Why is the Wikimedia Foundation trying to turn Wikipedia into a news organization?

When you have a website that millions of gullible people believe in blindly, you want to increase your power. It's as simple as that.

Wikipedia is not a news service.

Wikipedians regularly recognize that this is the role of Wikinews; it's on the list of things Wikipedia is Not. But Wikinews language versions haven't grown in # of contributors or articles the way that Wikipedia and Wiktionary have... so there is still more news writing/reporting on Wikipedia that on Wikinews. The Wikimedia Foundation (which has no say in where contributors write) doesn't have much to do with that.

Current Events has always been a core part of Wikipedia, since the earliest debates about how to include breaking events on the main page. (I believe one of the pages with the largest # of historical edits is still what used to be the sole top-level 'Current Events' page...) Wikipedia is regularly cited as an important place for news when crises hit -- not for any traditional-style 'reporting' (which wikinews gets much better) but because they will quickly have a page for every central aspect of a crisis event -- either a section in a list of major tornadoes, or an article about the historical event of an explosion.

Short answer - why not?

As long as the quality of the information provided does not suffer, I see no problem with this. When news organizations are owned by fewer and fewer entities, many of whom have other agendas (msn for example), Wikipedia is fast becoming the only source of information I can trust.

It does mean, though, that Wikipedia will require more and more wiki-editors (everyone is welcome to learn how at Wikipedia). And, BTW it is not the Wikimedia foundation that is driving this, it is the tens of thousands of wiki-editors who decide what needs writing about.

wikipedia is all about money.

it's also a cult and a mmorpg of a sorts.

they try to pawn it off as this wonderful place where information is free, but it's all about making jimmy $$$

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