A new study published in the Public Relations Journal shows that a stunning 60 percent of articles about specific companies contained factual errors.
The research was conducted by Marcia W. DiStaso, Ph.D., co-chair of PRSA’s National Research Committee and an assistant professor of public relations at Penn State University. She surveyed 1,284 PR professionals to find out how they use Wikipedia or correct errors they find there.
“It does not surprise me that so many Wikipedia entries contain factual errors,” said DiStaso. “What is surprising, however, is that 25 percent of survey respondents indicated they are not familiar with the Wikipedia articles for their company or clients. At some point most, if not all, companies will determine they need to change something in their Wikipedia entries. Without clear, consistent rules from Wikipedia regarding how factual corrections can be made this will be a very difficult learning process for public relations professionals.”
Wikipedia’s editing process is so cumbersome, that some people just don’t bother. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, told the Associated Press last fall that Wikipedia is losing the crowd that keeps it updated. The typical profile of a contributor is “a 26-year-old geeky maole” who moves on to ther ventures and leaves the website.
Administrators are working to simplify the way users can contribute and edit materials. Finally.
If you’re in PR, or you do your own publicity, do you use Wikipedia? Do you find it difficult to use? Do you regularly monitor it? Have you tried to submit a Wiklipedia entry for your client but it got rejected? Share your story in the Comments section below.
I tried to get an older Wikipedia entry for someone with the same first and last name of my author client edited. The older entry was for a now deceased British composer. No response to my requests, following Wikipedia’s instructions. Amazon was linking to Wikipedia for my author and it was the wrong person! Very frustrating, but I no longer see the link on Amazon.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen to me if somebody has my same name and has a Wikipedia page. I need to go over there and look!
Wikipedia isn’t making it easy for us. I can understand why Wikipedians are wary of PR pros, but the current policy is so frustrating for even pros making the smallest changes.
Are you following the work being done by CREWE? The facebook group is attempting to find a solution that pleases both Wikipedians and PR pros, as well as ensures quality–and unbiased–content. If you’re interested, I wrote about the issue and CREWE at my agency’s blog: http://www.cookerlypr.com/2012/04/wikipedia-vs-public-relations.html
Holly, thank you for providing a great service by alerting Publicity Hounds to this Facebook group, which I didn’t know about. I will write a short blurb about this for my newsletter next week.
I disagree.
Some Wikipedia entries may have been inaccurate when they were in the building stages but they have a tough quality control program now. Every fact has to be referenced. See a wikipedia page, the references are in the (lengthy) footnotes.
And footnotes before 1995, and the birth of the visual Internet, are hard to find and document.
Wikipedia is a great research tool for the author.
But this site is only one source of info.
One responsibility of an author is to verify all facts and figures through other sources.
–Dan Poynter, The Self-Publishing Manual.
Wikipedia is often one of the first places I go to do research. But I am aware of the fact that everything has to be double-checked. Good PR people keep an eye on their clients’ Wikipedia entries. And if they see an inaccuracy, they find a way to correct it. Problem is, the corrections process is way too cumbersome.
As a PR/marketing person, I know that monitoring – and correcting – Wikipedia is something I SHOULD be doing. But, I have to confess that it isn’t much of a priority.
Why? Perhaps it’s because I feel like a more effective use of my time is to build and maintain relationships with a community of customers (and potential customers) via social media, blog and e-newsletters. That’s in addition to planning and buying traditional advertising (print, broadcast, online – yes, you still have to that.)
Perhaps this is whistling in the dark, but I feel that Wikipedia has been pretty much discredited as a reliable information source. At the very least, its entries should always be taken with a grain of salt.
Therefore, if a Wikipedia entry says that Racine County, Wis., is the most wonderful place on earth and your life isn’t complete until you’ve visited multiple times, I’m not going to touch it! (In fact, as marketing director for the county’s destination marketing organization, I might post that myself. 😉
Staying on top of your Wikipedia entry, or that of your client, falls under the category of reputation management. You’ve been in the PR field a long time, Paul, and you realize the problems with Wikipedia. Other business people who use that site to do research might very well think that all the entries are accurate, and they might not feel the need to double-check.
Just as people should correct the record for any inaccuracies they see in newspapers, they should correct the record on inaccuracies they see anywhere online.
Our sister company’s site is so incredibly full of lies, it’s not even funny. One poster stated that he’d tried to drive by the building and it didn’t exist (I’m in our office right now!), and that’s only the tip of the iceberg! They’ve been trying for years to get it changed, with no results. I tried my hand at it one afternoon and methodically changed each incorrect item, listing in the appropriate box for the administrators why the old item was wrong and why the new information was correct. The next morning, our page had been locked, everything was back to its incorrect state, and I received a message that, although I don’t remember the exact wording, said because I was affiliated with the company I was not allowed to make changes, as that made me a biased contributor. I wrote back and asked why biased, angry customers (let’s face it; every company has a few that will not be pleased, even if you bend over backwards for them) are allowed to post horrid lies about a business, potentially hurting its reputation, and all the business can do is wait for the phone call saying, “Well, I saw this about you on Wikipedia, and I’m not sure about working with you now.” I never got a response. Citing articles like this helps, but some of them still take Wikipedia as the absolute truth, especially the older clients who, unlike those of us who grew up with our eyes glued to computer screens, never had a college professor tell them to always double-check anything from Wikipedia. It harms business!
Amanda, thanks for taking the time to share this story. I hope the Wikipedia folks see this.