No relation
Shane Fitzgerald. Never heard of him. But now he's (in)famous. It's like this, French composer Maurice Jarre died at the end of March and the tributes to his genius were many and generous. The Guardian, the Independent, the BBC, the Daily Mail and media as far away as India and Australia bolstered their obits to the great man with this quote from his Wikipedia entry: "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear."
Thing is, Maurice Jarre never said any such thing. According to the Irish Times: "Mr Fitzgerald said he placed the quote on the website as an experiment when doing research on globalisation. He wanted to show how journalists use the internet as a primary source and how people are connected especially through the internet."
The funny thing is that while many journalists have convinced themselves and others that they don't use Wikipedia as a source, the reality is quite the opposite. Siobhain Butterworth takes a rather, er, liberal view of the stunt, but then her colleagues lifted the fake quote, didn't they? Oliver Kamm hated Wikipedia with a vengeance long before Shane Fitzgerald made the case for the prosecution.
