According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Dublin University sociology student Shane Fitzgerald posted on the Wikipedia website some made up words attributed to recently deceased French composer Maurice Jarre. These pearls of wisdom were then immediately lifted by newspaper obituary writers, and reproduced as an authentic quote from the late artiste.

Said Fitzgerald:

“I was really shocked at the results from the experiment… I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn’t come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up… It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact.”

Possibly so, but this effect is not peculiar to the media. In general terms, if anything is said enough times by those with a platform and influence, it becomes true. In fact, I would say that it takes more effort for a journalist to convince people of a ‘truth’ than it does a normal human being.

Mick Hartley, from whom I learned of this story, is unimpressed with Fitzgerald’s online vandalism:

“The whole point of Wikipedia, as surely everyone knows by now, is that anyone can make a contribution. It depends on trust. The editors try to monitor new input as best they can, and indeed their system worked fairly well in this case. There are though, inevitably, disputes, disagreements, and questions of interpretation. And then there are out and out malevolent scammers and frauds – like Mr. Fitzgerald here.”

Mick is correct when it comes to the strengths of the wiki model, which, as he says, is based on trust. But he is wrong to excuse the behaviour of the journalists on the basis that they…

“…hadn’t considered the possibility that there’d be someone so petty and dishonest that they’d actually falsify the entry for a recently deceased minor celebrity for the purposes of their own little academic game.”

Journalists are supposed to check their facts before filing copy. They won’t always get it right, no matter how thorough they are in their research. But relying on Wikipedia is the height of idiocy, and I’m glad that The Guardian saw fit to issue a public mea culpa. Personally, I’d have the miscreant hacks taken out and shot, pour l’encourager les autres.

Shane Fitzgerald may not be a hero, but he has performed a public service of sorts. Unlike Mick I don’t see this as a question of morals, but he is right to complain about Fitzgerald’s self-righteous, media-tartish tone. Perhaps this messenger also deserves shooting. No-one likes a smart-arse sociologist, do they now?