Jessica Reber

It was clearly one of those events during your lifetime you will never forget -- almost as symbolic as the generations before me recalling exactly what they were doing when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon or when President Kennedy was assassinated. No, I'm not referring to 9/11, but to last year's massacre at Virginia Tech.

Ironically, the mass murder occurred the same day I was reporting for KUJH. When word of the slayings came across the wire, and CNN began airing cell phone footage of shots being fired, it was difficult to focus on my duties as a journalist. As a student, I could only sympathize for the 32 (not counting the gunman) victims and those closest to them, who lost their lives so unexpectedly.

The reports of the slaying were continuously altered throughout the day. Major news networks and their Websites updated the latest information instantly. But they all lacked a consensus of detailed information. Just as we were trying to sort through the facts and what should be reported, someone in the newsroom found a Wikipedia page already dedicated to the tragedy.

We monitored the network reports against those contributions in Wikipedia. What we found was that the Wikipedia page had the most accurate up-to-the-minute facts.

It was strange that as journalists, we were trusting the sources in Wikipedia more than those reported by news organizations who had years of journalistic standards. Even The Roanoke Times noted that Wikipedia emerged as the leading source for detailed information on the event, with more than 750,000 visits to the main article on the shootings in its first two days.

But should we have been concerned that most of our information was coming from a different source of gatekeepers? New York Times journalist Jonathan Dee said it's difficult to trust Wikipedia because, "How on earth can anyone be trusted to get the story right when any version of the story is only as accurate, or even as serious, as the last anonymous person to log on and rewrite it?"

But I think his reason for questioning the online encyclopedia is exactly why it works as well as it does. No where else is there a news organization full of passionate writers who will, at the drop of a hat, take command of the situation and get to "work."