Veja (magazine)
Veja is the leading weekly Brazilian news magazine, with a circulation of more than 1,200,000 as of 2005. It is distributed by Editora Abril. It was founded in 1968.
Article on Wikipedia
In January 23, 2005, Veja published an unsigned article about Wikipedia entitled Written by whomever wants to, sheding doubts on the encyclopedia's reliability. According to the article, the freedom entailed by Wikipedia is a cause for its sucess, but "it is also Wikipedia's gratest flaw, because its articles are subject to ignorants and ill-disposed [individuals]". It goes on to draw a comparison with Encyclopedia Britannica, whose first article on psychoanalysis was, according to Veja, written by Sigmund Freud.
The magazine stated that Wikipedia's correction mechanism "works better in subjects in which many people are interested [...], such as technology. It becomes desastrous in obscure or political themes".
To prove their point, Veja started to spread misinformation on Wikipedia's article about brazilian president Lula. It must be noted that Veja is a notorious anti-government publication.
In the article on Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the magazine allegedly inserted the information that he was born in "a big city in the industrial state of Pernambuco". This is incorrect because Lula (as he is better known in Brazil) was born in a small village, and Pernambuco cannot be considered an industrial state by Brazilian standards. Veja claimed the fake info stayed online for 2 days, until they removed it themselves.
The history log for that article shows that such a change was made on January 17, 2005 by 200.196.241.1, and was reverted by the same user in January 19. In their article, VEJA showed no concern whatsoever on anyone who might have used Wikipedia during that period, researching on president Lula.
References
- Veja, edição 1889, 26 de janeiro de 2005
- article on Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with the changes made by Veja; the changed bit is on second paragraph.