Will the Real Wikipedia Please Stand Up?
by J. P. Mroz
I: The Stakes
The gauntlet was thrown. Eventually, after several weeks, John McAdams alone (and undoubtedly to the surprise of some) brazenly dared to reach down and pick it up.
The actual debate, which consisted of a well-planned format that traversed twenty key points of JFK assassination research—all agreed upon in advance by both parties, took place in the early fall of 2009 during two Black Op Radio shows. If you haven’t yet taken in this debate, then I highly recommend that you do.1
Why such a recommendation? Certainly not for the purpose of deciding “a winner.” First of all, let’s admit up-front that it is highly unlikely that any one of us who has taken an interest in this ongoing forty-six-plus year-old JFK debate—no matter what side we may by now have obligingly settled on—could ever truly consider ourselves impartial observers. And secondly, and more importantly, calling “a winner” to any such event would debase the topic itself, rendering it to the likes of a tawdry entertainment—a mere boxing match of sorts. And though boxing matches certainly do have their place, any discussion or debate about the murder of a president that took place in broad daylight within a major US metropolis some forty-six years ago demands higher and more careful scrutiny than one which would seek to make assessments by merely awarding pugilistic points.
So let us be willing to accept the reality that agreement will not always be possible. “Truth,” said the philosopher David Hume, “arises from disagreement among friends.” And here, perhaps, comes the ultimate test for truth-seekers, i.e., distinguishing between true and false “friends.” Because it logically follows that those who would knowingly mislead or misdirect cannot themselves be truth-seekers.
Which brings us to the central focus of this article: disinformation within JFK research data. But more specifically, a provable purveyor of such disinformation: that self-described “free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project,” aka, Wikipedia. But before laying out the details that expose Wikipedia’s hand in plying JFK assassination disinformation, let’s continue to explore the underlying significance of last fall’s debate, by setting our hands on some deeper ramifications.
JFK researchers will recognize that the real value that last fall’s debate provides must eclipse any aspect of “infotainment.” After all, if the audience for such a debate is one of merely entertaining “armchair sleuths” (the equivalent of TV “couch potatoes?”), then why not instead schedule debates on, say, OJ’s guilt or innocence? The obvious answer is that, in the grand scheme, JFK’s death still matters—greatly.
In the Introduction to his thought-provoking book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, Jim Douglass explains:
In the course of my journey into Martin Luther King’s martyrdom, my eyes were opened to parallel questions in the murders of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy. I went to Dallas, Chicago, New York, and other sites to interview witnesses. I studied critical government documents in each of their cases. Eventually I came to see all four of them together as four versions of the same story. JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK were four proponents of change who were murdered by shadowy intelligence agencies using intermediaries and scapegoats under the cover of “plausible deniability.”2The fact remains that the murder of John Kennedy in 1963, together with those that followed it—Malcolm X in ’65, and Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in ’68—continue to have an enormous impact upon our lives even now as we near the close of the first decade of the 21st century. For one may convincingly argue that, during those four and-a-half inglorious years—November 22, 1963 through June 5, 1968, these four public executions did not happen in isolation but rather, taken as a whole, represent nothing less than a concerted cumulative right-wing putsch that effectively shot dead the very life of our democracy. What has been at stake over the intervening four and-a-half-plus decades, and remains at stake even now, then, is truly nothing less than the brutal decapitation of our democratic republic by a ruthless national security state intent on waging a covert war against “We the People.”
Proven disinformationists like John McAdams3 will, no doubt, scoff at such an idea, having us instead believe that it is merely coincidental that these four “proponents of change,“ in the span of some four and-a-half years, were so brutally and publically slaughtered by barrages of bullets. But the facts (or “factoids,” as Prof. McAdams is fond of calling them, and by this he really means any fact that he may take issue with in his attempts to misdirect) suggest otherwise. And though the scope of this article will not permit a thorough exploration of Douglass’ premise, its validity is one that nonetheless merits diligent pursuit and testing by dedicated assassination researchers. And this, always in the face of practiced disinformationists who would attempt to ridicule or shame those who might dare to consider, let alone glimpse, the bigger picture. For isn’t this a primary objective in the dissemination of disinformation? To frame within the lowest levels of abstraction those most crucial issues that affect our well-being, not only for the purpose of confusing us but also to distract us from, and thus obstruct, the viewing of “the big picture?”
The key point about the debate comes not from our goading on two adept competitors engaged in a point – counterpoint exchange, but instead, we ourselves being goaded by the depth of the ramifications their exchanges reveal, goaded on to greater reflection. And then the question of whether or not we come to agree or disagree with the terrain that our individual reflections may eventually cover becomes almost immaterial when compared to the catalysts that spur each of us, as true free-thinkers and “friends,” on to discerning interaction. For, as David Hume reminds us, thus arises truth.
II: Matters of Credibility
Judging from the feedback to Black Op Radio, the debate seemed to have attracted a wide audience. Yet, even after McAdams and DiEugenio had parried through hours of point – counterpoint swaps and swipes, two overarching questions seemed to persist: To what value? For what purpose?
As visitors to www.ctka.net are well aware, the site not only provides a wealth of information on the Kennedy assassination but also advocates that its readership go beyond the assimilation of this information. CTKA regularly posts Action Alerts, prompting its readers to take action by writing to key people in the media in regard to the dissemination of JFK disinformation. So with the fallout of feedback on last fall’s debate, especially in regard to points of disinformation, Jim DiEugenio advised Len Osanic’s Black Op Radio listeners in the same vein: “I think that we should encourage your listeners to go ahead and start putting things from, say, the CTKA site, or articles from the Mary Farrell site, or articles from the History Matters site—start putting them on Wikipedia. Let’s start doing that to counteract what McAdams is doing.”
On the surface, this seemed like a good idea. At the same time, I had my reservations. Because, over the last several years, I had loosely followed the ongoing saga about Wikipedia’s (un)reliability as a source of information, as well as the accusation by some that, on issues of greatest import (i.e., the JFK assassination and 911, to name just two), Wikipedia is a source of disinformation. But before exploring that question, let’s first get a glimpse of a pair of incidents that have prominently raised the question of Wikipedia’s credibility. Because such a glimpse provides an entryway into the larger issue of Wikipedia’s role as a source of disinformation.
The case of Wikipedia’s credibility is illustrated by two incidents that have been widely detailed and discussed both over the Internet and in print and broadcast media. Let’s briefly recount them here. First, in late 2005, came the notorious “Seigenthaler incident.” In a November 29, 2005 USA Today editorial entitled, A False Wikipedia ’Biography’ 4, John Seigenthaler, himself, laid out the case for questioning Wikipedia’s competence as a reliable source of information. His complaint was triggered by this false claim that appeared within his Wikipedia biographical entry:
John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960’s. For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven.5Now, most serious JFK researchers are aware that John Seigenthaler was a dedicated Kennedy supporter. In fact, in 1961, Seigenthaler resigned his position as a noted staff writer for The Tennesseean so he might serve as an administrative assistant to newly sworn Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. But it wasn’t just for desk duty that Siegenthaler traded in his promising career in journalism for (what turned out to be) a brief stint in politics. Real field work soon evolved. During the Freedom Rides of May 1961, Seigenthaler was called upon to serve as chief negotiator in the DOJ’s attempts to ensure protection for the Freedom Riders. And despite assurances from the Governor of Alabama, John Patterson, that protection would be provided, as the Riders approached Montgomery their promised state police escort all but evaporated, leaving them easy prey for an unruly racist mob lying in wait. During the ensuing attack upon the Riders, Seigenthaler was struck by a pipe and knocked unconscious.
The preceding very brief encapsulation on Seigenthaler is a matter of an uncontested public record. So it is with such “bona fides” that one can more clearly view the perniciousness of the hoax perpetrated on Seigenthaler four decades later via Wikipedia. And the facts about this incident, as Seigenthaler describes them, make it difficult to view Wikipedia as completely innocent in the perpetration of the hoax. According to Seigenthaler, despite his earnest efforts to have Wikipedia expunge the above quoted defamatory statement, it nonetheless remained intact within his Wikipedia biographical entry for a period of more than four months: May 26, 2005 through October 5, 2005. Finally, after pleas to Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales, it was deleted.
Why more than four months to correct such a blatant defamatory statement? No doubt, there is a long list of viable answers that might explain Wikipedia’s (in)action. But at the top of that list would have to be the Communications Decency Act passed by congress in 1996. To quote from Seigenthaler’s 11/29/2005 USA Today editorial:
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, specifically states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker.” That legalese means that, unlike print and broadcast companies, online service providers cannot be sued for disseminating defamatory attacks on citizens posted by others.6In other words, without the threat of a lawsuit, Wikipedia has little incentive to correct any defamatory statements about anyone. So it would appear that, when it comes to a question of defamation, the court of public opinion is the only one that Wikipedia truly fears. Eventually Wikipedia did cede to Seigenthaler by making the necessary corrections he had requested. But what does this incident say about Wikipedia’s priorities, let alone any responsible journalistic oversight, when it took more than four months, the looming threat of bad publicity, and finally, the grace of Jimmy Wales to relent?
A little over a year later, scandal struck again, this time with the so-called “Essjay Controversy.”7 And the spark that produced this Wiki-conflagration was an article written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Stacy Schiff. Entitled, Know it All: Can Wikipedia Conquer Expertise?8, the article appeared in the July 31, 2006 edition of The New Yorker. Some six months later, in February 2007, Ms. Schiff was given a resounding answer to her article’s leading question.
It seems that a major source for Schiff’s article was one “Essjay,” a Wikipedia administrator who, hiding behind a Wikipedia screen name (as, by the way, all Wikipedia administrators do), represented himself to Schiff as a “tenured professor of religion at a private university.” He also claimed to “hold a Ph. D. in theology and a degree in canon law and [to have] written or contributed to sixteen thousand [Wikipedia] entries.” As circumstances would later reveal, “Essjay,”—real name, Ryan Jordan—had yet to earn even a single degree from any reputable undergraduate institution. In fact, at the time when Schiff interviewed Essjay/Jordan for her article, he was a twenty-four year old community college drop-out. So much for Wikipedia credentials.
In late February 2007, largely on the prompting of Wikipedia critic, Daniel Brandt, The New Yorker provided an Editor’s Note as an addendum to Schiff’s article, stating (among other things) that:
Essjay was recommended to Ms. Schiff as a source by a member of Wikipedia’s management team because of his respected position within the Wikipedia community. He was willing to describe his work as a Wikipedia administrator but would not identify himself other than by confirming the biographical details that appeared on his user page. At the time of publication, neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay’s real name. Essjay’s entire Wikipedia life was conducted with only a user name; anonymity is common for Wikipedia administrators and contributors, and he says that he feared personal retribution from those he had ruled against online.9And what was Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales’ response to such deception from within his ranks? Later, he did publically distance himself from Essjay/Jordan and his inventively imagined credentials. But Wales’ immediate reply was telling. The February 2007 Editor’s Note to Schiff’s article quoted Wales as saying: “I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it.”
Now one may find, based upon his resolving the four-month-long lingering Seigenthaler scandal, that Jimmy Wales has a big heart. But judging from this initial statement regarding the Essjay controversy, one would have to ask,: “What exactly was going on upstairs in that head of yours, Mr. Wales?”10 A mere misstep brought about by the use of a pseudonym? Could Wales have been serious? The dismissive nature of his reaction, which Wales had to have known would be published for all to read in a major periodical, The New Yorker, seems to reveal a naiveté betraying blindness of immense proportions. And as we shall see, such a blind eye at the top, whether intentional or not, fosters an army of equally blind and biased Wiki-worker-bees whose collective anonymous swarm provides the cover of obfuscation for what, on certain controversial subjects, can be called a disinformation machine.
