Is ‘official’ crisis communication in a crisis of its own?

Eyewitnesses tweet and report instantaneously; the public info chief must adapt to survive

Let me ask the question this way: Is there a future for encyclopedia writers in the age of Wikipedia? It used to be that encyclopedia publishers would engage the skills and knowledge of verified experts to provide the content for everything from how quarks work to the history of the bowling ball.

Today, I don’t think there are very many people employed today in writing the World Book (I grew up on that great encyclopedia!) or the Britannica. In part because the knowledge that people seek is readily available online, and in part because the new form of encyclopedia—Wikipedia—has engaged the assistance of millions of experts rather than just a few.

If you are quick to say, yes, but the Britannica is to be trusted but Wikipedia is not, I’m afraid you are wrong. What this new form of knowledge sharing has demonstrated is something now called “collective intelligence” where individual people may make mistakes, but if enough people participate those mistakes are often rooted out and corrected. Wikipedia has been demonstrated to be as credible as “professional” encyclopedias.