Camille Ricketts’ second story assignment for the Stanford Daily as a lowly freshman writer in 2002 was to write about students finding it difficult to complete multiple majors. “It was almost impossible,” recalls Ricketts, now a senior and the Editor in Chief of the Daily. “I was a freshman and knew hardly any upperclassmen.”

Today Ricketts might have found her article much easier to research, thanks largely in part to the wildly-popular Facebook.com.

“Facebook would have saved me so much trouble on that story,” Ricketts said. “I could have just looked up people with multiple majors to speak to.”

Facebook — started in February 2004 by Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg — is a staple on college students’ Web browsers across the country, boasting more than four million users at over 2,000 institutions. Facebook now employs a gaggle of Stanford students and is based in Palo Alto.

While many agree that Facebook has shaken the college social scene with its ubiquitous popularity, those on the staff of college newspapers can also appreciate how the Web site has revolutionized the world of college journalism.

“Facebook.com helps us get things right,” added sophomore Sal Umberto Bonaccorso, a news desk editor for The Daily. “And make sure they’re right.”

Duke freshman Josh Chapin, a staff writer for the Duke Chronicle, said he uses Facebook “at least once an article.”

Bonaccorso also called the Facebook, “an amazing resource for reporters” because of its ease in sorting students based on their interests and finding sources for specific topics.

“I wrote an article about the return of Lobster Night, an old tradition,” said Harvard sophomore Sam Teller. “I went to the Facebook group ‘Harvard Coalition for the Return of Lobster Night’ and was able to see the number of members.”

Facebook not only saves time for fact-gathering but also for editing and fact-checking. For example, most college papers cite information on a quoted student. Like many others, the Daily provides each quoted student’s year at Stanford.

“Before Facebook,” explains Ricketts. “We’d always have a murderous time accounting for everyone’s class or year.”

Added Bonaccorso, “The advantage of Facebook is that it allows editors to fact-check articles with ease.” Bonaccorso explained a task such as verifying the spelling of a name or double-checking a dubious quotation, “can simply be looked up on Facebook.”

The Georgetown Hoya supplies what year and which of Georgetown’s schools quoted students are from, according to freshman Meg Charlton, guide editor for The Hoya. Charlton recalled having quoted a girl without knowing her school or year and instead of, “being creepy and calling or e-mailing her,” Charlton was able to find her information on the Facebook.

On their individual profiles, students can list anything from their year and major to favorite movie or quotes. The Facebook generally allows users to view the profiles of any student at the same school. As The Harvard Crimson’s Facebook beat reporter, Teller observed, “Students invest a lot in their Facebook [profiles] so it can be very useful.”

The more information students provide, the more helpful it can be for college student journalists.

University of Virginia freshman Maria McLemore, a staff writer for The Cavalier Daily reported using the Facebook, “a lot, for contact information: phone numbers and instant messenger screennames.”

College reporters often find Facebook a first resource, with vast amounts of information and the useful ability to sort students based on a variety of criteria.

“What is nice about Facebook,” added Chapin. “is that it provides the unbelievable ability to find anybody at a school.”

Ricketts added, “There are countless examples where the easiest thing to do is just log on to Facebook and search for a narrow slice of the student body that fits an article’s needs.”

In many ways, the Facebook is another example of technology making life a little easier. Chapin likens Facebook to instant messaging: “Do we need it? No. But is it convenient? Yes.”

But some concern exists that tools like Facebook may lead to laziness on the part of reporters.

“I think it has gotten to the point where it is overused,” Teller said. “It maybe has become a not meaningful substitute for reporting. It is tempting to stop right there. Facebook is much better used as a launching pad for other reporting than as an end itself.”

Others maintain that the Facebook is dependable and rich with information.

“How else are you going to contact someone you don’t know so quickly besides with Facebook.com?” McLemore explained. “We have a saying: college journalism must have been nonexistent before Facebook.”