For those who don't know, Wikipedia is an online collaborative encyclopedia. Rather than relying on a central cabal of editors to determine what merits inclusion (or even what's accurate), it allows anyone with an internet connection to create and edit articles. If you see missing information, you can add it. If yo usee something that's inaccurate, you can change it. You can also vandalize a page if you feel like it, making silly (or subtly wrong) edits. But odds are, someone will see it and revert the page back to its original state, restoring balance to the universe.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster, and there certainly are cases where inaccurate information is included. For the most part, though, it works. In fact, it works best when covering highly controversial topics -- something that traditional media and traditional 'authoritative sources' are worst at. The more controversial a given topic is, the more people care about it -- and the more they pore over every word of a Wikipedia article, demanding citations and sources, finessing language, and excising bias. Just look at the edit histories and discussion pages for a few of its hot-button articles.

It's clearly not perfect, and anyone doing serious research would be well-advised to use Wikipedia as a springboard for further digging rather than a single authoritative source. Still, the strength of this approach has been proven. If Wikipedia ever dies, another will rise to take its place.