AUDIO: WikiMedia founder Jimmy Wales discusses Seigenthaler incident in a Media Giraffe Project audio interview

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AUDIO: WikiMedia founder Jimmy Wales discusses Seigenthaler incident in a Media Giraffe Project audio interview
By MGP Staff
Dec 14, 2005, 17:01

View Media Giraffe Project profile of Jimmy Wales

UPDATE: The Committee of Concerned Journalists has posted a comprehensive review of the Seigenthaler-WikiPedia affair.

It was the perfect situation to spotlight attention on the strength -- and perhaps weakness -- of WikiPedia . . . a free online encyclopedia with entries written by thousands of volunteers worldwide . . . and any user can change a page at will. John Seigenthaler, a former editorial-page editor of the mainstream print USA Today daily (and former editor/publisher of the Nashville Tennessean), riled by a biographical posting connecting Seigenthaler with a wildly improbable -- and untrue -- allegation. Four months, Seigenthal wrote, the offending information remained only until it was finally removed. And in the end, the person who posted the untruth went public, and apologized, and Seigenthaler said he would not sue anyone, but wanted to point out the issue of whether WikiPedia can ultimately be trusted as a reference resource.

On Monday, Dec. 12, 2005 -- the day after the Seigenthaler story came to an end with the "confession" of the errant poster -- Media Giraffe Project editor Bill Densmore interviewed WikiPedia founder Jimmy Wales at the non-profit website's small St. Petersburg, Fla., office. Here are MP3 downloadable excerpts:

Free use of MP3 audio is granted with attribution to The Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

UPDATES:

Commentaries and stories about WikiPedia's handling of the John Seigenthaler bio matter:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1599116,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/wikipedia_quality_problem/
http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/12/wikipedia_no_responsibility/

British journal Nature finds EB and WikiPedia about even
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/online-encyclopedias-put-to-the-test/2005/12/14/1134500913345.html
Review WikiPedia's selection of "press clippings"

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