Employee fired for updating Wikipedia
- June 23rd, 2008
- 5 Comments
A bit more Wikipedia news simply because it’s interesting, sad, and startling. When Tim Russert collapsed last week and was eventually pronounced dead - an absolute tragedy - NBC news held on reporting the news until Russerts family could be notified. It was a noble act, all said.
However, a “junior-level” employee - read someone who knows how to use the Internet - at Internet Broadcasting Services, a rebroadcasting service used by NBC affiliates, among others, changed Russert’s Wikipedia entry, making the entry past tense and mentioning his time of death. Presumably they got the information through the grapevine at NBC and didn’t know about the embargo.
The employee was fired, first off, which is fairly egregious. Then, however, another IBS employee went into Wikipedia and changed the entry back in anticipation of blowback from NBC. What began with good intentions - saving Russert’s family the grief of hearing about his death between tampon and Geritol commercials - ended with a brouhaha that overshadows, at least in some circles, the death of a great newsman.
NBC, of all organizations, should know what to do with news. They have been a trusted source for decades. For them to fumble in this way - to not be able to pick up the phone to call the family immediately, to fail to keep in contact with folks who could tell them it’s OK to run the story, to have to get the news out of an reporter’s death and to presumably get the exclusive - is an egregious chain of failure that led to what can only be described as a debacle.
Fine, can the kid because he updated Wikipedia on the job. That’s fair. But don’t try to cover your tracks ham-handedly.
And no, I’m not happy Wikipedia “scooped” NBC on this. I’m unhappy that NBC didn’t have the wherewithal to get Russert’s family to his bedside - even by phone and even posthumously - quickly enough to not even warrant mention of a news embargo. His death wasn’t news: his death was a private tragedy. We ghoulishly made it news.
Chuck (Who am I?)
5 months ago
They had been on vacation in Paris. He had come back early to tape Meet the Press. His wife and son were still over in Paris. This is why they wanted to not release it.
He was taping voice overdubs for the intro of the show, when he collapsed and died.
-Chuck
Kirk Sandall (Who am I?)
5 months ago
OK, I can see why you wanted to post this story, someone getting fired in a way that’s related to wikipedia is just too good to miss. Particularly for a non-news site like CrunchGear that depends on scraping items from real journalists and inserting piffy comments to “add value”. You reveal your lack of knowledge about journalism, along with your left wing bent, when you knee jerk your way to blame the Big Dumb Corporation for not understanding how the interwebs work and firing our poor innocent new media reporter for simply stating the facts on Wikipedia.
The truth is that anyone who works for a news organization has to comply with a few, fairly reasonable, codes of contact. One of which is that you don’t report for other organizations. Seems fairly straightforward to me. If an NBC News employee, no matter how junior, decided to tip of CNN there’d be no question about them getting fired. Why not wikipedia?
The article is also insensitive with regard to NBC holding the story until they notified Tim Russert’s family, implying that this was unfair to the rest of us and that this huge company should have been able to pick up the phone and call them. That’s clearly ridiculous. NBC News doesn’t tag it’s employees families so they can be traced at all times. I’m sure they tried to arrange for a friend to tell the immediate family in person, instead of the impersonal phone call that you seem to thing would be adequate. In this case it turns out Mr Russert’s wife and son were traveling in Europe, it took some time to locate them and arrange for the bad news to be delivered in the most sensitive manner possible.
This article amounts to non-News; it’s poorly written, insensitive, naive, and worthless.
Sam (Who am I?)
5 months ago
I read this CrunchGear post several times looking for a valid point. Not a single one.
You blame NBC for not being able to get in touch with family immediately? You blame NBC for an IBC employee reversing its first posting? You blame NBC for an IBC employee being fired (which apparently didn’t even happen)?
Arwel (Who am I?)
5 months ago
As an Administrator on Wikipedia, I’m sorry if someone got fired for editing a Wikipedia article, however it has to be said that the edit should never have been made in the first place - it was a breach of Wikipedia’s own rules that it is a secondary source and you only report what can be verified elsewhere. Wikipedia’s not in the business of being the first to report the news, though it is extremely useful for synthesising what’s been reported in other media.
Nicholas Stix (Who am I?)
5 months ago
“His death wasn’t news: his death was a private tragedy. We ghoulishly made it news.”
Nonsense. He was one of the world’s biggest newsmen; of course, his death was news. Or haven’t you noticed the outpouring of MSM puff encomia remembering him?