Wikipedia and Me

By Karen Tumulty | January 30, 2008 | +

I hope our readers here will excuse and indulge me for a personal posting, but I wanted to set something straight.:

This morning, I woke up to an e-mail from my brother Michael in Dallas alerting me that the following line had been added to the biographical entry about me in Wikipedia:

On January 27, 2008 she posted an article in the online edition of TIME titled “Obama’s Win Rejiggers Race” then approximately Noon ET, the article was retitled “Obama’s Win Reshapes Race”.

All of that is factually accurate, but the implication I’m afraid some readers will draw is that I had written a headline that included a verb with racial connotations. In fact, I did not write the headline, and went to bed Saturday night without having seen it. The overworked editor who did had no recognition of the meaning that some readers might see in the verb–nor, quite honestly, do I think I would have discerned it either. The next morning, I found (and am grateful for) this e-mail from an alert reader:

Why “rejigger” in your Time headline?

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1707277,00.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rejigger

rejigger – to change or rearrange in a new or different way, esp. by the use of techniques not always considered ethical.

& “rout” ?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rout

a defeat attended with disorderly flight; dispersal of a defeated force in complete disorder:

I requested that the headline be changed, and my editors did so. Over the past few days, I have been aware that there has been some discussion of this in the blogosphere. I have even seen one blogger, assuming that I had written the headline, suggest that I should be fired for it. I figured the best thing to do was to ignore it–always a dangerous thing to assume in the blogosphere. Obviously, that was a mistake on my part.

Related Topics: Uncategorized

@TIMEPolitics

Latest on Swampland

Congress May 22, 2012

Congressional Budget Office: Yeah Guys, Jumping Off the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Is as Bad as It Sounds

Breaking up partisan budgetary knife-fights can be perilous business, so in its new report on a cluster of expiring tax breaks and scheduled spending cuts, the Congressional Budget Office, home to Capitol Hill’s weary fiscal referees, exercises restraint. While most Washingtonians call it “Taxmageddon,” the CBO bean-counters refer to the event, set to take place January 1 if Congress doesn’t act, as “the Fiscal Restraint That Is Scheduled to Occur in 2013.” Catchy. But the stakes are high and the CBO’s warning is dire, so just for a second, they really let their inhibitions go:
From our Partners
Lewis Eisenberg, Major Romney Donor, Accuses Obama Of Demonizing Wall StreetHuffPost Politics

Twice-Told TalesSlate
Mitt Romney's $11.7 Million Raised In April Isn't The Whole PictureHuffPost Politics
Iran May 22, 2012

Iran Nuke Concession?

The New York Times is reporting that Iran may be about to open its Parchin military facility to international inspections. This is a biggish deal, but not a complete breakthrough. Parchin is where Iran may have been conducting experiments on weaponizing its nuclear fuel; there has been speculation that the facility housed a chamber to test nuclear triggering devices. No doubt, if the inspections are allowed at Parchin, there’s not going to be anything there to inspect. (Although if uranium was present in the past, it will be detectable.) This is part of a flurry of Iranian activity on the eve of the next round of nuclear talks in Baghdad tomorrow.