That famous journalistic “fact-checking” that makes newspapers so superior to blogs
AN Irish student’s fake quote on the Wikipedia online encyclopedia has been used in newspaper obituaries around the world, the Irish Times reports. The quote was attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre who died in March. Shane Fitzgerald, 22, a final-year student studying sociology and economics at University College Dublin, told the newspaper he placed the quote on the website as an experiment when doing research on globalisation.
He quoted Oscar-winning composer Jarre as saying, “One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. “When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear.”
The quote was posted on Wikipedia shortly after Jarre’s death and later appeared in obituaries in major British, Indian and Australian newspapers.
Mr Fitzgerald told the newspaper he picked Wikipedia because it was something a lot of journalists look at and it can be edited by anyone.
While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone’s death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote so as not to distort or taint Jarre’s life, he said.
Mr Fitzgerald said he was shocked by the result of his experiment. “I didn’t expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised about,” he said. He said the hoax remained undiscovered for weeks until he emailed the newspapers that had been deceived to tell them that they had published an inaccurate quote.
The Irish Times said that despite some newspapers removing the quote from their websites or carrying a correction and the fact that it had been dropped by Wikipedia, it remained intact on dozens of blogs, websites and newspapers.
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
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Posted by JonJayRay on May 7, 2009 9:11 am
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Fraud/misrepresentation, Journalistic Malpractice, News
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2 Responses to “That famous journalistic “fact-checking” that makes newspapers so superior to blogs”
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Shane Fitzgerald is a Wikipedia vandal. Lazy reporters are bad, but it is also bad to vandalize Wikipedia to make your point. I am so glad the he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone’s death as a social experiment – and then still decided to lie anyway.
Wikies get over it. It is a fake site for facts. “Facts” are not fabricated inventions. Move along.