This morning the BBC filled the airwaves with tall tales about Tory Grant Shapps and Wikipedia edits.
The BBC told us that the administrator who had made the claims about Shapps had said that he ‘couldn’t be sure who had edited the account’….so the question is did the BBC know the identity of that administrator and if so why did they not report it? Was the story about Shapps just too good to put a stop to?
The Telegraph reports that the administrator at Wikipedia was in fact a LibDem activist…
Wikipedia administrator who accused Grant Shapps of editing pages of Tory rivals is Liberal Democrat activist
The Wikipedia administrator who accused the Tory co-chairman, Grant Shapps, of creating a fake identity on the online encyclopedia to boost his reputation is a leading activist in the Liberal Democrats, the Telegraph can reveal.
Richard Symonds admitted today that he had been “chastised” by other administrators at Wikipedia for not checking with more people before banning a user who he claims is Mr Shapps, or someone working for him.
Mr Symonds also admitted that he had briefed The Guardian newspaper, which broke the alleged story yesterday.
No mention of the identity of this administrator in the Guardian story, nor of his inability to actually provide any evidence that linked Shapps to the edits….so where did the BBC get their quote from about his lack of evidence? Did they contact him personally?
After spending the day slinging mud at Shapps, and he was also interrogated on Newsnight last night so important is this story, the BBC hasn’t bothered to update the story with the rather significant fact that it looks like a bit of LibDem skulduggery at work.
Funny how much time the BBC spends on a story when it seems to suit their bias, as with the ‘Jihadi Bride’s father, and then can suddenly lose all interest when the truth comes out and contradicts their quality journalism…and never a sign of an apology or a rowback from them….they’ve already managed to imprint people’s minds with the BBC version and they know that may well stick however much ‘truth’ comes out later. All very Goebbels-like.
I’m sure Nick Clegg will be rewritng his jokes now…
Asked about the claims, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said he was “prepared to believe” that Mr Shapps had not altered his Wikipedia entry but joked: “It just could have been someone else – Michael Green, for instance.”