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

[David Gerard]

On 15/12/06, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:

> 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.


I just did an interview with the Press Gazette (UK), who wanted to
know what we thought of journalists using Wikipedia as a source. I
said it's an excellent, convenient and up-to-date resource for a quick
backgrounding, BUT "always describe it as being from a source, say
'According to Wikipedia'", and gave this as an example of the sort of
thing that can happen if you don't ;-)

(article should appear in Jan 5th issue and should show up on
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/ )


- d.