This is what the new journalism looks like

The story is told using headings such as "Background", "Aftermath", "Casualties", "International response" and "External links". It has been written for people who need to get facts right now as well for as researchers, students and future historians, who will be looking for information about the event a decade from now.

If you have a moment, take a look at the Wikipedia entry on the earthquake in Haiti. This is a new kind of news writing. Instead of narrative and anecdote, there are statistics, and every fact is supported by a link to its source.

How is it done? Well, the Wikipedia community have been at this for so long that they have ready-made pages (and workflow processes). So as soon as a disaster involving geology, geography and politics happens, an entry is created that looks like one that describes a similar catastrophe. Then, the unknown people doing the work turn the stream of data into what will become the most visited page on the internet about this event. Because Wikipedia is made of links, nearly every sentence in the entry has links to other entries on Wikipedia. And in the "Reference" and the "External links" sections, you'll find dozens of links to news stories and aid organizations.

Yes, Wikipedia is built on the work of others, but unlike Google or Bing, Wikipedia is a non-profit organization. It's also a wiki, which means that The New York Times, for example, can annotate the entry and explain why it disagrees with the use of its material. Also, anyone who edits a Wikipedia entry must follow its guidelines, one of which is to not upload copyrighted material.

And one more thing: Less than 48 hours after the earthquake, the Wikipedia entry on the Haiti earthquake had been translated into more than 30 different languages, including Arabic, Tagalog and Welsh.