I decided to start with the conclusion just in case you won’t have the patience to read the whole article. But I think you should read all the way down: in the world of „alternative news”, knowing who and when to trust is a much needed skill.
I’ll show you how the recent protests in Romania were reflected in the Wikipedia article . I’ll try to keep my examples from the English Wikipedia for the sake of accessibility, but the same applies to the Romanian Wikipedia, and very likely to any other language version of the website. We’ll then try to learn more from the coverage of other breaking news in the past, and I’ll give you a few pointers on how to use these articles (in spite of the title).
So, what happens on Wikipedia when something noteworthy appears in the news? First, an article is created. Then, if the news is really big, such as the protests, it’s added to the front page . Then on comes the usual wiki-work: interested wikipedians (along with hordes of anonymous users, with various different interests, stated or not) start to tweak , enhance and modify the news item and the article, trying to follow on the basic policies of Wikipedia: neutral point of view and verifiability .