Here are a few pagraphs that I plan to add to my Academic Legal Writing book on this subject; comments are welcome.
Over two hundred student articles cite the online Wikipedia encyclopedia. Unlike with most encyclopedias, anyone is allowed to create Wikipedia entries, and generally to update existing entries. An unorthodox approach for an encycloped, but the theory is that (1) those people who want to spend time writing entries tend to be knowledgeable, and (2) even when they err, the errors end up getting corrected by others.
Surprisingly, the theory works, most of the time. Wikipedia entries tend to be relatively accurate, probably no worse and possibly better than the typical newspaper article. (This is especially so given that many newspaper articles are written by generalist reporters who are relying on hastily assembled materials from others.)
Nonetheless, while Wikipedia may sometimes be a good place to look, I advise you not to stop looking there. Instead, find the original sources that the Wikipedia entry