Which journalist was the subject of Wikipedia's 2005 biography incident?

The journalist at the center of Wikipedia’s 2005 biography incident was John Seigenthaler.

Seigenthaler was an American journalist, editor, publisher, and First Amendment advocate who had worked at The Tennessean and later helped launch USA Today. In May 2005, an anonymous Wikipedia contributor created a short biography containing false and defamatory claims that Seigenthaler had been connected to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.

The article remained online for about four months before Seigenthaler learned of it and contacted Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. Wales removed the false material, and Seigenthaler later described the episode in a USA Today article as an example of the dangers of unverified user-generated information.

The incident became a turning point in Wikipedia’s history. It intensified criticism of the encyclopedia’s open editing model and contributed to stronger expectations around sourcing biographies of living people. It is often confused with a general vandalism episode, but the defining feature was the fabricated biography of this specific journalist.