View Full Version : Wikipedia Hoax
Team Sergeant
05-07-2009, 16:59
If it's on Wikipedia it must be true! NOT.
This young student has now proved what I've been saying about Wikipedia for years... TS
Student's Wikipedia Hoax Fools Newspapers
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Print ShareThisDUBLIN — "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head," Oscar-winning French composer Maurice Jarre once said, according to several newspapers reporting his death in March.
However, the quotation was invented by an Irish student who posted it on the Wikipedia website in a hoax designed to show the dangers of relying too heavily on the Internet for information.
Shane Fitzgerald made up quotes and entered them on Wikipedia — an encyclopedia edited by users — immediately after Jarre's death was first reported on March 30.
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The 22-year-old sociology and economics student at University College Dublin said he had expected blogs and perhaps small newspapers to use the quotes but did not believe major publications would rely on Wikipedia without further checks.
"I was wrong. Quality newspapers in England, India, America and as far away as Australia had my words in their reports of Jarre's death," Fitzgerald wrote in an article in Thursday's Irish Times newspaper.
Britain's Guardian was one title that had to correct its obituary, saying the fake quotes appeared to have originated on Wikipedia before being duplicated on other websites.
"The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the Guardian's readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519283,00.html
It's just like the eight glasses of water a day myth... LINK (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/02/eveningnews/main3991145.shtml?source=mostpop_story)
Really good references are difficult to find. Even the best sources sometimes include material with questionable conclusions. And once one departs from those and into the realm of web pages and blogs, there is lots of opportunity for trouble. (and yes, I know, CBS is hardly what anyone could call a "best" source.)
Just one more advantage of a forum where some standards are maintained. ;)
olhamada
05-07-2009, 17:47
"The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the Guardian's readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth.
You know, I saw this earlier today and thought of you and TR. :D
rubberneck
05-07-2009, 18:44
100 years from now I wonder if historians will be able to pin point the exact date when journalism died. With all the resources available to journalists they chose to take the easy way out and rely on Wikipedia. If I were the editor of one of the papers who was forced to print a correction over the use of Wikipedia someone would be out of a job. On that note, kudos to the reporters for their professional behavior.:rolleyes:
monsterhunter
05-07-2009, 18:47
This doesn't suprise me at all. It appears as though the mainstream media, along with the liberal left, are all about what they want to believe. Facts and logic have no place in today's politics and media.
100 years from now I wonder if historians will be able to pin point the exact date when journalism died. With all the resources available to journalists they chose to take the easy way out and rely on Wikipedia. If I were the editor of one of the papers who was forced to print a correction over the use of Wikipedia someone would be out of a job. On that note, kudos to the reporters for their professional behavior.:rolleyes:
I’m sure that they will be able to; I’m just not sure that they will.
Burnwood and Wordstein, in conjunction with the burgeoning activist movements in colleges, lead to activist journalism after Watergate.
Plus, in the 70s, (and I think this is the big reason) every reporter started getting a byline. This meant that they had to face their friends, family, and peers and be confronted with their work product.
Sorry ladies, I have to add this too. The recruitment of female reporters brought “feelings” into the reporting rather than experience.
I calls ‘em as I saw ‘em. I was a TV director in the early 70s.
Pat
Puertoland
05-07-2009, 22:44
A while back, Wikipedia said Clint Eastwood died of a heart attack. News websites began popping up saying it had been confirmed by local authorities.
Only for him to pop up on tv talking about his next movie coming out....
If it's on Wikipedia it must be true! NOT.
I once saw a Wikipedia entry showing a specific O-4 MAJ as the commander of USASOC. Don't know who sent it in the entry replacing the O-9 LTG, but it was there for a while.
Dozer523
05-08-2009, 03:40
If it's on Wikipedia it must be true! NOT.
If it's on Wikipedia it should be true. Because the foundation of wikipedia is honesty.
This young student has now proved what I've been saying about Wikipedia for years... TS Unfontunatley , what you've been saying, TS is true but we cannot fault Wikipedia. Wikipedia honestly repeated what it was told assuing the underlying foundation, that posts are honest.
Shane Fitzgerald may be clever, but he is also a liar. Shane Fitzgerald may have intended to demonstrate "the dangers of relying too heavily on the Internet for information." But the Internet didn't lie Shane Fitzgerald did.
Shane Fitzgerald made up quotes and entered them on Wikipedia — an encyclopedia edited by users — immediately after Jarre's death was first reported on March 30. Shane Fitzgerald lied about quotes.
The 22-year-old sociology and economics student at University College Dublin is a liar, has too much time on his hands, too little knowledge and experience in his head and too much meanness in his heart and, probably, too much research grant in his pocket.
"I was wrong." Well, at least he got that part right. But he was wrong only to indicate that nothing can be trusted, no one can be trusted, nothing is real until verified.
"The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the Guardian's readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth. That I agree with, professionals should make sure they are using good tools. (although how to check the dying words of one individual, escapes me. Especially when they sort of sound like what we would like and be inspired by. Seems for different purposes we often make up comforting 'last moment scenarios". Take the stories that came out of Columbine.)
Feel free to post that my last words were "Shane Fitzgerald is liar and a pathetic little punk who wasted our time and tried to prove that people are dishonest by being dishonest himself."
"Rumors of my death are greatly exagerated." And I am going back to bed now.
.02
I like wikipedia for an initial, big picture, perspective on a new topic. Most articles are pretty good about citing their sources at the bottom of the page.
ZonieDiver
05-08-2009, 14:31
Talk about timely...
Today's "Dilbert" cartoon:
http://www.cartoonbreak.info/dilbert/comic-for-may-8-2009-1041.html
Sorry ladies, I have to add this too. The recruitment of female reporters brought “feelings” into the reporting rather than experience.
I calls ‘em as I saw ‘em. I was a TV director in the early 70s.
Pat
Pat,
Touche'! However, "Metallica," the band, also brought "feelings" into their recordings in recent years...yet no Women that I know of were brought into the group to play!:D
Just a bit of perspective, as in my very small tiny opinion, the MSM just follwed Their lead, and went with it!
I mean come on, what man, (and some women,) do not enjoy the blonde, leggy, short-skirt wearing "Reporter" that say Fox news has on today? It is serious journalism after all!:cool:
hehehe--->just poking fun,
Holly
In any case, wiki is worthless, IMHO.
greenberetTFS
05-08-2009, 16:13
If it's on Wikipedia it must be true! NOT.
If it's on Wikipedia it should be true. Because the foundation of wikipedia is honesty.
Two people I respect very much with two very different view points on Wikipedia....:confused: Personally I think Wikipedia can and sometimes is manipulated....:rolleyes: That said I also think that on this particular issue they are being lead down the garden path......;)
GB TFS :munchin
armymom1228
05-09-2009, 05:22
If it's on Wikipedia it must be true! NOT.
If it's on Wikipedia it should be true. Because the foundation of Wikipedia is honesty.
Two people I respect very much with two very different view points on Wikipedia....Personally I think Wikipedia can and sometimes is manipulated....:rolleyes: That said I also think that on this particular issue they are being lead down the garden path......;)
GB TFS :munchin
Can be? Is manipulated by those who use Wiki for their own purposes or just to generate untruths.
I agree with both Dozer and TS. I have seen excellent articles and found links that were most useful. OTOH>.. I found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/Wiki/Black_panthers
I was around during that time...they were, most assuredly, NOT benign creatures.
The fact that wiki is open to everyone and _anyone_ can change an entry has it good and bad points. Good in the sense that info that needs to be added cn be, bad in that info that should not be there is. :rolleyes:
With regards to Journalism. True journalism, the kind that keeps us accurately and impartially informed died when journalists allowed their personal and political views to cloud what they reported. It died when, as Bob Redford said in Lions to Lambs, when the doings of a pop princess became more important to report than what is going on around the world that affects us as both a nation and a people. Speaking of journalism, that movie makes that point in a rather good way. Unfortunately many who saw the movie missed that and several other good points.
AM
Very good point. I like to check the discussions for entries on Wikipedia to see the debate of the references used. Then I research those and I've always thought the information is dumbed down for the average user.