Abstract

Wikipedia, as a story teller of the key events that mark a certain time period, has a strong influence on that time's memory. However, the construction of the encyclopedia's entries on these events, i.e. on breaking news, has been given little scholarly attention. This article focuses on the discussion pages of entries on terrorist attacks in Europe. The typical dilemmas of their journalistic coverage recur in Wikipedia, from the definition of terrorism to the balance between promptness and accuracy, among others. Notwithstanding, a «tertiary source» like Wikipedia present them in a peculiar and sometime paradoxical fashion.