Irish student hoaxes world's media with fake quote

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Irish student hoaxes world's media with fake quote


By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer -
Tue May 12, 2009 8:57AM EDT
DUBLIN -


When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia,
he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's made-up quote — which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 — flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India.

They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online
encyclopedia quickly caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it, but not quickly enough
to keep some journalists from cutting and pasting it first.

A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets
in an e-mail and the corrections began.

"I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an
interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to
admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia.

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said.

"It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the
media without challenge, it becomes fact."




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"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack," Fitzgerald's fake Jarre quote read. "Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear."

How weak is that? I bet Jarre would be rilly pissed!

agreed.... many could have caught that fact and pondered a minute.

and now thanks to Fitzgerald's arrogance... Jarre's death is surrounded with nonsense... Fitz could have picked something different for his little experiment... which is decades late... we already know this about the media

c/thru wrote:

agreed.... many could have caught that fact and pondered a minute.

and now thanks to Fitzgerald's arrogance... Jarre's death is surrounded with nonsense... Fitz could have picked something different for his little experiment... which is decades late... we already know this about the media

Making up a phoney epitath for a writer is like pissing on his grave. Tsk.

java wrote:

c/thru wrote:

agreed.... many could have caught that fact and pondered a minute.

and now thanks to Fitzgerald's arrogance... Jarre's death is surrounded with nonsense... Fitz could have picked something different for his little experiment... which is decades late... we already know this about the media

Making up a phoney epitath for a writer is like pissing on his grave. Tsk.

What will the next big scam be?

Joebert wrote:

What will the next big scam be?

Joebert

Good to see you again....I was gettting a bit worried

c/thru wrote:

Joebert wrote:

What will the next big scam be?

Joebert

Good to see you again....I was gettting a bit worried

I've been really busy. Here at hone and going to my nephews baseball games. He was sick to and I took care of him a couple times. What a rat race.