Posted on 05/12/2009 12:24:06 PM PDT by wrrock
When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.
His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.
They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia quickly caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it, but not quickly enough to keep some journalists from cutting and pasting it first.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
A lie goes all the way around the world before the truth can get it’s pants on.
Kind of makes you wonder how much impact Snopes.com has.
Really, you can’t read anything anymore without wondering if it’s true. If it’s something vital to you, look up the references, and check on it. The journalists won’t do it these days, obviously. I doubt that they will have a big change of heart about double checking their information.
I’ve seen some study abstracts that directly contradicted the results of the testing.
I checked Wiki to see what was written about a notorious relative of mine and the information was incorrect.
Kind of shocking but not surprising and it’s long been noted that wiki is full of crappy.
So, waddaya think? Will Shane be “found guilty” for setting and baiting the trap, or will all the lazy journo-weasels take the hit?
Just curious if anyone made sure that the quote was used, before writing with glee about how some other journalists got caught fishing their story material out of Wikipedia.
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