Minnesota Wikipedia user broke news of Russert’s death
First discovered by Jon Fine at BusinessWeek, but covered very succinctly by the Minnesota Independent:
Forty minutes before NBC News reported of its own anchor’s sudden death, someone updated Tim Russert’s Wikipedia page, changing all the present-tense references to past-tense ones — and once again, the leaking of a news story had become the news.After Russert collapsed on June 13, word spread quickly to its affiliates and other news organizations, but the network embargoed the information until Russert’s family could be notified. NBC waited over an hour before reporting the news — and both Fox and CNN waited with them — but before their newscast aired, Russert’s Wikipedia page had already been altered. Just five minutes before NBC announced Russert’s death, the New York Times reported the news.
The Times later reported that a “junior-level employee” at Internet Broadcasting Systems (IBS), the St. Paul-based company that provides websites for TV stations, had changed the entry, thinking it was public knowledge. Eleven minutes later the Wikipedia page was changed back, by someone else using an IBS computer. The first employee was promptly reprimanded (some sources say the employee was fired, others that he or she was suspended).
This is yet another example of information’s desire to be free and fast.
Although the MSM news organizations desired to hold back the news, donduct diligent reporting and fact checking and ensure families were notified first, the news itself was too compelling not to spread via the Internet as quickly as possible.
You can see the record of the Wikipedia edit change and timestamp here.
I can’t fault the guy for wanting to be first to update the Wikipedia entry. This was good stuff.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. The information was embargoed to make sure the family was aware first. The person that had the information at IBS was viewing embargoed information. It wasn’t citizen journalism and it wasn’t independent reporting. It was taking information that the MSM was going to publish shortly and internally scooping them on their own scoop.
If the Wikipedia entry was updated by someone outside of the whole NBC circle, then yeah, fair game, but this wasn’t. It’d be the same thing if the person writing the story about Russert’s death editing Wikipedia before he published his story.
I’m not a fan of media embargoes generally but I think this story is more of an internal affair at NBC and its partners and a story of breach of confidentiality. I don’t buy into the idea that every single thing in every situation needs to be published immediately before the story’s been written. Journalists and content publishers, both mainstream and citizen-based have responsibilities and should maintain the same levels of respect.
I agree with s4xton. Say what you want about the MSM - but here is one example where they were doing the right thing (granted they do more wrong things that right). The person in question should of been fired if they have not already. I have been astonished at the level of disrespect by so called "independent journalists" shown about this issue.
I’m not calling this guy an independent/citizen journalist — just a dude who edited a Wikipedia entry. The internally scooping them on their own scoop angle suggests he was doing it deliberately. The piece above states he thought it was public knowledge, and although naive and stupid, I see nobody refuting that assumption.
Totally agree it was a breach of confidentiality and should be dealt with as such. But I’m not surprised that information wants to be free and fast…
Interesting back-and-forth between Max and Rex on this one.