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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Journalists who rely on Wikipedia

It looks as if some reporters who wrote about the late British comic actor, Norman Wisdom, have learned – assuming they actually gave a shit in the first place – that using Wikipedia as your source for information is a high-risk strategy.

Doh.

16 comments to Journalists who rely on Wikipedia

  • manuel II paleologos

    I happened to be watching Sky News yesterday when they actually asked Vera Lynn live over the phone about his composition and she gracefully but decisively dismissed it.

    You wonder whether anyone would have noticed if Dame Vera herself hadn’t still been around to squash the story. It so nearly became history.

    In fact, perhaps Sky had got her on the phone specifically because they thought it was his song? I wonder. But then I’m idly speculating now too – perhaps I should write for Wikipedia.

  • The problem that I have with GramscoStaliNazis, who eagerly and acively infest our teaching system in the UK, is as follows:

    (1) the “teachers” say to the students that “Wikipedia cannot be used for it is unreliable, since “anyone can edit it”…
    (2) the same teachers say that “if Wikipedia says that the Americans landed on the Moon, then it’s untrue because it was all shot in a studio in Arizona”…”come on, you know that, children!”…”How cold the Americans have got to the Moon in 1969? Impossible, we don’t even go now!….”

    I edited the “Peter Pienaar” page about 40 hours ago.

    You can look at it.

    See if you think I am wrong.

  • assuming they actually gave a shit in the first place

    Well, it’s not like this is a very serious mistake, or irreversible one, so…Also, mistakes like this (and much worse) can happen if one relies on “serious” sources as well, although probably/hopefully less often. Bottom line, mistakes will happen, we are all human and all that. Am I missing something?

  • Well, it is and it isn’t, Johnathan. On some topics, e.g. the Hindenberg, it’s fine. On non-controversial topics it’s fine.

    If one already goes in with some knowledge and wants the fine detail, it’s possible to sort that out in many cases.

    It’s going in blindly which is the problem.

  • Dale Amon

    It is usually a very good over view on anything technical, but agreed, but for an actual working journalist one would expect two sources were still needed to verify something because even interviewing two people who were involved with a given technology or event you might get wildly different details.

    Wikipedia is self correcting in many areas; one must recognize that there are some very contentious areas with battling ideologies that have very different views. But I imagine any Samizdata reader would have their spidey sense a-tingling immediately on any of those…

  • Laird

    It seems to me that whether or not he actually wrote the lyrics to a song popular 70 years ago isn’t important enough to fact-check. One source is fine; if it turns out to be wrong just run a correction. Totally immaterial, and it’s silly to make a fuss over it.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Laird, the issue at hand may be minor (unless it is about you, in which case it obviously isn’t!); the problem is what it reveals about the fact-checking habits of MSM journalists.

    Of course, a quick correction can be made, as it should.

    I quite like W. for certain topics that I know a bit about already; I tend often to look at the source material and the references. For instance, its coverage of banking and finance is often pretty good.

  • It seems to me that whether or not he actually wrote the lyrics to a song popular 70 years ago isn’t important enough to fact-check. One source is fine; if it turns out to be wrong just run a correction. Totally immaterial, and it’s silly to make a fuss over it.

    Wrong. We hear all the time how essential the MSM are because they are the guardians of truth etc. If they are this careless on this issue, what makes you think they are any less careless on other issues that might matter to you? And by the way, it is not immaterial to me. You find it silly? A bit patronising.

  • If they are this careless on this issue, what makes you think they are any less careless on other issues that might matter to you?

    Absolutely. But then, what makes you think that anyone else who is not MSM is any less careless? We love to hate the MSM here, and rightly so, but I would choose my battles on this, and I wouldn’t pick this one. What Laird said: this is a non-story, even to a person for whom it matters – a simple correction makes it disappear.

  • Oh, and on Wikipedia: it is free, it is independent and it is awesome – and so there is a price to be paid for this. Besides, one should always double-check anything important anyway, even if it is from Britannica.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Alisa, indeed, but that is all the more reason why MSM journalists – who, let’s not forget, tend to be sniffy about the internet – should be more careful. Of course blogs and other New Media make mistakes; the issue is about folk using multiples sources and exercising a bit of caveat emptor, and then correcting stuff in transparent ways. Which is what we do here, for instance. If I fuck up, I tend to put up an Update note on the bottom of a post and issue the correction.

  • What Laird said: this is a non-story, even to a person for whom it matters – a simple correction makes it disappear.

    Far from a non-story. This was a high profile person in the UK, not some obscure actor no one has heard of. He was comparable to, say, Jerry Lewis in the USA. And it was wrong information about something deeply embedded in the culture and Britain’s view of the WWII era. That you do not get that means you are almost certainly not English and therefore probably not a good judge of the significence.

  • Laird

    “the problem is what it reveals about the fact-checking habits of MSM journalists.”

    I won’t defend the “fact-checking habits of MSM journalists”, but I don’t think this example really speaks to that issue. That’s because, as I said before, it’s so completely unimportant. I wouldn’t have bothered getting multiple sources on that tidbit of information, either. Whether that means the reporter does or doesn’t scrupulously double-check other, more important, facts simply isn’t answered by this one example.

  • MSM journalists – who, let’s not forget, tend to be sniffy about the internet

    They still do? I dunno, I seem to have noticed that recently they even learned to embed links to other sites in their articles – I was very impressed;-P

  • That you do not get that means you are almost certainly not English

    It’s my bloody accent, innit…:-O

    Seriously John, I see your point, and the issue may well be more significant than I thought, but you’d have to agree that it is still very far from life-and-death or something. Humans make mistakes, the MSM are humans (or so I’m told) – I rest my case.

  • mehere

    Oh no, say it ain’t so! My students all use Wikipedia for everything on their computer course. Even the stuff they don’t understand they paste in.

    They even paste in errors without spellchecking them. But hey, it saves time when there are games to be played and text messages to send and anyway it’s so handy, innit?

    So now motherboards will be named as the source for N. Wisdom’s jokes.