It’s all about editing

Whoa, Nellie! Stop the presses! Corporations have been editing their entries in Wikipedia to correct mistakes — and to make themselves look good! Film at 11!

Sorry if the news that the new Wiki Scanner has revealed computers with access to the fairly unbalanced Fox News network have been used to spin entries both for friends and against foes gets nothing beyond a yawn here. Ditto the CIA or Democratic National Committee or Wal-Mart.

That’s why, despite the alarming trend of the great wired masses to use Wikipedia as a primary news source, old-school practitioners of dead-tree journalism need corroboration of anything Wiki, same as we do for unsolicited press releases.

It’s what public relations is all about — protecting the brand against the barbarians at the gates — even if it means Bill O’Reilly has to send Fox staffers to Denver parking lots to ambush TV critics who say mean things about him.

And, my oh my, are there not a lot of barbarians in cyberspace, above and beyond Mr. O’Reilly? While it may come as a complete surprise that your faithful correspondent is not now, has never been and most likely has less than a snowball’s chance of ever making a list of the Internet’s Sexiest Blogger Babes, why does the gender of an online author matter? The ease with which voices outside the mainstream can be raised through the Web also allows the bullies and sadists to attempt to intimidate the owners of those voices.

So, as tools like the Wiki Scanner proliferate and it gets harder to hide behind a keyboard — either as a bully or a potential target — the Wild West ethos of the Web may be tamed. The new sheriffs in town will be toting not a six-gun but a sense of fair play and a dedication to the truth, and the ability to tell the difference between collaborative crowdsourcing and dangerous groupthink.

And they shall be known as editors.

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