My stepdaughter, who is quickly becoming one of my best blog reporters, sent along this story on a hoax that took in a lot of main stream media folks.
It is why when I was working as a reporter I never used Wikipedia as a primary source. Sometimes as a back-up source, but never, ever as a sole source.
I will admit to using it for information on Navy ships, countries and their flags, but I would never use a quote I found on a site that can be accessed and edited by literally, anyone.
While I will not excuse this kind of sloppiness, it is understandable that when reporters are being pushed for more stories, even quotas for stories, that short cuts will happen. No longer is there the leisure time that I, and other reporters had, to spend the extra time looking for back up or corroborating information.
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Any reporter caught using wikipedia or a similar Web site as a source should be severely reprimanded.
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