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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

rte edits wikipedia

I've caught our National Broadcaster, RTÉ editing numerous Wikipedia articles. These include rival radio station FM104 and TodayFM's Gift Grub.

Some of the worst edits include changing FM104's article from:

FM104 is aimed mainly at 16-35 year olds, broadcasting mainly popular music and rock music. The station's flagship programme is the award-winning Strawberry Alarm Clock
to
FM104 is aimed mainly at 16-17 year olds, broadcasting mainly popular music and rock music. The station's flagship programme is the Strawberry Alarm Clock,
I'm pretty sure FM104 does not aim themselves at a 2 year age range, and there is no denying that the Strawberry Alarm Clock has won awards. Why does RTÉ think otherwise? Surely they shouldn't edit Wikipedia if they don't have any knowledge on the article in question!

Other Edits to Gift Grub mainly involve removing half the article or parts of it. They also added the following piece... very bias towards RTÉ.

In December 2006, Gift Grub received a heavy blow when impressionist Oliver Callan left Today FM in a row over his alleged rights to material on the Gift Grub 7 album. His departure left the comedy slot without more than 20 of its most popular characters including Enda Kenny, RTE Newsreader Bryan 'Dobbo' Dobson, intrepid reporter Plastic Sheeting (based on RTE's Southern Correspondent Paschal Sheehy), Dave Fanning, Damien Dempsey, George W Bush, Derek Mooney, Pat Kenny, Marian Finucane and many others.

Callan's claims are the subject of threatened legal action and he even went on RTE's Liveline programme to air his grievances, which generated much press coverage and dinted Gift Grub's album sales. Oliver Callan has since set up a rival comedy slot on RTE Radio called Nob Nation, which now has a much bigger audience than Gift Grub due to it being carried on both RTE Radio One and on 2FM.

I've found all this using the WikiScanner. See more of RTÉ's Edits here, including a request to create a Jenny Huston article!

Any response RTÉ? I know you have read my blog before!

5 comments:

  1. Nicely done. That's simply embarrassing for them :)

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  2. Anonymous10/9/07 15:30

    Legend! You have truly shown the power of the web in a brilliant way. Fair play to you sir!!

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  3. Anonymous10/9/07 15:58

    Good catch, keep up the good work.

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  4. This is covered in the Daily Mail today of course they didn't bother crediting you as the source.

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  5. Anonymous11/9/07 11:43

    A great tool - you can even check out what the Irish Times have been editing.

    - see Marc Coleman, their own entry, Sean Doherty, etc...

    Go to: http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/

    The Irish Times IP Range: 193.95.187.160-191

    ReplyDelete