Last week I wrote about an unknown user who first reported Tim Russert’s death on Wikipedia. That “junior-level employee” worked for the Internet Broadcasting Systems who provides web services to NBC affiliates, has been suspended (earlier reports said fired, but NBC disputes this) for updating the Wikipedia page. The employee thought the information was public record.

Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider wrote:

It’s one thing for a news organization to decide to delay reporting news of a staffer’s death out of deference to his or her family (this makes sense). It’s another for the organization to expect other organizations to follow the same policy. And it is yet another thing for someone to deliberately strike accurate facts from a collective record to appease an upset client, which is what someone at IBS apparently did.

The world has changed in last 15 years, and the genie isn’t going back in the bottle. If NBC wants to maintain its tradition with respect to staffers’ deaths, that’s fine. In the meantime, it should recognize that its chances of controlling a story this big are–and should be–infinitesimal and that “citizen journalism” has long since gone mainstream. If the employee at IBS who updated the Wikipedia entry did not learn of it via a confidential NBC communication, moreover, NBC and IBS owe him or her an apology and a job.(Emphasis his)

As Mathew Ingram writes “The lesson is that as long as there is news, people will try to share it. (Note: The NYT story says that NBC tried to hold back the news).”

As I said last week, Wikipedia provided rapid information while NBC took 40 minutes after Wikipedia to report Russert’s death. Information thanks to the internet moves faster. NBC can try to keep its exclusive stories, but it can’t be surprised if some younger, sprier website scoops it.