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!

Giles Hattersley, writing in today’s Times, bemoans the inaccuracy of Wikipedia. Regular readers of this blog will know that I disagree completely but that’s not why I’m writing.
Giles writes: “My entry features at least two errors, one libellous (unless my mother has been keeping a dark secret, I am not Roy Hattersley’s son).”
Yet I can’t find an entry for Giles Hattersley in Wikipedia. And, as Martin Belam points out, it doesn’t look like there has ever been one.
Journalists should always strive for accuracy and such an error in an article about inaccuracy looks very silly. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Hattersley later posted an explanation on, of all places, Wikipedia:

As to this thing about a Wikipedia entry – as far as I know, I’ve never had one. I think the line must have been tweaked at some stage (not by me) from talking about mentions of my name on the site to an actual entry. The mistake pointed out in the piece, was pointed out to me a year or two ago in some corresponding page where my name cropped up – either Roy Hattersley’s entry, or a third party’s page. I’m glad to hear it no longer exists!

Okay, so perhaps it was an editing error. But also note that Hattersley doesn’t seem to know when and where he came upon the incorrect Wikipedia reference to himself. Based on the above, it was pointed out to him on “some corresponding page” by somebody at some point over the last two years. And now it no longer exists. Shouldn’t he have checked the reference before putting it in the story?

To close the circle, the Times has appended an Editor’s Note to the original article:

This article has been updated to reflect Giles Hattersley’s original, which was changed during editing of the print edition of the Sunday Times. The sentence that read, “My entry features at least two errors, one libellous.” has now reverted to, “Mentions of me feature at least two errors (unless my mother has been keeping a dark secret, I am not Roy Hattersley’s son).”

To summarize: some Wikipedia entries contain factual errors, as do some newspaper articles about Wikipedia’s inaccuracies.