The following is a news analysis.
There’s a new article that echoes the reporting I’ve done on the co-opting, bias and agenda editing that has become rampant at the world’s most popular encyclopedia: Wikipedia.
According to the report in Hollywood Reporter, NBC hired a “Wikipedia Whitewasher” to handle Matt Lauer’s biography page and make it look cleaner than it otherwise might.
According to the article, which reports on a new book by Ronan Farrow:
Farrow asserts that NBC used other methods to sanitize and neutralize reporting about Lauer’s behavior, including employing a Wikipedia whitewasher to ‘unbraid references to Oppenheim, Weinstein and Lauer’ after the allegations became public. When the network hired as a paid contributor an outside reporter who made investigative calls to women who worked with Lauer, one woman who had received those calls texted Farrow: ‘Coverup.’ Farrow doesn’t identify the reporter. ‘There are several striking examples of the way in which that routine corporate practice of covering up and paying out to get rid of allegations of misconduct rather than addressing them or removing the people involved intersected with my [Weinstein] reporting in a very direct way,’ Farrow says. ‘That is not an appropriate corporate practice when you are a news outlet.’
The Hollywood Reporter
I recently sat down to talk with the co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, who parted ways with the project over its biases and other problems. You can watch that interview by clicking here.
Sanger and others have started a modern online encyclopedia that they hope will solve some of the nagging problems Wikipedia has experienced. It’s called Everipedia.
If you’re interested, you can listen to my podcast on “The Weaponization of Wikipedia” and read some of my previous reporting on the topic.
Read a related article about NBC’s alleged Wikipedia Whitewashing in Newsweek by clicking the link below:
https://www.newsweek.com/nbc-wikipedia-whitewashing-matt-lauer-weinstein-ronan-farrow-1464118
Wikipedia Whitewasher??? How would that look on a resume? Got to tell the grandkids. Job with a future for the times we live in.
I’ve seem my wiki edits purged within minutes of posting something contrary to the official narrative. Wiki definitely censors what they don’t want others to see.