Karl Klockars

"We're from the internet."

A more enterprising lad than myself (and one with Batman-esque time, money and resources) would be plotting right now their next scam, caper or ne’er-do-well shindig, and shedding light onto the inner workings of national and local media.  Imagine if you will, a darkened room, with hundreds of computer terminals, recording machines, audio editors and loggers, and a dozen internet-savvy individuals with deviousness in their hearts and swiftness in their fingers.

Now imagine those dedicated men and women devoting all their time and effort to subverting the quality and accuracy of the world of news.  There is one sure-fire way to infiltrate their newsgathering capabilities from the outside and get them to report inaccurate, out-of-date or just plain wrong information.  It would take split-second speed, a quick wit, and the ability to lie convincingly.  Then, it would take the ability to put those skills to use – by editing Wikipedia pages faster than the press can read them.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:  The Wikipedia Terror Squad.

If I could shop a halo behind her, I would. But I can't.

As I was waiting, watching, ticking away the seconds and minutes until the announcement of who John McCain’s running mate was going to be, I thought to myself – you know, the first place every news producer is going to go as soon as the announcement is made (unless it’s someone everyone knows) is straight to Wikipedia.  Now, I’m sure they’ve done a lot of groundwork on a lot of the possibilities, and they’ve got packages put together for people like Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman, and Tim Pawlenty, and so on.  But what if it’s a complete curveball?

And what if a person could get themselves a username and profile on aforementioned site…and change a few believable details?  And what if that person had the wherewithall to just….tweak them a little bit.  Not a ton, just enough to be wrong…and believable enough to be scanned quickly and transmitted to the world as actual fact.  And then, finally, what if a person could have enough eyes and ears recording all those different outlets that are simultaneously ejecting all this news matter into the universe?

"It's a dictionary. It's a source. It's a story!"

When I was in J-school, Wikipedia was just making its way into the public lexicon.  It’s now a verb and news outlets across the country openly use it as a source – I’ve seen the Chicago Tribune use it more than a couple times, and I wonder if Col. McCormack spun in his newsprint grave…not that he’d know what a wiki-thingy was, really.  All the same – someone just puts something up on a webpage and you use it?  I’m sure they checked it out first, but still…it’s lazy work.  Which is not to say it’s not a good resource, but still – always doublecheck, right?

And in the fast paced, hurry up and beat the other guy to the info world of TV and radio news, there’s often no time to do that kind of checking.  Get it out there, and then correct it if need be.  And I’m sure – absolutely sure – that if you were to do a quick look at the pageviews for things like pages on Sarah Palin, the former Soviet territory of Georgia, biographical information for recent deaths of celebrities and so on, you’d see a small spike just before the information breaks on television – followed by a huge spike of people going on to totally vandalize the pages.

"There was a WHAT on my wiki page?"

Heath Ledger’s wikipedia page was tastefully replaced with a huge picture of a male sex organ just minutes after his death was reported.  Tony Snow’s page was edited right after his death to essentially say “burn in hell you right-wing propagandist.”  Wikipedia vandalism is more often than not just like tagging in cities.  Small-brained ego-trips for a handful of people to see before it gets blasted into nothingness.  There’s a bare amount of performance artsy “creative license” taken by a few, but the vast majority is small-minded and done by spiteful cranks.  Imagine a jazz album written and recorded by Insane Clown Posse fans.

But what if you could get to that before someone does the slash-and-burn work?  What if that someone…was the WTS?

Here is a portion of the wikipedia page for Sarah Palin:

Palin, a self-described “hockey mom”, is a mother of five. Among her common activities are hunting, ice fishing and riding snowmobiles; she has also run a marathon. After becoming governor, Palin obtained her passport and traveled to Kuwait and Germany in 2007 to visit with members of the Alaska National Guard; she has also made multiple trips to Canada.

Sarah Palin eloped with her high-school boyfriend, Todd Palin, on August 29, 1988, when she was 24 years old. Todd works for BP as an oil-field production operator and owns a commercial fishing business. The family lives in Wasilla.

The couple have five children: sons Track (born 1989) and Trig (born 2008), and daughters Bristol (born 1990), Willow (born 1995), and Piper (born 2001). Todd and Track Palin are registered to vote as independents (“undeclared”). Track Palin enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 11, 2007, subsequently joining an infantry brigade. He is set to be deployed to Iraq in September 2008. Palin’s youngest child, Trig, has Down syndrome, diagnosed prenatally.

Now, how different would it be if I just changed a couple things here and there…

Palin, a self-described “elk killer“, is a mother of five. Among her common activities are hunting, ice fishing and needlepoint; she has also run a Marathon Gas Station. After becoming governor, Palin obtained her passport and traveled to New Jersey and Disney World in 2007 to visit with members of the Alaska National Guard; she has also made multiple trips to her own personal Idaho.

Sarah Palin eloped with her high-school boyfriend, Todd “Danger“ Palin, on August 29, 1988, when she was 24 years old. Todd works for BP as an oil-field production operator and is a professional curling team member. The family lives in Wasilla.

The couple have five children: sons John (born 1989) and BobMary (born 2008), and daughters (born 1990), Margaret (born 1995), and Lucinda (born 2001). The eldest Palins are registered to vote as independents (“undeclared”). Duke Palin enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 11, 2007, subsequently joining an infantry brigade. He is set to be deployed to Iraq in September 2008. Palin’s youngest child, Peter, has a club foot, diagnosed prenatally.

It’s just skewed enough to be entertaining, but close enough to be believable.  And it only took about 30 seconds.  The WTS strikes like ninja, slinking away into the dark depths of the internet, discarding the username and IP address, never to be used again.

Now imagine the overworked, underpaid news producer stuck in Atlanta who’s grabbing everything he can on this relative nobody.  He bolts to Wikipedia – but the WTS has been there first!  The producer, not knowing that the WTS has struck, copies and pastes just about the whole damn passage, and the WTS is recording every second of every major newscast.  The WTS has people in every market, every major city, running CoolEdit on the local radio and TV newscasts.

"Still from the internet. Watch out."

Then, after documenting the attacks, the WTS posts the errors.  Someone is ashamed.  It’s a magical moment.  And it’s a moment that we can all learn from.  Even though it’s all right there and easy to gather and quick to grab, it doesn’t mean that you should.  The Wikipedia Terror Squad will strike without notice, without warning, and your newscasts will be wrong.  Embarassingly wrong.

Use Wikipedia at your own peril.  We may not post pictures of huge sex organs, but we have something more devious.  We use words in place of sex organs.  That would be a great t-shirt, come to think of it.  I’ll get the Wikipedia Terror Squad shop (conveniently located at Cafepress) right on that.