Wikipedia controversy

Talk of the Nation had a very good segment on the Wikipedia/John Seigenthaler today which showed Seigenthaler as the crazy, out of touch old coot that he is.

(The first caller's question was particularly illuminating: "why didn't you edit the entry yourself?" Second caller: "I thought we were supposed to take Wikipedia with a grain of salt." Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia who lives in St. Petersburg, FL: "You are supposed to take Wikipedia with a a grain of salt, just like you're supposed to take everything with a grain of salt.")

No encyclopedia is perfect. Britannica contains mistakes; as well as questions of bias and scope. Wikipedia has far more erroneous information that Britannica and the established encyclopedias, but it makes up for that with the ability to be edited in real time--traditional encyclopedia's relevance is inversely propotional with the time elapsed since press time—and its mammoth amount of content. Compare, if you will, Wikipedia’s “squelch” entry with Merriam Webster’s.

I just don't know what Seigenthaler's bitching about. Every midlevel bureaucrat working in government in the '60s has been linked to the Kennedy assassination, some in more reputable publications that wikipedia. How this merits a column in USA Today and New York Times coverage I'll never understand.

You should also check out Esquire's piece on Jimmy Wales, part of their Best & Brightest feature, in this month's issue. Sadly, it is not online.