Can anybody be a journalist?

Who can be called a journalist? The answer isn’t so easy, but so important in a world where everything goes so fast and information has a great impact on human activities.

Today, almost anybody in the world has a smartphone and an access to the web. Anybody can post a picture, a text or a video and give a sort of information to the world. How? With the new media: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia or YouTube. Information is so easy and so quickly widespread trough the planet. “Great evolution”, will say the ones. “Disinformation” will respond the others.

Will the professional journalists disappear?
Picture: macalester.edu

The raise of citizen journalism: the new world’s voice

People don’t want to stay silent. For many centuries, journalists have been people’s voices. They found, collected and verified the information and always searched for the truth. But with the Internet’s democratization, people don’t want to wait that the journalists let them speak. They prefer to raise their voice directly and explain or show something to the whole world.

With the advent of Internet 2.0, new media technologies, for example social networking and media-sharing websites, gave citizens the opportunity to give information. Those citizen journalists often report breaking news faster than “normal” journalists. We can cite the events of Arab Spring, which were a lot report by anonymous citizens in the heart of the revolution. Another example of this quick report and exchange of information is the “Occupy Wall Street” movement which debuted on September 17th 2011.

Syrian activists send information with their computer.
Picture: bbc.co.uk

A really actual example is Syrian crisis. The country is closed and inhospitable for the journalists. But Syrian people who live the war post videos and testimonies on YouTube, social media or blogs. They claim their story and give a reality that many journalists just can’t report. It benefits to the citizens in the world, to realize what’s happening there!

Chris Shaw, the editorial director of ITN, a Britannic production society, said to The Guardian that social networks were opening up “whole new vistas for documentary filmmakers. You can make the most amazing films using content from social networks, sometimes with the permission and sometimes without the permission of the people who shot them.”

This reality takes all its sense with the Syrian crisis. “There are places like Syria where journalists haven’t been able to go and […] there is an extraordinary resource on social networks for current affairs, even though we have to take extraordinary caution to verify what we use”, said Chris Shaw.

Let’s see a short funny video, but with interesting points of reflection. “No no, I’m the journalist!”:

Let people participate

What we can observe today, is that many classical media websites give people the possibility to react and deepen the information. You can let comments in the website’s blog for example. Professional journalists are not alone anymore, because readers give a feedback and let them know what they think about the article and more globally about the topic.

Other media are based on the concept that citizens can contribute to the news by giving information or sharing links, but with the control and the work of professional journalists behind. This is the case of Digital Journal or Rue89 in France for example. But is it citizen journalism? I don’t think so. We can call this hybrid journalism, because citizens and professional journalists work together.

But some websites or blogs are entirely “citizen made”. You, I, anybody can add an article and participate to information’s transmission. But these platforms ask the contributors to share valuable and verified information, and grant themselves the right to remove an inappropriate content. For example, we can mention the Quebec’s website centpapiers or the better known Wikinews.

American information’s channel CNN launched in 2008 its new participative site: CNN iReport. This website is only based on citizens content. They can post a story, picture, commentary or video and create the news. What is interesting with this concept is that CNN’s journalists sometimes select a subject and diffuse it on the classic channels. With this system, citizens can really be a part of the media agenda setting.

Citizens, yes! Citizen journalists, no!

So where is the difference between a citizen and a professional journalist? Well, let’s go back to the very base of journalism: giving information. Information isn’t just a concept; it’s the reality, the truth, what’s really happening. Yes, journalism is “making information” and transmitting this information to the people; a full-time job!

Here are some answer people gave to the question “Who should be called a journalist?” on ijnet (international journalist’s network):

If we set aside the fact that professional journalists work for a media and are paid for this, we must consider that journalists respond to some exigencies and rules. They have to verify the sources, analyze them, explain the events, replace them in their context and be as objective as possible. And the journalists must respect deontological rules. Do the citizen journalists respect those exigencies? Because they must, instead we just can’t call them journalists.

Another point is that a professional journalist isn’t in the commentary when he writes an article. When a citizen journalist writes, we often observe committed comments. Professional journalist informs, when online citizen testifies to what he sees, ears or notices.

But today, citizens contribution is a wealth for journalists. An inexhaustible source of ideas and materials than can be used. And it forces journalists to do their job: treat information and not only transmit it as it is. Citizens make their citizen’s job, when they transmit something important and newsworthy to the journalists.

You’re a citizen, a journalist, or maybe a citizen journalist: what do you think? Leave you comments!

Tutorial: the use of social networks (Twitter and Facebook) as a journalist

Both Twitter and Facebook cannot be ignored any more when talking about the World Wide Web. Thus are they surely to be considered when using the amazing internet tool as a journalist. Let’s now have a look at how to get the best of it!

Guillaume Laurent

The social networks, by the number of subscribers they gather, are a rich source of information, as well as an amazing showcase. Therefore, it can be used by journalists in a number of ways: to always be aware of what is going on and interesting people, to try to get people to give their opinion about a subject, to get some feedbacks about an article, or to extend one’s readership and number of followers. In the interest of being more accurate, I’ll focus here only on the use of Twitter and Facebook Here are the few tips you will need to be an efficient social network journalist!

Three things to know when using social networks as a source

1-      Verification must without contest be your main concern when using social networks as a source. If social networks can often be much quicker than traditional Medias to provide a story, they cannot be trusted, and the journalist must look around to see if other users or legitimate sources providers can confirm the story.

2-      You have to develop your own trusted network within social Medias. Getting the wider choice among a group of users you now are trustworthy is a powerful asset for a journalist using social networks.

3-      You must be systematic when using social Medias as a source. By doing the same ritual times and times again, you will gain a more accurate judgment about what is said on social networks, and thereafter win a lot in efficiency.

Social Medias as a source for journalists – Oriella PR Networks

Three things to know when using social networks to gather opinions

1-      Think about your personal experience on social networks. In which circumstances would you give your opinion? Which kind of question would you actually answer and which kind you wouldn’t? It will give you a valuable clue to guess how to manage your audience and get the best of it.

2-      Before looking after opinions, you have to decide if you want to get a number based statistic answer or rather a few interesting witnesses. You will get more answers with a question that can be answered only by “yes” or “no”, but an open question will often give you more information to deal with.

3-      Create a debate. To give their opinion about a specific subject, people must feel concerned, disturbed, annoyed or enthusiasm. Therefore you should give a direction to your question, give something of yourself to push your followers to react. .

Three things to know when using social networks to get some feedbacks about one’s articles

1-      Getting a lot of feedbacks can be dangerous for your website. If you want to advertise using social networks you will have to be ready to assume de consequences. I mean managing properly de comments posted on your page or website. Otherwise, spamming or provocative answers will quickly suffocate the debate.

2-      Before advertising on social networks, you must be aware that everything you will post, included answers to readers, comments or random posts, will be considered as a part of your work and evaluated and criticize in this sense. There for having separates account for your private life and your job can be very useful.

3-      Post pictures and videos to get attention. Even if your work is mainly based on writing, you will have to use pictures and videos. It will surely get you more feedback, and images are what modern internet journalism is all about.

Three things to know when using social networks to extend one’s readership

1-      “Tweet your beat”, the advice was given by Lauren Invik, from the social medias specialized website marshable.com. If you want to get some authority on social networks and bring in something more than the millions of other users, you have to be a specialist. That means tweeting or publishing on Facebook only when you know exactly what you are talking about. Giving your opinion on random subjects is not a plan for a good social networks journalist.

2-       Being a specialist also includes being among the first to get the news about your favorite subject. Therefore is it necessary to give to your audience more than your own stories. Using in a wise way the retweet or share opportunity will help you a lot while trying to please your followers and make your account attractive.

3-      Link as much as possible your publications. The hashtag and the “@” button are crucial not only to reach a wider public, but also to show your sources and make your information safe and valuable. Websites like tagboard.com are based on the use of the “@” and de hashtag and often used by people to look for news about a specific subject.

So, fellow journalists, have you already been using successfully social Medias in your work? Would you add some advices to the previous shortlist? This article is meant to be updated and enhanced by your contribution!

To become a perfect social Media journalist: more advices with this Youtube vidéo from BeatBlogging.Org

More on the subject with this France 2 TV show about Twitter brodcasted in 2010

The role of Online Journalism for the 20 Minutes and how it uses Facebook and Twitter.

As the German version of the website www.20mn.ch  became a reference and became one of the most consulted and well-known websites in Switzerland, I wanted to know whether the same would occur  in the French part of the country. The aim of this article is thus to analyse the French version of the news website and to explain how the journalists use social media (Facebook and Twitter) to promote articles.

20 Minutes Online is an information platform. It is probably one of the most effective, efficient and powerful portals of news in Switzerland. It covers three parts of Switzerland according to the languages (20 Minuten for German, 20 Minuti for Italian and 20 Minutes for French). In this article, I will focus only on the French version, which was created on the 8th of March 2006.

The success of 20 Minutes Online is mostly due to the speed with which news is added. There were 1’035’000 articles written for the sole month of February ; this illustrates how the website is constantly increasing. Each section possess a Facebook and/or a Twitter account on which it shares almost instantaneously posts with the link to the relevant article. All the posts are linked to the website www.20min.ch/ro. Is the activity of sharing news on social medias a good way to reach a wide range of readers and redirect them to the initial platform 20 Minutes ?

The opinion of the expert

Mathieu Coutaz is the « head » of the site. He explains that only most relevant news is posted on Twitter and Facebook ; it represents between 5% and 10% of the overall production. Some sections are more active than others on social media : « News, Sports and People are the rubrics which post the most. The reason is that we are first a news website and therefore we are making a lot of news articles », confirms Mathieu Coutaz. Of course, the idea to share content on social media brings new readers. « Sharing news is for the 20 Minutes both appreciated and practical. 4% of our traffic comes from Facebook and less than 0,1% from Twitter. Google remains the most important marketing online tool », concludes the person in charge of the website.

Analysis

By observing the different Facebook and Twitter accouts,  it’s easy to determine that the news item is the most active. Being an online webiste which brings news means to be the first to tell a story or relate an event.

On Facebook, 9 sections possess an account (News, Cinema, Football, Hockey, Sports, Festivals & Music, Insolite, Hitech and People). Twitter is a little bit less popular with only 7 items (Buzz, HiTech, Music, News, People, Sports, Gamezone).

To poursuive , each section manages its own page on the social media. Hereunder are two examples coming from the People page and Online page :

The organisation of the Facebook and Twitter accounts permit people to react or to share posts.

Survey

I questioned 30 people about their consumption of the news from the 20 Minutes via Facebook or Twitter. For this survey I used Facebook in order to distribue the survey’s link.

The results show that people who live in Romandie are not fond of information. 45% admit they don’t follow the news, 21% say they follw information on Facebook only and 21 % on Twitter. Only 14% admit they follow news on both social media. To conclude, people are not yet used to follow news on the Internet, but nowadays a lot of website become more and more active on social media to promote, share and comment on news.

Conclusion

Regarding the « semestrial report » of Tamedia dated June 2012, the website 20Minutes Online is the number one with 3’673 thousand unique clients per month. How long will it keep this so conveted first place ? Are newspapers online associated with social media the future of Journalism ? Nowadays all newspapers have an Online version. They publish first little articles on the web and the next day on the print version. Newsweek was the latest example. This american magazine-newspaper will publish its last printed version on the 31th December 2012 and after will exist only in digital format. For sure, social media will play an important role in sharing and recommending news and articles.

By Alizée Liechti

Wikipedia: a source for journalists?

By Eric Butticaz

I’ll start with a quick explanation about the importance of sources for journalists. I’ll then explain why is Wikipedia interesting, how you could use it as a journalist and which points you should care about when using it.

Why are sources important to journalists?

A large part of the journalist’s credibility is built over his usage of reliable sources. Therefore, as journalists we have to be careful in our use of sources.

Actually, online sources have become more and more useful for journalists, because lots of information and facts are quickly published, without any limitation due to size or complexity of information. It can be easily illustrated by pictures or schemes and linked to many other web resources. But a side effect of the use of online sources is that they are easy alterable. It is very easy to intervene on an article and to change it without anybody noticing it.

Stating you have an article to write on a topic you don’t have a clue about, how do you start to collect information about it? Is it still useful to take a trip to the next library or to investigate in your newspapers’ archives, or the modern tools like Internet and online resources can be a good starting point?

Number of articles and contributors on en.wikipedia.org (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About)

The sum of information collected on the participative online encyclopedia Wikipedia seems to be an interesting tool. It is issued in many different languages (list of all Wikipedias in different languages) and contains articles on almost every subject you could think about.

Does it mean that I can spare time and collect information directly from Wikipedia without needing to check them?

I don’t think so, because as soon as I think about Wikipedia, my former teaching is coming back to the surface…

What I was told not to do…

During my former academic formation, I have been strictly warned against using Wikipedia in academic work. Nowadays, in the universities, usage of Wikipedia as a source for students is mostly not recommended, and even sometimes forbidden.[1]

What is often mentioned against the use of Wikipedia in an academic context is anonymity of contributors, (hidden) agenda behind the writing of specific articles, a no more growing number of contributors, or the fact that well informed contributors could be silenced. (The Top 10 Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely on Wikipedia lists the top 10 reasons and provides external links to explain in more details the precautions to take before using Wikipedia in academic context.)

Despite the warning against Wikipedia in academic context, let’s look closer into a journalistic point of view.

… and what I could do as a journalist…

I think it is possible to use Wikipedia as a interesting resource as a journalist, but then, it is necessary to be cautious ! I’ll discuss here four important points, 1) the information I need, 2) the agenda behind the article, 3) the discussion about the article and finally 4) if Wikipedia is up-to-date.

1) What information do I need?

First of all, I need to know what I am looking for. Am I just looking for general information about a context, a country or am I searching precise data about population or national budget?
Wikipedia may help you to get a clue about a new subject you have to talk or write about. It could also be helpful to find external references about it because the contributors are requested to cite the sources they use as they write an article on Wikipedia. If you are looking for up-to-date data, it is more interesting to get them on primary sources as governments or national offices (like the Swiss Statistics Office).

2) Is there an agenda behind the article?

A Wikipedia article is supposed to be written on a neutral point of view,  containing no original research (i.e. research that is not published or supported by other reliable sources) and being verifiable (i.e. every reader should be able to check the informations in the article). These three points are the basis of the article writing policy on Wikipedia, but it doesn’t avoid vandalism in the articles or approximations. Editors can try to bias their point of view to support their own opinion.

It’s also possible to intervene on an article in order to improve the image of its subject, whether a person or a brand.

• Some recent examples could be evoked. The article about Jean-Pierre Pernaut, the well-known news presenter of the “Journal de 13h” on the French TF1, has been modified many times, sometimes on a rather rough manner, in order to enhance his image.
• The France 2 television program “Envoyé Spécial” revealed on the 8th of November 2012  that an article has been modified by an e-reputation society, working according to the rules of Wikipedia, making the changes not easily noticeable. After a few hours, the Wikipedia community discovered that it was the article about Moncef Belkhayat, a Moroccan politician.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv6ci4_faut-il-croire-en-wikipedia_webcam

(The part about the modification of Wikipedia starts at 20:00)

Be careful when you use Wikipedia, whether as a journalist or as a simple curious person. You cannot assume directly that the article you read is written without a specific agenda!

3) Has the article been discussed?

Wikipedia, based on collaborative editing, has a dedicated interface for the revision of articles, where discussion can take place about the modifications. On this page, it is also possible to see who the contributors are (at least by pseudonyms), and to see if they made many additions or corrections on the Wikipedia article.

An article which has almost not been discussed  is not more credible. In facts, fewer contributors tend to offer fewer points of view and a bigger possibility of bias in the article.

Revision history of the University of Neuchâtel page on en.wikipedia.org (print screen: 21st of November 2012)

4) Is Wikipedia always up-to-date?

The informations in the article may not be up-to-date! Using the Revision history allows you to see when the last modifications occurred. The older they are, the more the informations may no be up-to-date! Therefore, be careful before using any data. Always cross-check the informations you may use further with external sources.

Summary

Using Wikipedia is not a mortal sin, as long as you care when using it! Always think that Wikipedia should have a neutral point of view, but that it is not always the fact!

As a last word, let’s introduce Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, speaking about Wikipedia for journalists :

“Wikipedia is not to use as a citation, but is a perfect tool to enter a new subject.”

• And you, would you dare to cite Wikipedia in an article?
• Do you think you are able to understand how the discussion page is working?

Further reading on Wikipedia and journalism :

• What Wikipedia is not.
• A sociology student also pointed out in 2009 that some modifications of Wikipedia can stay long enough to be used by journalists in a hurry to write an article about some celebrity’s death, in this case the death of Maurice Jarre, a composer of film musics, and using quotes from Wikipedia without checking the source. Read more about it.
• Usage of Wikipedia banned at the AFP in London. Read more about it.

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[1] The University of Lausanne, on its Library webpage for example recommends not using Wikipedia as a source, due to its functioning based on anonymous contributions and with no form of scientific validation.  (http://www.unil.ch/bcu/page48632.html, consulted on November 18^th 2012).

Are bloggers journalists?

Neuchâtel, a more and more populated city

Every year, December doesn’t only rhyme with Christmas, but also with demography. It’s in fact at the end of this month that the FSO will reveal the 2011 Swiss demography evolution. I’m writing about it because since 2003 the commune of Neuchâtel is witnessing a population renewal. Even if we talk here of a 4%- growth in less than ten years, this percentage represent no less than 1500 inhabitants for our own commune. Diverse sectors will have to adapt to this continual growth.

The public transport: a game ahead

For the Neuchâtel public transport (TN), the city bus network is most affected by this population’s augmentation. “We noticed a large and progressive increase of passengers”, explain Mrs Jeanne Huessli, in charge of the communication department of this society. “By summer 2012, ten news buses will be put into circulation on the biggest lines to absorb the users’ increasing flux.” Cost of this operation: almost 15 million CHF including the bus driver’s wage. “That might seem a lot, but this investment should be profitable until 2017.”

Needless to say, this society didn’t wait the 2011 FSO report to take the bull by the horns and react consequently. Which proves nothing is impossible. So the Bienne – Lausanne train passengers might hope the SBB will take example on the Neuchâtel public transport and put an end to passengers’ suffering during rush hours.

 

After reading this article I wrote, you’re probably asking yourself what is the link with our initial question: “are bloggers journalists?” In reality, everything! In order to address the question, I needed initially to act as a blogger. So I wrote an article on a theme any ordinary blogger would be interested in.

But the problem is…my article is false. Mrs Huessli doesn’t exist and- I invented all of what she said. This is the key challenge of a blog post. One is never sure what is true and what is wrong. Of course with my article it was enough to search the name Jeanne Huessli on Google to discover the hoax. But what if I used the real name of the communication department person? It would have been more difficult to find the truth without a phone call to the TN.

What I wanted to prove is that nothing prevents someone from posting a lie. We always need to keep that in mind. Of course what I wrote is under no circumstances journalism.

But what is journalism? Answering this question will allow us to determine if yes or no bloggers are part of it. A journalist produces information. Verified and tallied information which will be transmitted to the lector. To be a journalist isn’t “write to write”, but “write to inform”, to explain, to comment or analyse. A journalist must follow a ethical charter, sign his article with his real name and work under the supervision of his editor. Of course these rules might be breached of and sometimes journalists might bend the rules and values of their job, but in absolute terms, journalism can’t be defined with such cases.

On the other hand, what’s a blogger? Blogs – contrary to a newsroom – are open to everybody. Bloggers often publish under a pseudonym – there’s no way to find the real source – and no ethical rules or moderator frames what is published. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible for a blogger to publish something relevant or completely journalistic. But there’s no way to control.

A lot of journalists and experts have blogs and publish relevant information about what they see with a freer style like for example Jean-Dominique Merchet, David Medioni or the Online Journalism Blog. The blog can be an extension of a newspaper like the New York Times blog Lens on which press photography are published. We have also blog for “citizen journalist” like the Bondy Blog inspired by OhmyNews – a Korean website where “every citizen is a reporter”. But the blog is also a place where somebody is able to express himself, his opinion, and his moods without any other desire than write about his feelings.

Finally “Are bloggers journalists?” is a wrong question. Because bloggers are bloggers and journalists are journalists. Like the chameleon changed his colour according to his environment, the blogger can, just for the time of a post, be a journalist, a humourist, a politician, a cook or anything else. They are no rules and no generalizations to be made. For the same reason we can’t pretend that strangers are criminals, we can’t affirm that bloggers are journalists.

Blackberry or iPhone, which one should a journalist own?

A lot of different Smartphones exist on the market, but only two truly stand out: the Blackberry and the iPhone. The aficionados of both brands keep claiming one or the other is best, so I decided to take a closer look at both phones and decide for myself.

The questions I want to answer today are:  “which phone is better for what purpose? And as future journalists which one should we own?”

First of all, one quick information, the Blackberry was created with business use in mind, the iPhone for a personnel use. Even though today the genres are mixing and people use Blackberry for personnel use, and business men might use the iPhone for work. It is clear that when the phones were created, they were designed to fit certain expectations depending on the consumers they were targeted for.

Email

A Blackberry configured with Microsoft Exchange retrieves automatically new emails, without the user having to do anything, the iPhone does not. With a Blackberry, as soon as a message is sent it is downloaded immediately and the owner of the phone gets a warning that he or she has a new message. The iPhone on the other hand retrieves new information at most every 15 minutes and only from one inbox at a time, so it needs a regular check to see if anything new was sent, making email operation less effective on an iPhone.

The Blackberry clearly dominates the mobile email category

Battery life

The iPhone battery has a shorter life because it is used for more tasks that require a lot of energy, like web browsing or gaming. Plus it does not help the battery life of the phone if the user has to constantly check and open his or her email account to make sure nothing new was sent. The battery problem makes the phone less reliable because the user needs to make sure he will be able to recharge his phone anywhere he goes.

On this department, the Blackberry wins

Applications

Application wise, no comparison can be made, the iPhone is much better and more furnished as countless applications and games exist for the user. Applications have been the highlight of the brand since its creation. There are thousands of them existing. People can even create their own. Obviously some are useless but many other facilitate every days life. In comparison the Blackberry apps seems very poor.

The iPhone wins this one

Technicalities

The operating system of the iPhone is the most technologically advanced and has a better graphical interface than the Blackberry. The iPhone screen is bigger so navigating on the web and watching videos is best on it, the typing is not easier as the virtual keyboard can sometimes be hard to handle, but it is just as hard as the small blackberry keys.

The iPhone is also very interactive, mostly because of its touch screen and motion sensibility. The user can navigate online very easily because everything flows naturally. All the operations the phone does are much more intuitive than with the Blackberry.

One advantage for the Blackberry is that it synchronizes new information automatically with the WIFI. When a user makes changes in his calendar or in his contact list for example, changes appear automatically. The iPhone does not synchronize information changes from one application to another.

Security wise, the Blackberry is considered as one of the most secured phones for storing and transmitting data, which is an important guarantee for professionals

Another important point for the Blackberry is that all the Office documents can be opened but more importantly edited with the phone. On the iPhone they can only be opened.

We can call it deuce for this part, both phones have their technical advantages.

Result

The Blackberry seems to be better for business and advanced professional use because it is a small desktop extension and you can basically do anything you would normally do on a laptop.

If you are a business man it seems that the iPhone is lacking some vital functions to be a valid choice. Even if the designers always try to add better application to make the phone more professional, Blackberry is still ahead.

On the other hand, the iPhone is a success in large audiences mostly used for personnel purposes because it is seen as more innovative, interactive and fun

The iPhone is recommended for a personnel use and the blackberry as an extension of the professional environment. Blackberry wins for business use and security, iPhone for personal use and innovations. But when it comes down to functioning in the business world and having a practical phone, Blackberry wins.

As for a journalist it is difficult to decide which phone to own. I guess it depends on what the person wants to do with his or her phone and what he or she does on a daily basis. If the person spends most of the day inside and in meetings he might want to take a Blackberry, easier to manage for professional purposes. But then if the person is an aspiring journalist spending its entire day running from one side to another and navigating on the web to search for the latest news, then an iPhone is fit for him.

Is Wikipedia a credible source for journalists?

First of all, in order to judge if Wikipedia is credible for journalists, I wanted to have the point of view of the different actors of the domain. That is to say Wikipedia’s team, people from the academic world, journalists and also media enterprises. Another thing that I wanted to find before making a judgement is how accurate is Wikipedia, compared to other encyclopaedia.

This questions guided my research. I’ve used some search engines and – Internet is magical! – I’ve found some websites that have given me responses. Here are my conclusions.

Wikipedia is not a credible source for academic working and journalism. Wikipedia itself on its own website, the Reuters agency in a handbook produce for its journalists and most people in academic or media worlds, as this French academic website proclaimed as a journalism world observatory, arrive to this conclusion. The principal problem is that Wikipedia doesn’t mention enough its sources.

BUT: Wikipedia is as accurate as other encyclopaedia – revues as Nature and Stern have made some studies that prove this point – and in most of the cases faster as its opposites. Moreover, articles are most of the time made by many users and by this way, more true, as an academic study says. Studies (the three already mentioned) prove that most of wiki information is right.

For those reasons, Wikipedia is a good starting point for any research made by journalists. You can use this site but you have to take the information more carefully than normally, sources aren’t all the time clear and sure on a platform as Wikipedia.

My conclusion: Wikipedia is a help during the search process, nothing more.