The Media's Laziness or Convenient Ignorance?

Out of curiosity, I checked out the anachronistic edit to the Chris Benoit wikipedia page I mentioned in the previous post. Now as some might know, there is a record on wikipedia of all the edits made by a particular user or from a particular IP address. If you check the edit history of that particular IP address, you will notice that each and every previous edit was what is called in wiki terms as vandalism. And vandalism that is abusive, racist and sexist in nature. Unless it is a dynamic IP address, chances are it is the same person making all those edits, because they follow a pattern.

It is thus very likely that even this supposedly mysterious edit was a vandalism attempt and the fact that it mentioned the death of his wife was just a coincidence. It is also likely that this isn't the case. Who knows.

Whatever the reality, the fact is that anyone in the news channels or news websites could have done this very thing - checked the user logs and spoken about the vandalism history of the IP address. But no one apparently did. Is it laziness, or is it convenience of ignoring information that could possibly dilute the sensationalism of the edit revealation?

Bizarreness with Wikipedia thrown in

The Benoit murder-suicide case is probably not big news in India. It is already as bizarre as can get. Chris Benoit, a pro-wrestler, apparently murdered his wife, then he murdered his 7-year-old son almost a day later. And then hung himself. Bizarre facts keep emerging. For instance, there were several needle marks on his son's arm. And an autopsy revealed the 7-year-old was killed using a choke-hold.

But the latest piece of news is as bizarre as it gets. And it involved wikipedia. Apparently, someone edited the Chris Benoit wiki to include the mention of his wife's death more than 12 hours before even the police found the dead bodies. The edit was made from Stamford, Connecticut which is also where the WWE is headquartered.

The WWE is already is serious hot water over this case, and the deaths of dozens of wrestlers over the past decade. Now if it is revealed that someone in the company knew of the deaths beforehand, but delayed informing the police, it could mean a world of trouble.

IIPM Back to Strong-Arm Tactics

A reader just mailed to let me know that IIPM is back to its old tricks. Issuing death threats as well as legal threats. This time on Wikipedia where they have apparently been trying to whitewash the page and turn it into another advertisement.

iipmstudent9(an alias used to leave obscene comments on Rashmi's and several other blogs during the 2005 episode) issued legal threats and Alam Srinivas issued death threats to an editor called Makrand Joshi. Obviously, wikipedia banned the two bullies indefinitely.