According to the New York Times, some people at NBC were annoyed that Tim Russert’s death showed up on his Wikipedia entry before NBC could notify everyone in his family.

Looking at the detailed records of editing changes recorded by Wikipedia, it quickly emerged that the changes came from Internet Broadcasting Services, a company in St. Paul, Minn., that provides Web services to a variety of companies, including local NBC TV stations.

An I.B.S. spokeswoman said on Friday that “a junior-level employee made updates to the Wikipedia page upon learning of Mr. Russert’s passing, thinking it was public record.” She added that the company had “taken the necessary measures with the employee and apologized to NBC.” NBC News said it was told the employee was fired.

Fired? For updating a Wikipedia page with true information? That seems excessive. Still:

One of the principles of the site is No Original Research — every fact must have appeared somewhere reputable before it can be repeated. (This cause can seem an obsession as stickler editors patrol the site flagging unattributed facts with the label “citation needed.”

Here’s the Wikipedia page on the “no original research” policy, if anyone wants to check it out.

I guess it makes sense that you should be able to cite a source. But what if the employee had a citable source? If the employee was truly fired, presumably it’s not because the employee violated a Wikipedia policy but because the employee posted true information on Wikipedia before the network wanted it to.

The New York Post was apparently the first news organization to report Russert’s death — only about 20 minutes after someone first updated Wikipedia. So an employee was fired for updating Wikipedia 20 minutes before the news went public.

The New York Post itself broke the news about 20 minutes before NBC publicly announced Russert’s death. So did the New York Times. Did the Times or the Post verify that all of Russert’s family members had been notified before they posted the news? If not, has anyone been fired at those organizations?

In the internet era, it seems wrong to fire someone for revealing information 38 minutes before the news “officially” breaks. Whatever “officially” means in this context. Granted, I’d hate to find out about a close family member’s death through Wikipedia (not that I can imagine that happening — I don’t have any famous relatives). But… I don’t know. This just doesn’t seem right.