Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Discovering WikiScanner

Of course I plugged in The New York Times.

I especially enjoyed the edit of The New York Times' entry's section on "Accusations of liberal bias." This:
Many readers believe that the Times hard news and soft news reportage have a consistent and pronounced liberal slant, particularly on social issues.
became this:
Some conservatives believe that The Times has a liberal slant, particularly on social issues.
In the interest of fairness, I have to admit that the Times edits generally improved the grammar of entries. (However, the change from "the Times" to "The Times" was incorrect, it seems.)

Someone from the Times also (appropriately) edited a section called "Self-examination of bias," from which it excised the sentence:
Because of this liberal bias, in certain sections of the Westchester County suburb of New Rochelle the Times has now come to be known simply as "Pravda."
Probably with no hint of irony.

One could explore this stuff forever. Here's just one more fun link: Check out these Washington Post edits. In this one, "contributors" is changed to "vaginas." Others are more creative.