Today's Internet age is putting an end to the hardcover encyclopedia business. Why spend fortunes on a massive (albeit attractive) World Book set when what you need is a mouse click away on the Internet? Any student preparing a research paper and searching Google will probably be handed over quickly to the "Wikipedia" online encyclopedia system. What's more -- and here's an offer that presumably can't be beat -- it's free!
Consumer beware.
At Wikipedia, you won't find a distinguished body of tweedy old professors poring over every paragraph on the Hanseatic League. It's actually on the other end of the credibility spectrum. Wikipedia is an "open-source" encyclopedia, a reference source anyone can create. The danger in this system becomes very obvious, very quickly.
Recently, the comedian and movie star Sinbad had to announce that he was not, in fact, dead of a heart attack at age 50, as his Wikipedia entry claimed. "Somebody vandalized the page," claimed Wikipedia spokeswoman Sandra Ordonez.
Not only can Wikipedia articles be written by anyone with Internet access, others can then edit that material by adding off-setting and consequently off-putting material whose purpose is to create intellectual mischief.
The other day, Bernie Goldberg emailed me, upset. He pointed me to his Wikipedia entry. To read what was written was to conclude that apparently I must hate his guts. But we are friends. He is a man for whom I have profound respect, professional and personal. He knew there was foul play.
Right there on the screen, under the heading "Criticism," it stated that I had attacked him, "claiming that Goldberg merely lifted material he had been producing for years, and only published the book because he had an ax to grind with his former employers and was attempting to make a 'quick buck,' noting that Goldberg never mentioned the alleged liberal bias of the media until it was 'convenient' and 'profitable' for him to do so."
Where did this come from? An accompanying footnote linked to a column I wrote when Goldberg's "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is No. 37)" was released in 2005. Among other things, I called it "a wonderful read for anyone not on that list." I'd opened my column by joking that "I hate him" -- because he'd written a set of New York Times best-sellers I wish I'd thought to write first. There you have it.
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