Monday 7 December 2009

Labor's PR machine working overtime to craft Wikipedia entry of new Premier Keneally?


Puzzled by a close similarity in the wording of multiple news reports when it came to the background of new NSW Premier Kristina Kerscher Keneally, it didn't take long to zero in on Wikipedia as a logical source.
With such a polished wiki entry and one so favourable to this politician (the slick photo opposite sort of gave it away right from the start) I began to wonder if the Labor Party had been carefully protecting this page.
Well waddaya know - it was!
Not only is the page now locked against all but established Wikipedia editors, one of those editors actively deleting anything which might remotely cast Ms. Keneally as a very

rightwing politician is none other than Ben Aveling from the
Australian Labor Party.

As was pointed out in the Kristina Keneally discussion tab:
Gosh, you're not the same Ben Aveling who's the ALP Alexandria branch secretary, are you? Gosh, that would be embarrassing, what with you removing stuff that isn't particularly complementary about Mrs Keneally. But i'm sure you're not relation at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.126.39 (talk) 07:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I am the same Ben Aveling. I assume you are referring to
this edit? That was a tough call. On the one hand, yes I am an involved party. On the other, the edit I reverted was inappropriate, arguably vandalism, and it had to be reverted by someone. I opted to be bold. Do you think I did wrong? Cheers, Ben Aveling 12:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Aveling and others have edited everything from Keneally's own assessment of her youthful bathing habits, the family friendship with Joe Tripodi, repeated public denials of personal leadership aspirations and details of ministerial planning decisions, in a minor orgy of censorship.
Aveling was anti-Iemma in 2008. Don't know how he felt about Rees but he obviously has a longstanding soft spot for Keneally.
Nothing wrong with having a hobby as well as a day job, but Wikipedia should insist that all of its hosted pages have a conflict of interest disclosure in brackets within the text right after sections submitted by members of political parties or serving politicians.

A dinki di encyclopedia Wikipedia ain't and sadly it's getting blown out by professional spin these days.

2 comments:

Joe said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Edward James said...

Simply put the Labor Party are users. Anything which they perceive as benificial for the grass roots community Labor will corrupt with spin.