“The verses of some national anthems were inadvertently pasted into the page templates of other countries. Thus, stretching global fraternity and sorority, the people of Brunei were held to sing - on the website, though not on the printed page - of their willingness to fight for Albania (18 April, guardian.co.uk). The Solomon Islands were found singing of freedom from slavery in words that actually belong to Belize (24 April, page 21).
“On their arrival in abandoned Barbados in 1627, British settlers “found the island uninhibited” (18 April, page 18). The series website has corrected versions of these and other pages: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/series/country-profiles” - The Guardian
Fun With Photos
“In yesterday’s article in the print edition, ‘Britain’s least wanted’, by mistake we published a picture of D. Al-Boutti , instead of a picture of ‘Safwat Hijazi, televangalist’. Dr Al-Boutti is a highly reputable Syrian Muslim scholar and of course would not appear on a banned list. We apologize to Dr Al-Boutti for our error.” Independent (U.K.)
Parting Shot
“Incorrect information was published in ‘O’Donnell-land’ (cover story, April 9). Darren O’Donnell spent three days in Toronto General hospital, not three months. He has neither experienced nor has he been diagnosed with schizophrenia. EYE WEEKLY regrets the errors.” – Eye Weekly (Canada)
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This happened with John Madden's wikipedia entry too. Somebody wrote bogus information about him starting his coaching career at Buffalo State College during the early 1960s.
http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/story/647457.html
FWIW am a Buffalo State grad, and the school didn't have a football program until the early 1980s.
Posted by Hardrada on Fri 8 May 2009 at 06:52 PM
I'm a volunteer press contact for Wikimedia in the UK, so I talk to a lot of journalists. I think every media person I've spoken to in the last four years uses Wikipedia as their handy universal backgrounder.
The thing is, of course, that journalism can reasonably be described as how to process good-but-unreliable sources. So journalists *should* be able to cope with Wikipedia just fine - scepticism should come with the job.
Reference loops - where a Wikipedia article references a news story and it turns out the news story got the detail from an earlier version of the Wikipedia article - also happen. Slightly red faces all around and a note on the talk page :-)
Like journalists, Wikipedia editors are highly imperfect and know it, and we're all just doing our best to do something worth doing.
Posted by David Gerard on Sat 9 May 2009 at 07:39 AM
You rightly criticse journalists for their sloppy reliance on Wikipedia, but your post would be slightly more credible if it did not contain a basic factual error itself. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the German "finance" minister you refer to for his part in a Wikipedia hoax, is in fact the minister of the economy. Where do you check your facts? Evidently not Wikipedia - their entry at least has his job description right...
Posted by TB on Sun 10 May 2009 at 03:45 PM
Yes, TB -- a truly damaging objection. Surely, describing the German minister of the economy as minister of finance is a deeply misleading and treacherous equivocation. I assume your meticulous fact-checking did not overlook Webster's (or any other dictionary's) definitions of finance (the system that includes the circulation of money, the granting of credit, the making of investments, and the provision of banking facilities) and economy (the structure of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services). Although, as I write this, the two terms actually seem to be synonymous. That's odd. I should do some more fact-checking: let's take a look at Wikipedia: "A minister of finance (also called financial affairs, the treasury, the economy, or economic affairs)..." Well, this is indeed troubling. No source is attached to this line in the entry, so I guess I'll remain just as confused as you seem to be, TB.
Posted by BNE on Tue 12 May 2009 at 01:17 AM
BNE - Well done for providing me with a dictionary definition of finance. I never knew. The point is that Germany, like myriad other countries, actually has a minister of finance (Peer Steinbrueck) as well as a minister for the economy (Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg). Mixing them up is the same as confusing the US commerce secretary with the secretary of the treasury. It's hardly a big deal, but worth correcting in a post about factual errors and unreliable sourcing.
Posted by TB on Tue 12 May 2009 at 07:32 AM
On October 9, 2008, and the days leading up to it, every business reporter on the networks reported that it was the one-year anniversary of the first time in history that the DOW broke the 14,000 mark. This, after all, was easily checked on Wikipedia, which was saying at the time that it broke 14,000 for the first time on October 9, 2007..
The DOW actually broke 14,000 for the first time almost three months earlier, on July, 19, 2007. This fact could have easily been checked--at the original sources--by the business reporters or their support staff without ever leaving their browser-windows.
I'm sure the ANONYMOUS contributors to Wikipedia didn't intentionally get it wrong. Sometimes they just get distracted, for example, when their moms call them down for dinner.
Posted by Stosh on Sat 25 Jul 2009 at 12:19 PM
I am not surprised this works, after all for it to be correct requires that someone verify the information which is far from trivial. Especially with a quote it can be hard to track down exactly whether the quote was said or not, if they had changed a hard fact like his birthdate I would imagine it would have been reverted much more quickly. deer repellent
Posted by Mat on Thu 3 Sep 2009 at 04:29 AM