Jewish student secures £40,000 in funding for ‘political Wikipedia’
20-year-old Benji Fisher hopes start-up JustDebate will re-engage Britain's youth with politics
Patrick Maguire is a reporter at the Jewish News.
A Jewish student has secured £40,000 in funding for a website that he hopes will become the “Wikipedia of politics”.
Birmingham University undergraduate Benji Fisher, 20, now hopes online magazine Just Debate will cut through the noise of political debate and offer “simple, impartial and quick news digests”.
The website – which presents simple explanations for both sides of contentious political issues – already employs 40 volunteer student journalists on campuses across the UK.
Its work has already attracted the attention of Facebook, the BBC and even the US Embassy – who invited Fisher to participate in Barack Obama’s recent question and answer session at Westminster Town Hall.
Recent articles have offered fresh looks at the EU referendum and the controversy surrounding new National Union of Students president Malia Bouattia – and Fisher, a former pupil of Borehamwood’s Yavneh College, said he hopes Just Debate’s work will “engage more young people in politics”.
He told Jewish News: “We hope to be an easy to understand, easily accessible educational resource like Wikipedia to help simplify politics and show how engaging it can be.”
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