[WikiEN-l] Reverberating self-reinforcing autoregenerative circular sourcing

[wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ivy_League#A_Rutgers.2FIvy_reference_from_the_Daily_News and followup, and be afraid. Be very afraid.

In brief: The first known college football game took place between Rutgers and Princeton, and the Ivy League sort of coalesced out of a group of schools that had been playing each other for year. There is dispute about a statement that "both [Rutgers and the College of William and Mary] declined invitations to join the Ivy League at its formation in 1954."  Clearly there was discussion about what colleges should be included, and clearly Rutgers was talked about. But it's not so clear whether Rutgers was invited and declined, or whether Rutgers was considered and rejected. Or something in between, or both, or neither, or what. (It's like the question of whether or not John Bolton "resigned.")

The editor who says Rutgers was invited and declined has a source that falls beautifully into borderline territory. He insists that he's seen it in microfilm copies of the Rutgers student newspaper, and that he's seen it recently, but declines to pin the exact citation down to anything more than the entire microfilm archive itself. But that's NOT the reason why I'm posting this.

Here's the scary part.

Someone found what looked like a valuable confirming source: a recent article in the New York Daily News that said, "Rutgers might have joined the fledgling Ivy League and altered its destiny. But the school declined the offer - arguably the dumbest mistake in its history. Ever since then, Rutgers has scrambled to prove itself worthy of playing football with the big boys."

Good, right? Unfortunately the reporter did not cite his source. So someone contacted that reporter and asked. 

And, guess what: the reporter's source was the Wikipedia article.