Wikipedia: Wrong This Time ...

Hmmm .... not good: in the midst of Wikipedia's push into new terrain, the amazing, collaborative, online people-powered encyclopedia is running into a few problems with its facts. The latest is a wrong - and hurtful- biography of John Seigenthaler, a retired journalist.

I suspect that none of this is new -- that is, Wikipedia has probably had problems with its facts since its birth. What I think has changed is that all eyes are now on Wikipedia, what with the ton of press it's gotten lately. Though this too will pass, no doubt, I wonder what Wikipedia's response will be to Mr. Seigenthaler.

The FDA: Still At-Risk

David Graham, FDA's Associate Director for science and medicine in the Office of Drug Safety, has just told a Senate Finance Committee Hearing that "the United States of America is worse off when it comes to drug safety than it was a year ago," refering to his testimony against Vioxx, pulled from the shelves in September 2004. While a USA Today article shows that the FDA still has not put in place adequate protection for Americans, FDA refuses or is unable to explain why it cannot put in place the same type of checks and balances upon which the United States itself is built.

FDA appears to be setting itself up for further bad press down the road. A statement released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the U.S. Committee on Finance, highlights the many potholes FDA faces. Will one of them swallow the Agency whole?

Wikipedia: Right, Wrong, Right, Wrong ...??

Wikipedia, the Free encyclopedia, is one of the shining examples of Internet collaboration: anyone can add or subtract to Wikipedia at will. And through this, Wikipedia has created a nice resource -- a good starting point, but not a necessarily reliable resource -- for reading some 800,000 articles.

Unfortunately (though not surprisingly), an informal study by The Guardian entitled, Can You Trust Wikipedia? found that several Wikipedia entries were incorrect: "The founder of the online encyclopedia written and edited by its users has admitted some of its entries are 'a horrific embarrassment'." (Oct. 24, 2005).

Despite this problem, I've just read that Mr. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, is considering distributing Wikipedia on CD or DVD to the developing world, to folks who do not have access to the internet, either at all or sporadically (either because they can't afford it, or it's not available).

According to CNN, "Entries from Wikipedia, the popular free online encyclopedia written and edited by Internet users, may soon be available in print for readers in the developing world," founder Jimmy Wales said.

Does it make sense that Mr. Wales should want to distribute information that is false? The motive is outstanding, but the method ... questionable.

How will anyone know whether an entry is wrong or right? Is this a public relations disaster in the making, for an effort that otherwise has been such a positive force for good? How will the school kids in Abidjan or Kupang or Porto Velho feel if they find out the information given freely was known to be wrong?

The California Pacific Medical Center Strike

Sutter Hospital is based in San Francisco, CA, and all of the healthcare workers have been on strike since around Sept. 11. It seems that most of the healthcare workers are organized as SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West. This sort of press is never a good thing, and this is no exception: SEIU-UHCW is suing the California Pacific Medical Center and its corporate parent, Sutter Health, for using alleged “scab” workers from the company, Modern Industrial Services. Jesse Jackson walked the strike line on Oct. 5.

What I found interesting about this is SEIU-UHCW has a blog. Could this be a first? According to Annalee Newitz, it is the first blog written from a picket line. The blog is called sutterstrikers.blog.com.

Do you know of another blog like this? If your company faced a striker blog, would you counter it? If so, how?

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