Friday Snippets and Soundbites

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Snippets and Soundbites”! If all this randomness isn’t enough for you, pick up an issue of ec and check out page 38. We don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Well, on with the show. First up this week:

• Yes, we figure you’ve already seen the video of Britain’s Greg Pritchard, but if you haven’t . . . .well, you’ve just got to!


We really have no words for this one. Really. Speechless.

• In other news, Wikipedia is a resource we often consult here at ec . . . and we’re fairly sure you do, too. But it may not be the BEST source. Especially when you’re doing a research project. Wikipedia is publicly edited, meaning anyone can add content to the site. And one enterprising Irish college student wanted to test it out. Shane Fitzgerald recently posted a fictional quote on the Web site in an entry devoted to the late Maurice Jarre, a French composer. Fitzgerald was studying how quickly news and information are spread on the Internet in one of his classes and wanted to see how much today’s journalists valued accuracy and accountability. The results of his test? Dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India picked up the quote. The free online encyclopedia did eventually catch on to the quotes lack of attribution and removed it, but not quickly enough for some writers to resist copying and pasting it right into their stories. Fitzgerald says he doubts anyone would have noticed the editorial fraud if he hadn’t come forward. Read the whole story here.

• We hate cleaning out the fridge as much as anyone, but an office in California may have taken the tiresome task to a whole new level. That’s because when a worker began cleaning out the office fridge last week—a refrigerator described as being “filled with rotten food”—the task ended with seven employees being treated at the hospital and 28 others who needed treatment for nausea and vomiting. Apparently, the stench from the forgotten, moldy lunches and disinfectant was so bad that it people started getting sick. Firefighters had to evacuate the building and a hazardous materials team was even called in. Read the whole story (and note what happened to the lady who was cleaning out the fridge) here.