Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-24/In the news

Encyclopaedians, journalists?
PBS MediaShift Idea Lab published a piece titled "Wikipedia isn't journalism, but are wikipedians reluctant journalists?" The article covered Wikipedia policy about news and then talks about its successes. The author concludes "Wikipedia may be a reluctant journalist, but its influence on the media landscape is unmistakable."

Wikipedia! The Musical!
A six-hour editathon at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts titled The Musical took place last Saturday October 21. It was covered in The New York Times, The Faster Times, and Aussie Theatre. The goal was to improve content related to WikiProject Musical Theatre.

In her article on the editathon, The New York Times writer Amanda Petrusich explored how "Doug Reside, the digital curator for the performing arts at the New York Public Library, will offer participants a brief tutorial on how to edit an entry properly, as well as 'a quick overview of some important collections at the library that are not well represented in Wikipedia’s current articles'", including Audrey Hepburn's lesser known stage career. "Reside also emphasized the library’s material on various theater technicians [including designer Boris Aronson], many of whom remain unlisted on Wikipedia, or whose entries are brief", writes Petrusich.

The partnership, being organised with the help of Wikimedia New York, is intended to benefit both Wikipedia (which gains content) and the library (which gains publicity and inbound links). The New York Times article quoted Ben Vershbow, a manager at the library as explaining that the event fits into a broader programme of "training our staff to learn best practices of Wikipedia, to add links and content, in appropriate ways, to articles which correspond with their areas of expertise."

The shorter (and lower profile) coverage on AussieTheatre.com picked up on similar points. Notably, however, it explicitly asked the question of whether a similar editathon should be organised in Australia to fill in coverage of "Australian theatre greats". The Faster Times also covered the events in New York, albeit in brief.

Much vandalism noted
David McKie of The Guardian writes how Wikipedia mistakenly reported him as dead, Fashionista reports lurid defacement of the Anna Dello Russo article, Wonkette covers vandalism to Dick Durbin and Lynn News defends their town against assertions found in Wikipedia that " [ North Lynn is] the home of drug addicts and shoplifters".

Briefly

 * Wikipedia files: Chicago public radio station WBEZ continued their "Wikipedia files" series, video interviews in which celebrities comment on the Wikipedia article about them, with former ice hockey player Stan Mikita and Patrick Stump (singer of the band Fall Out Boy).