Live on Wikipedia: Jennifer Dunn dies

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Live on Wikipedia: Jennifer Dunn dies

Criticize Wikipedia on its accuracy, but not on its speed.

At 9:12 a.m., minutes before P-I reporter Neil Modie learned about Jennifer Dunn's death, and before it had hit any news site or could be found on a Google News search, the former Congresswoman's death had already been reported on Wikipedia.

Its source? It was added at 9:19 -- a breaking news alert from Twitter.

To Wikipedia's credit, someone caught the dubiousness of that source within four minutes and removed the death date. At 9:22, it was gone.

Then, at 9:25, the date was back -- this time as a sentence to start off the entry:

It was taken off yet again at 9:29 and came back at 9:31 within the parentheses, but without a citation.

That came at 9:33. A citation everyone could agree with -- us. There were no further changes, except to add details to the circumstances of her death.

Wikipedia, it seems, works very much like a newsroom, except for one key difference: It doesn't wait until something is confirmed to report it. Thanks to the Wikipedia model of reliability, however, a discerning reader can tell the difference between a credible report (which includes a citation and link to a credible report from a credible source) and uncredible rumor (a lack of citation or a link to an uncredible report).

Still, the fact remains -- Wikipedia got the information out publicly before the news outlets did.

What do you think this says about the value of the site to the public forum?

Posted by at September 5, 2007 10:20 a.m.
Categories: Cultural comment, News updates

Comments

#49800

Posted by Ang-nonymo-us at 9/5/07 10:31 a.m.

Wikipedia rocks. Is it 100% accurate every time? No, but then again neither is the PI...

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#49908

Posted by unregistered user at 9/5/07 5:30 p.m.

Neither the PI or Wikipedia may always be accurate, but at least most errors at Wikipedia are eventually fixed. PI errors are rarely admitted. Most recent example: Anti- I-960 disinformation.

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#49920

Posted by Dogmandeux at 9/5/07 6:31 p.m.

"Wikipedia, it seems, works very much like a newsroom, except for one key difference: It doesn't wait until something is confirmed to report it."

A newsroom waits for what? That's funny!

Example: last October the PI published a Neil Modie report that was chock-full of erroneous information including this:

"600 people -- three times as many as the number of daffodil and tulip bulbs buried Sunday -- have died in gun violence in Washington just this year."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/289641_violence23.html

The PI newsroom could not have confirmed that wild statistic because the 2006 injury data wasn't available by 10/06 -- and won't be available until next year; once it is cleared, it will show between 100 and 130 gun-related homicides for all of 2006 - not "600" - in WA state. In fact the data will be posted here (Centers for Disease Control database):
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

The key difference between The PI and Wikipedia seems to be that one of them at least makes an effort to acknowledge its errors and omissions.

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#50201

Posted by unregistered user at 9/7/07 1:34 a.m.

Newsrooms do not wait for information to be confirmed. Otherwise, newspapers would not have posted for the past 9 months the false information that Wikipedia was starting a search engine. The Wikimedia Foundation issued a press release saying that it was not starting a search engine, but apparently reporters cannot even read.

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#55780

Posted by unregistered user at 10/3/07 7:21 p.m.

Ms. Guzman, have you ever wondered about the Wikipedia errors no one notices or the kind of reality Wikipedia agrees on through "consensus"? Guzman dead can be checked within moments, but the average user does not have the expertise to check details in most articles and active Wikipedia editors have an agenda they follow:

www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/09/wikiped
ia_letters/

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#85342

Posted by unregistered user at 1/14/08 7:03 a.m.

"active Wikipedia editors have an agenda they follow"
so speaks someone who hasn't really been there or understood it.

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