The Boston Globe’s circulation numbers are too good to be true on Wikipedia
Amerika.Nu is a mostly Swedish-language sister site of Internet128.com, an older-sister site, actually, that I have neglected for a good long time because, well, I’ve grown bored with Swedes and their rabid, ignorant, and unreasonable anti-Americanism (I have it on good authority that a high ranking Labor Department official had no idea that there’s such a thing as unemployment insurance in America, just to take one small example). But every now and then I get an email from some kid who thanks me for Amerika.Nu’s page on Boston, which apparently has been used in various class assignments in the Old Country, and every time I feel slightly ashamed since I’ve barely touched that page since 2001. One of the things that have bothered me, all Lutheran Swede that I am, is that the circulation numbers for the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have changed significantly over the years, changes that have gone unnoticed on Amerika.Nu.
So today I decided to update those number, along with some other stuff – like Howard Stern leaving ‘BCN and the Red Sox winning the World Series and the Patriots winning the Super Bowl and the Patriots winning the Super Bowl and the Patriots winning the Super Bowl. Like so many other people, I headed over to Wikipedia. There I found this surprising claim for the Boston Globe:
“daily circulation of 474,845 as of October 2005″
That seemed counter inutitive, since the number I had on my website was from 2001 and pegged the broadsheet’s circulation at 470,000. The Wikipedia number comes from this page on the Boston Globe’s corporate site. That page offers no source, but links to a pdf file from 2003, in which the Globe’s circulation is said to 458,000 daily and 693,000 on Sundays for March 2003.
But if I know my Professional Media Critic and Professor Media Critic right, the Globe’s circulation has fallen still more over the past two years. According to this page on New York Times’ corporate site, the March 2005 circulation for the Globe was 434,000 daily, 673,000 Sundays (I’m rounding these numbers). This source for the September 2005 numbers is a little sketchy, so take it with a grain of salt, like the Globe’s marketing people do, but it pegs the newspaper’s numbers at 414,000 and 652,000.
What’s funny is that the numbers on the Globe’s marketing site are from 2001, just like the outdated ones on Amerika.Nu.
What’s also funny is that the Wikipedia article on the Globe contains this sentence:
The broadsheet Globe’s local print rival is the tabloid Boston Herald (daily circulation 230,543)
Wow! That really is the Herald’s September 2005 circulation! And the ‘Pedia entry’s source? A Boston Globe article, the very same that I’m sarcastically linking to a couple of pararaphs above, that has the current Boston Globe numbers.
Two different users added the circulation numbers. A Rex071404 probably meant to update the Globe numbers in October 2005, but apparently assumed the Globe marketing page to be current, which, again, it isn’t. The Herald circulation number was added by Wikipedia user Archaic in December last year, but the incorrect Globe circulation data was left untouched.
You’re probably thinking, “dude, chill the fuck out, hit the bong and get laid,” and while that may be good advice, I still think it’s at least somewhat non-trivial that Wikipedia misstates the Globe’s circulation on the basis of an unsourced source when more accurate numbers are readily available.
(Before you bring it up: Yes, “March” and “September” refer to the six months prior blah blah).
De-Meehan-izing Wikipedia is no small task (although I am not accusing Rex071404 of anything other than having made an honest mistake).
(An unsourced source? I’m starting to sound like Donald Rumsfeld: ” There are sources we know are sourced, and then there are sources we know are unsourced, but there are also unsourced sources that we don’t know are unsourced, or even sources.” Or something like that).
