Punked by Wikipedia
by John L. Jackson, Jr.
A twenty-something college student in Dublin, Shane Fitzgerald, decided to conduct his own little cyber-experiment.
Only hours after learning of French composer Maurice Jarre’s death on March 28th of this year, Fitzgerald made up a memorable yet bogus quote, attributed it to the just-deceased Jarre, and then posted it on the composer’s Wikipedia entry.
Here is Fitzgerald’s fake quote: “One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. 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.”
By the end of April, the made-up quotation was being referenced and invoked all over the Web (and the world), quoted in blogs and electronic versions of newspaper Web sites in several countries.
(According to imdb.com, Jarre is one of the “uncredited” composers on 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean and starring Peter O’Toole. I added a link to some of that film’s music above. It is such a powerful score!)
Britain’s The Guardian was one of those hoodwinked periodicals, and they recently issued a public apology to their readers for not vetting the quotation before including it in Jarre’s obituary.
According to the Associated Press story, Fitzgerald and a friend wanted to find out how quickly news travels around the globe and how readily established media outlets troll the Internet to help them keep up with the increasing demand for instantaneous information.
So, what do we make of the young Dubliner’s experiment? Did we not know that journalists went fishing for leads online? And once the quotable quote went viral, is it any surprise that its very ubiquity gave it an air of previously vetted authenticity?
We probably have to give The Guardian some credit for owning up to its mistake, no? Other newspapers’ Web sites simply deleted the fake quote and moved on, hoping that the cached older versions of their Jarre obits don’t haunt them much longer.
From The Chronicle Review
We knew this but it's nice, or is that sad?, to see it tested.
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