Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Uncredible Wiki? Who knew?

This is the very reason teachers and professors don't consider Wikipedia to be a credible source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Irish-student-hoaxes-worlds-apf-15201451.html?.v=1

Apparently Dublin University student Shane Fitzgerald posted a fake quote by Maurice Jarre shortly after his death. The quote showed up on blogs and news articles around the world. An entire month went by without anyone saying a thing.

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

Everyone in journalism, learn from this...

"I didn't want to be devious," he said. "I just wanted to show how the 24-hour, minute-by-minute media were now taking material straight from Wikipedia because of the deadline pressure they're under."

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, Wiki is the worst. I mean, it's a nice go to every now and then, but don't believe everything you read. I did Wiki work for my job a bit ago and you'd never imagine how much awful stuff is written on there. (High school kids love to graffiti the site with wrong information)

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