Tim Russert, journalist and moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, died June 13th of a sudden heart attack, first reported on his Wikipedia page at 3:01 p.m. The New York Post had a short announcement half an hour later followed by the first televised announcement by Tom Brokaw on NBC at 3:39 p.m. The IP address of the editor came from Internet Broadcast Systems, an IT company that worked with NBC in the past.

Wikipedia’s scoop raises questions about its legitimacy as a news source. The ability for anybody to edit Wikipedia can and has led to abuses of the online encyclopedia and has hurt its credibility among educators, parents, and people who don’t understand the system. I won’t expect a reporter or user to trust Wikipedia absolutely just like I won’t trust the New York Times or a blog without some kind of citation or corroboration.

Wikipedia’s strength, as evidenced by the Russert edit, is the site can respond quickly to new information The risk is this information isn’t properly vetted, but that’s what the community is for - a community mainstream news organizations don’t have, leading even the most trustworthy sources to post incorrect information and take longer to correct it.

Wikipedia remains an encyclopedia, not a news organization (that’s what Wikinews is for). But can these lines blur?