Wikipedia

[asterroc]

Gawd. This is just horrible - it's not just my students who are internet illiterate. A student studying media tests Wikipedia's influence by vandalizing the page of a recently deceased musician with a falsified quote. The Wikipedia page is pretty quickly reverted, however journalists worldwide cite the quote in their obituaries of the musician. After a month passed without any of the fakes being caught, the student finally contacted the newspapers. Many did not alter their incorrect obituaries, many removed the incorrect quote but made no other changes, and only one publicly acknowledged their error.

Comments

[captain-risu.livejournal.com]

LOL. that's really funny :P

[fireaphid.livejournal.com]

Woah, this really gets to me! In high school, we had a problem with people citing Wikipedia for things that turned out to be false, but I wasn't aware of the extent to which people do that in the real world. Also, it's pretty despicable for those papers to not issue corrections. . . I mean, whatever happened to journalistic integrity?