[besson3c]

I was Googling around trying to find some information on the writer's strike, and I mostly found stories and editorials from the mainstream media about the strike, but what I wanted was an up-to-date snapshot as to exactly where we're at right now. Lo and behold, the best I came up with was this Wikipedia page:

2007 Writers Guild of America strike - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It would seem to me that some media outlets should learn from this model... What I wanted was a single static page that is constantly being updated. I don't want to wade through opinion pieces, and right now I don't know of many other media sources that do this sort of thing with any issue.

What do you think? Is the single static page idea like this sort of rare, or am I just not paying attention? Should more media sources be doing this sort of thing? Does it not seem odd that people are turning to an encyclopedia for news in this fashion?

[Ozmodiar]

Big Media has neither the time nor the resources to put together a single page of information regarding any single issue. The beauty of Wikipedia (and all wikis) is the collaboration: look at the history of the page you posted about and see how many different people have contributed to this article.

In a similar vein, how fair is it to even compare the two? "The news" exists solely to give you a snapshot of what's happening now whereas encyclopedias exist to provide an impartial narrative of what's already happened. While the writers' strike is a current event, the people contributing to the wiki are not reporters nor are they presenting original research (in fact, editors are forbidden from doing so).

Conversely, Wikipedia is not the ultimate source of all information. There is bias everywhere, and god forbid you piss off anyone in charge. Collaboration also gets messy: read the discussion of the article on hot dogs to see what I mean.

So, to answer your question, no. CNN is not missing out by not compiling all of their data on any given subject onto one page for us to read.

[besson3c]

Ozmodiar: interesting take. Why do you feel that CNN would not want to compete with the Wikipedia on a current issue like this? I don't understand this part of your argument.

[Ozmodiar]

I think the sheer amount of resources that went into that Wikipedia article make it implausible for CNN to deliver the same. Since the strike began there have been over one thousand edits to that article; news outlets simply lack the manpower to invest in anything that could rival Wikipedia in this sort of delivery of information.

It probably wouldn't take much for CNN to gather up all of the information on the writers' strike and dump it onto a page, but multiply that one page by 2,115,000 and you begin to approach the scope of a collaborative encyclopedia. Of course, CNN could start their own wiki but that would seem to me to be fairly redundant.

Edit for clarification: CNN starting a commercial (for-profit) wiki would be a turn off for the users and editors of Wikipedia, which lacks a real corporate face and solicits donations instead of selling ads (or content).