Brigid Hughes was a success story. She had graduated from Northwestern University, and taken a job at The Paris Review as a lowly intern. She rose astronomically, to managing editor, and then succeeded George Plimpton as the executive editor of the magazine. After a year, she was not rehired as the editor, and was succeeded by Philip Gourevitch. Gourevitch left, and was replaced by Lorin Stein. Stein was pushed out after several incidents of sexual misconduct were discovered. The New York Times was one of those who criticized Stein heavily, and wrote that Stein was the third editor to "hold the title in the magazine's 58-year history, and the second to follow George Plimpton, himself a legendary New York social figure." The Times, however – rather glaringly – forgot an editor. Julie Bosman (the author of the article) left out Brigid Hughes.
Antoine Wilson and others had written to Bosman, urging the correction to be made, but Bosman resisted the change, as at the time Hughes was not listed on the masthead of the Review at all. The correction to the article was issued in December 2017. However, Hughes was left out in The New Yorker, informative pieces, and, yes, even The Paris Review's Wikipedia Page. An anonymous editor, with an IP address registered to The Paris Review, removed any mention of Hughes from the Paris Review page, on at least one occasion. Hughes was not re-added to the page until November 2017, and an article did not exist on her until December 7, 2017.
In an interview of Stein, he himself ignores that Hughes was editor. When asked "You're following on the heels on some of the great editors of their day, This was a daunting task, I assume, stepping into those shoes." Stein responds "Well. Yeah. In a funny way, George Plimpton edited the magazine from 1953 until he died in 2003, and then Philip Gourevitch, uh, terrific reporter, did it for five years and then quit to write a book, so I’m number three, and Philip really, that was hard, what Philip had to do because George Plimpton — Norman Mailer called him the most loved man in New York, but he was not just in New York, people worship him, rightly so." (Adapted from a Longreads Story)
The Daily Mail, which has a belligerent (to say the least) relationship with Wikipedia has just become the latest in a series of newspapers to copy from Wikipedia. In an article about a BBC documentary soon to come, they copied over six sentences.
Wikipedia wrapped in razor blades. By all means examine it—but do so carefully or there may be a lot of blood on your hands.
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