Man apologizes for fake Wiki entry

In addition to the cardinal workplace rule: Don’t blog about your job, we can now add “Don’t write fake Wikipedia entries linking a prominent newspaperman with the Kennedy assassinations.”

Thirty-eight-year-old Brian Chase of Tennessee has resigned from his job and apologized to John Seigenthaler Sr., former publisher of The Tennessean newspaper, for writing a fake Seigenthaler bio linking him to the Kennedy assassinations and noting he lived in the Soviet Union from 1971 to 1984. When Seigenthaler, a close friend of Robert Kennedy, heard about the bio he freaked out and wrote an editorial in USA Today bashing Wikipedia.

Chase says he wrote the fake entry as a gag on a co-worker “who was familiar with the Seigenthaler family” and it was a prank that went “horribly, horribly wrong.” He also says he had no idea people took Wikipedia information seriously. Um, what a stupid joke. Apparently the whoopee cushion is too low-brow?

And in today’s Shamless In-house Plug, check out our story on what you need to know about wikis, RSS feeds, podcasts and more.

Via My Way News