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Author of Wikipedia character assassination takes responsibility

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Sunday, December 11, 2005

Brian Chase, 38, of Nashville, Tennessee, hand-delivered a letter to the offices of John Seigenthaler Sr. in which he admits responsibility for false information he anonymously posted in a Wikipedia article. Initially a prank played on a friend, the false story claimed that Seigenthaler was a suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The fake biography made rounds in the media after Seigenthaler discovered and denounced it in a USA Today op-ed article titled "A false Wikipedia 'biography'". A known free speech advocate, Seigenthaler refused to press charges. He recommended that Chase be re-hired for the job he was forced to quit when reporters, following leads from ad-hoc cyber detective Daniel Brandt, 57, of San Antonio, Texas, started calling the offices of his employer.

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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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