As I write this, the library e-mail discussion lists and blogosphere are atwitter with the latest flapdoodle about Wikipedia. In May of 2005, a Nashville man created an entry in Wikipedia about John Seigenthaler, an administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy in the early 1960s. Among other things, the article falsely said that Seigenthaler was once thought to have been involved in Kennedy's assassination. (Brian Chase, the person who wrote the false article, later admitted to writing it in order to play a joke on a colleague.) Seigenthaler himself discovered the article in September 2005 and eventually had the article corrected, although he also wrote an op-ed piece for USA Today claiming that, "Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool." Jimmy Wales, the founder (or co-founder—it's a matter of debate) of Wikipedia and president of the Wikipedia Foundation, has been doing damage control ever since, particularly since both Seigenthaler and Wales have been interviewed extensively in the media.
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