Fox News Caught Editing Al Franken's Wikipedia Entry

Posted by Matt Stoller at 5:54 AM on August 15, 2007.

This post, written by Matt Stoller, originally appeared on Open Left

There's a new tool out there that lets you search the destination IP addresses for people editing wikipedia entries. Arthur Bergman found that folks at Fox News's IP address were editing Al Franken's entry. Apparently, Fox News propagandists deleted Franken's statement that Fox News's legal case against Franken was ""literally laughed out of court" and that "wholly (holy) without merit" is a good characterization of Fox News itself." The Fox News users also added a 'liberal' adjective when characterizing the NPR show 'Fresh Air'.

There are two takeaways here. One, though I'm sure that bloggers and the internet generically will somehow be blamed for vitriol and this very episode, let's remember that unethical stuff done on the internet can be done by journalists or propagandists at media organs like Fox News as easily as it can be done by bloggers. We got a lot of shit for 'hacking' Lieberman's web site the day of the primary, simply because we write for a web-only audience. That's beyond stupid. And two, Fox is an advocacy organization that works against Democrats and seeks undermines legitimate news outlets.

Both of these points should be, but somehow aren't, obvious to most media executives and a whole lot of establishment people. I write on the internet. Boo! Call me cyberhawk, or something.

Tagged as: fox news, wikipedia, npr, franken

Matt Stoller is a political activist/blogger in DC, and was an editor at MyDD from November 2005 until June 2007. He also consults for the Sunlight Foundation, FreePress.net, and Working Assets as well as proactively networking other progressive bloggers/internet activists and progressive professionals.