Instant history, real-time reference
We've become accustomed to instant news coverage on TV and online - everything from a major terrorist attack to the latest slow-speed (and slow-news-day) police chase in Tulsa. But it seems we're reaching the point where history itself may be written in real time.
On Wednesday, within three hours of the plane crash that took the life of former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Cory Lidle, a full article documenting the event appeared on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that is built, edited and expanded collectively by its users.
Now, a wire story with photos or even videos on a news Web site is one thing. But the Wikipedia article managed, in near-real-time, to go way beyond just reporting how Lidle, a member of the New York Yankees, apparently crashed his plane into a Manhattan condo tower.
In true "wiki" style, its author(s) put together a lengthy, quasi-scholarly entry, complete with outline, references, footnotes documenting its assertions, a map, and links to articles about similar events, such as Yankee catcher Thurman Munson's fatal plane crash in 1979. That's quite a bit more detail than you could find in breaking news accounts.
There also was data on Lidle's plane and the the condo building it hit, plus a link to a detailed article on the plane that included an interesting sidelight: That particular aircraft, the Cirrus SR20, includes a "ballistic recovery system" parachute that allows the craft to descend gently to the ground in an emergency.
Because it was "breaking news," the article on Lidle's crash included a disclaimer that "information may change rapidly as the event progresses." As with other Wikipedia articles, a discussion tab allows contributors and readers to discuss how the article can be improved.
Not to trivialize Wednesday's terrible event on the Upper East Side, but it will be interesting to see how the Wikipedia account evolves. And perhaps it will serve as a little reminder that history, despite our perception of it as a static "object," is always a work in progress.
posted by Ray Cooklis at 6:47 PM
4 Comments:
at 11:06 PM, October 11, 2006 
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at 9:29 AM, October 12, 2006 
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at 5:50 PM, October 12, 2006 
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at 9:09 PM, October 12, 2006 
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Post a Comment*You're blogging about a baseball player who crashed his plane...
NBC correspondent Jane Arraf posted the following last night at the network's Blogging Baghdad site (at msnbc.com):
"Some readers and viewers think we journalists are exaggerating about the situation in Iraq. I can almost understand that because who would want to believe that things are this bad? Particularly when so many people here started out with such good intentions.
"I'm more puzzled by comments that the violence isn't any worse than any American city. Really? In which American city do 60 bullet-riddled bodies turn up on a given day? In which city do the headless bodies of ordinary citizens turn up every single day? In which city would it not be news if neighborhood school children were blown up? In which neighborhood would you look the other way if gunmen came into restaurants and shot dead the customers?
"Day-to-day life here for Iraqis is so far removed from the comfortable existence we live in the United States that it is almost literally unimaginable.
"It's almost impossible to describe what it feels like being stalled in traffic, your heart pounding, wondering if the vehicle in front of you is one of the three or four car bombs that will go off that day. Or seeing your husband show up at the door covered in blood after he was kidnapped and beaten.
"I don't know a single family here that hasn't had a relative, neighbor or friend die violently. In places where there's been all-out fighting going on, I've interviewed parents who buried their dead child in the yard because it was too dangerous to go to the morgue.
"Imagine the worst day you've ever had in your life, add a regular dose of terror and you'll begin to get an idea of what it's like every day for a lot of people here."
Anonymous makes an excellent point. Something awry in our human nature makes us pay more attention when something happens to a celebrity than we would if it were an ordinary person. It's hard to change human nature. At our best, we will try to remember to ask not for whom the bell tolls, because we know it tolls for us. All we can do as individuals is to try to rise above it.
I bet Nick helped out on this one, lol.
Meanwhile in Iraq where a millionaire baseball player did not crash his plane.
U.S. casualties surge amid worsening Iraq violence
By Will Dunham Thu Oct 12, 3:09 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military casualties have surged in
Iraq in recent weeks, with U.S. troops engaging in perilous urban sweeps to curb sectarian violence in Baghdad while facing unrelenting violence elsewhere.
At least 44 U.S. troops have been killed so far in October. At the current pace, the month would be the deadliest for U.S. forces since January 2005. After falling to 43 in July, the U.S. toll rose in August and September before spiking this month. The war's average monthly U.S. death toll is 64.
The number of U.S. troops wounded in combat also has surged, with September's total of more than 770 the highest since November 2004, when U.S. forces launched a ground offensive to clear insurgents from Falluja.
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