits are a great place to start volunteering for this organization. Meet 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.
