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The Washington Note on C-Span Tonight, 7 p.m. Eastern
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Friday, Jan 13 2006, 8:27AM
If you have the time and interest, watch for an interesting program this evening on C-Span featuring John Siegenthaler, a distinguished journalist and first editorial page editor at USA Today as well as the founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University; Jim Brady, Executive Editor of Washington Post.com, and Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation and The Washington Note on the topic, "The Reliability of Online News and Information Services."
The show is moderated by the insightful regular anchor of C-Span's Close Up Program John Milewski.
I was there. It's a very interesting program and deals with the recent controversy of John Siegenthaler's Wikipedia biographical entry being sabotaged by all kinds of false and defamatory material alleging his connection to the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy as well as other falsehoods. The program also discusses blog content and sourcing.
More later.
-- Steve Clemons
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Quite the tie...
Very well done.
Just missed it, I caught the host's closing comments.
That whole John Siegenthaler thing sounds a bit kooky to me, though. I think most people became aware of this "scurrilous" mistatement of fact because it got such widespread coverage in the mainstream press. How many people looked up "John Siegenthaler" on Wikipedia before this whole rumble? How many looked it up afterwards?
Wikipedia is just an open-source public encyclopedia. Anybody can fix the mistakes, and you can do so quite authoritatively if subject of the Wikipedia entry is yourself. He should have at least given that a try before filing a lawsuit and penning an ego piece for USA Today.
I caught parts of the show. Nice job Steve.
Wikipedia is interesting but not an encyclopedia or even a reliable source. On the whole I lean toward support of anonymity on the internet. Though we end up with some lousy information we do get more information. The trick is having the acumen to sift through it all and get to the truth... but hasn't that always been?
I will endeavor not to be the one in one hundred here. (smile)
The students really impressed me. I wish all the young people were as bright as that group appeared to be.
Anybody can fix the mistakes, and you can do so quite authoritatively if subject of the Wikipedia entry is yourself.
Actually, Wikipedia has an unwritten rule that discourages subjects of articles from editing their content. (Number-fiddling 'econometrician' John Lott is a notorious self-editor, using the same sock-puppet tactics he's employed elsewhere.)
So Siegenthaler was in something of a bind, and the Wikipedia community should have been more responsive.
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