Blog
05.08
The Media Gets Wiki-Punked
With the advent of this Internet thingy, more and more people are relying less and less on common sense and due diligence. They don’t research anymore.
Rather, at the last minute, they log on and frantically search for a Cliff’s Notes version of whatever it is that has them trolling Google pages 30 – 35 at 3 a.m.
Long gone are the days of the door-to-door Encyclopedia Britannica salesman. Today, it’s Wikipedia or bust.
The only problem with that is history is not the determining factor, people and their often misled opinions are.
How’s that working out? Glad you asked.
Shane was looking for a focus group on “the dangers of relying too heavily on the Internet for information.” His group? The world.
Oscar-winning French composer Maurice Jarre died on March 30, and to commemorate his passing, Shane goes to Jarre’s Wikipage and invents a quote that was then used in major newspapers around the world. Nice.
It didn’t take Dr. Zhivago to figure out the ailment – the media got bamboozled because they collectively took a short cut to be the first to get a story out… and on Google.
Whoops.
There is something to be said for that ubiquitous horse’s mouth, even it did belong to a dead movie score composer.
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