Student hoaxes world's media on Wikipedia

Student hoaxes world's media on Wikipedia

www.msnbc.m sn.com

DUBLIN — When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.
His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.
The sociology major's made-up quote — which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 — flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Of all places, I'm sure no one here puts full faith into the media, but as journalism as a whole fails, so do the alternative sources we get information from.

It's terrible that we have to read information with doubts of authenticity, but I think it's even worse that journalism has become so cookie-cutter in this day and age.

Writers used to put quality into their work, now they are replaceable by a copy-and-paste auto-crawler robot. At least, a robot could be forgiven.

I wonder if anything in this article has been falsely stated. Wouldn't that be irony?

www.msnbc.m sn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Hey, great catch OP.. Just passing through on something when I caught this. Another to set aside for my college people. I can hear them now.....

"...And this, is why we never, ever, ever use Wikipedia as a source!"

After having someone yesterday literally argue in defense of using Wiki for sourcing financial data, I couldn't help but set aside what I was doing to hop over. I've seen a stack of material they show everyone to explain WHY using Wiki to source so much as the name of a public figure will get work at college failed on the spot. Nothing I can really 'source' to share though, obviously. This is just text book for making the point though. What is scary though is how WELL his experiment worked. I wonder how many media stories we read every day that DO use sources as worthless as Wiki as a primary for details? I'm glad we all distrust MSM already. This would have done it otherwise.

Timely and good!

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


Whale oil beef hooked!

God bless the Irish

This is the golden bullet against all the "source" trolls on the interwebz.

S&F

Totally hilarious they didn't check if what was on wiki had a source?
Fail, even I here at ATS am held to a higher standard. I always gotta have sources to
back me up. The MSM has no credibility at all...

Nice to know that wiki at least has standards and requires citations. And you can call
anything into dispute, as long as you know what's up of course.

I am a huge fan of wiki and following up sources though.

Just goes to show that everyone needs to investigate the truth and source of the article and do not take what is presented on a silver plate as being edible.

That is why most intelligent people only use places like wiki as a starting point to find better sources, if at all.

Journalism today is like a mutated monster of what it once was. Speed trumps accuracy, inaccuracies are often not even spotted by the mass idiots that read them, so no big deal. In the event people do notice, well a tiny apology or retraction on page 10 will do.

The libraries are mostly empty except for the computer stalls usually.
Its free and you can learn about anything. Nice and calm relaxed
atmosphere, and they will order things for you if they don't have it.

This is testament to what has become of our society. You can see the signs everywhere
around us.

But that isn't the way the future has to be.

Pick up a book, newspaper, magazine, manual, anything, and read it to a kid.
Please, tomorrow read something to a kid. Get them to follow along and read it too.

If you choose TV instead ill figure it out and be very disappointed.

Originally posted by TKDRL
That is why most intelligent people only use places like wiki as a starting point to find better sources, if at all.

Journalism today is like a mutated monster of what it once was. Speed trumps accuracy, inaccuracies are often not even spotted by the mass idiots that read them, so no big deal. In the event people do notice, well a tiny apology or retraction on page 10 will do.

edit on Mon, 05 Nov 2012 01:57:46 -0600 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)

Dare I say there is no ultimate source? At least in terms of human record keeping that is.
There may be an ultimate cosmic source so to speak, but that is unfathomable to us mere
humans and it is beside the point.

Authority is subjective, and therefore we are faced with a dilemma.
Essentially we are forced to rely entirely on our own good sense, as all sources of
information in our media are fallible and lack accuracy.

Nothing beats critical thinking combined with the scientific method.
No source, no authority, no scam, can ever override the being who questions it deeply and honestly.

And what do you know? It seems each and every one of us is capable of raising the bar
and questioning anything

reply to post by muzzleflash


As much as I love the net and such, I still really enjoy reading from good old fashioned books as well. For me it is a bit easier on the eyes, and you can take them anywhere(well except in the water). Don't need to worry about a place to plug into for electricity or the battery going dead. Proud owner of a library card

reply to post by muzzleflash


Nope, no ultimate source indeed. I tend to look for a few correlating sources. My main topic of interest is psychology, it's hard to find anyone that agrees there. It's not really a science, sometimes methods are found that work on some people, but as to why they work, well that is really just guesswork

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

Nope, no ultimate source indeed. I tend to look for a few correlating sources. My main topic of interest is psychology, it's hard to find anyone that agrees there. It's not really a science, sometimes methods are found that work on some people, but as to why they work, well that is really just guesswork

Yeah I usually take everything with a grain ( or barrel ) of salt.
When multiple separate sources start matching up and a pattern forms,
you can generally begin to determine the likelihood or veracity of something.

Nothing is really written in stone , and our modern concrete crumbles to dust rather quickly.

Nothing new here, you only have to look at what a lot of "birthers" and "truthers" believe in, as they are just getting their "facts" from silly websites, and not bothering to do any other research. They just cut and paste from those sites.

breaking??? alternative??? news?


hardly.

story is a few years old.

reply to post by lacrimaererum


The article linked is copyright 2012, so not a few years old. It's the first I have heard about it, though it happened in 2009. Doesn't surprise me any in any case.

Originally posted by ErroneousDylan


Of all places, I'm sure no one here puts full faith into the media, but as journalism as a whole fails, so do the alternative sources we get information from.

It's terrible that we have to read information with doubts of authenticity, but I think it's even worse that journalism has become so cookie-cutter in this day and age.

Writers used to put quality into their work, now they are replaceable by a copy-and-paste auto-crawler robot. At least, a robot could be forgiven.

I wonder if anything in this article has been falsely stated. Wouldn't that be irony?

www.msnbc.m sn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

ATS user Schrodingers Dog put up a piece called "Gatekeepers", both here and on his former blog. The man is a genius, and that piece was no different.

The premise: that all news derives from 7 Gatekeepers. Example: Reuters, AP, AOL/TimeWarner, CNN, etc, etc. These news outlets control 95% of the media related news. If the news isn't fit to print in their eyes, it doesn't get printed.

Take this one step further. 90% of all "alternative news" is just regurgitation of either daily talking points, or MSM news stories. Likely closer to 95%. On ATS you have guys like Slayer who do some original stuff...but even that is based in part on MSM sources.

And that brings us to the fact that MSM news has quit being journalism. People writing stories really like it when you give them something already written that they can submit and go to press with. And, as a backup, just reading the press release and writing a piece on it (without ever interviewing anyone) is also very popular.

So we have, in essense, "news" that is nothing other than press releases being run by agencies that can decide what is and is not news for you.


There is zero value in MSM news, unless you are just wanting to stay apprised on what the propaganda is saying today.

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by lacrimaererum

 

The article linked is copyright 2012, so not a few years old. It's the first I have heard about it, though it happened in 2009. Doesn't surprise me any in any case.

edit on Mon, 05 Nov 2012 04:12:00 -0600 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)

what?

it happened in 2009, like i said a few years old?

what the hell kinda gibberish are you spouting?

www.foxnews.com...

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


which is why no one accepts wiki as a source. It is filler for a proper source.

Colleges don't accept it. There must be a valid reason, and hey....this is it.

Originally posted by manykapao
reply to post by ErroneousDylan

 

which is why no one accepts wiki as a source. It is filler for a proper source.

Colleges don't accept it. There must be a valid reason, and hey....this is it.

well, Wiki is nothing more than a research paper posing as an encyclopedia.

It is a PERFECT resource for papers you are writing. All you have to do is skim the article, then scroll to the bottom for the sources cited in the article. Use THOSE sources, not Wiki.

I enjoyed reading this, (even if it happened 3 years ago) because I have a healthy skepticism for anything I find on the internet.

Unfortunately, even ATSers aren't immune to the "cut & paste" disease. Haven't you all noticed how many times posts come on here, quoting from an article headline (not the article itself) and generating lots of discussion about the headline. It appears few actually read the article; still fewer investigate the source for that article. Most people are content to believe what they're told, and I think ATS contains more than the average number of skeptics.