Over on Wikinews we’ve run into a thorny issue that I’d like to see discussed here. We have an accreditation process which allows us to issue press credentials to trusted members of the community. It is quietly ignored by the Wikimedia Foundation as it threatens their safe-haven status to approve it.

As a consequence we’re looking at a new non-profit having to be set up to issue press passes, handle credential verification, send requests for access to events, and so on. A new non-profit, just for argument’s sake called the Citizen Journalists’ Network, does not have to be restricted to Wikinews contributors – and in order to thrive it likely should not be.

Anyone who is interested should pop over to Wikinews, my user page is:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Brianmc leave a message on the collaboration page. Another contributor is drafting a proposal that may be submitted to the Knight Foundation for a grant to set up a non-profit. Input from the CDD would likely be highly valuable.