A story from TheLocal.de:
An article poking fun at the lengthy name of new Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg turned out to be a joke on some of the biggest names in the German media after it was revealed they had been tricked by a Wikipedia prankster.
On Sunday February 8, the evening before Guttenberg was officially named to replace the outgoing Michael Glos, someone decided to add the name “Wilhelm” to his already prolix name on his Wikipedia entry: Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jakob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. “Freiherr,” for the record, is the title of Baron.
“I asked myself if anyone would notice if I simply added one more entry to the long list of names,” the anonymous Wikipedia poster wrote in a guest commentary for the media critique site bildblog.de on Tuesday. “It turns out that no one noticed, and scores of online media, newspapers and television stations used my invention without verifying it.”
Mass-circulation daily Bild ran the incorrect name and photo above the front-page headline, “Do we have to remember this name?” on Monday, poking fun at his aristocratic roots. Meanwhile the mistake ran in major publications across the country, including Germany’s leading news site Spiegel Online, which reported that journalists took pleasure in asking Guttenberg to recite his name.
Bloggers and media critics have triumphed at the coup, calling a “declaration of bankruptcy” for journalistic ethics.
Along with other papers across the country, both Bild and Spiegel Online published corrections, but their tone seemed less apologetic than irritated at having had their reliance on Wikipedia revealed. On Thursday Bild wrote that the 37-year-old had been the “victim of a falsification” that many media sources, “including Bild, fell into.” But the correction included a final dig at the new minister by adding that instead of 11 names, he had “‘just’ ten” names.
Meanwhile Spiegel Online corrected its mistake as soon as it was discovered, attributing it to “a manipulation of the internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia and insufficient research by Spiegel Online.” But in another article about the incident published on Thursday, it chalked up the embarrassing gaffe to “time pressure that was great.” …
Thanks, Steve!
