Only two hours after the burst in Virginia Tech, Avril 16th, a wikipedia page was created and became the source of information for thousands of Internet Users and other medias.
The mobilisation of the students on the premises to describe their feelings, what they saw and lived created a impressive stream of information on the Web. This clearly shows that the professional medias of information can't deal without amateur anymore.
The videos, chats and pictures of the students were diffused on CNN.com, Washingtonpost.com and on all the International TVs.
However, the best organized information was on Wikipedia, written by amateurs. Since Avril 16th, more than 2,000 persons contributed to 9,000 modifications of the page. This video I found on Youtube shows the evolution of the "Virginia Tech Massacre" page during the twelve first hours.
Today, the article is full and explains the acts, attacks, perpetrator, follow-up (from the football ligue to the gouvernment reaction) and fits the tragedy with the debate on the Gun Control. The article ends with 130 notes justifying the reliability of the text.
On the French wikipedia page about VT, a debate deals with the question "Is the word massacre too stunning?". The result is that wikipedians prefere the term "burst".
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Your right. With the emergence of Wiki pedia and user information, amateur media has gained a lot of power. It's a fantastic thing. I feel like these channels of communication gives people a chance to connect quicker then ever before. And in a situation like the VT shooting (prayers for everyone one that was involved) amateurs were able to gather information that completely told the tragic story. And did it much faster the professional news casters.
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