 Multiple news agencies, including the New York Times and CNET yesterday suggested that a campaign operative for Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, worked on the Wikipedia article on her in the 24 hours before the vice presidential candidate was announced. Wikinews has investigated the claim further, after seeing these allegations.
The user who added the content on Wikipedia was known as Young Trigg, and Wikinews has learned that the account was created at exactly 08:02 UTC on August 28. Just eight minutes later the user made their first edit to Wikipedia. In this first edit the user said that Palin "briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations, while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart".
In the second edit Palin and her family were described as "avid outdoors enthusiasts." This edit also said that "Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at three am to hunt moose before school, and the family would regularly run 5k and 10k races".
Some of the other edits say that Sarah was "brought to statewide attention because of whistleblowing on ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders," she played in a "championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds," and she won a "scholarship to help pay her way through college." Young Trigg also noted that "Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association".
The editor also said that her election of mayor came "despite the lack of support from party leaders and being outspent by her Democratic opponent." Other positive claims added included the statement that "Palin successfully killed the Bridge to Nowhere project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending".
Young Trigg also removed the sentence that said that "critics [of Palin] included the state Republican party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners".
This unusual editing pattern aroused some suspicion among other editors of Wikipedia. One of these editors is Justen Deal, who told Young Trigg that "some of yours edits may have affected the article in such a way so as to reflect more favorably on the subject of the article." He also gave Young Trigg the following message:
Deal described his reason for suspecting a conflict of interest to a reporter for Wikinews. He said that "It was clear to me that an editor very familiar with Wikipedia and the governor had made a single-purpose account that had made a significant number of edits that were universally favorable to the subject of the article. Given the fortuitous timing, it made sense to remind the editor of our conflict of interest guidelines".
After this message was sent by Deal, Young Trigg said that "I will acknowledge that I volunteer for the McCain campaign." The user did however state that "I did not know Palin was the nominee when I made my edits," and "no one instructed me to make these edits. No one knew that I made these edits. I did this on my own 'becuz' I like improving Wikipedia articles".
Below is an extract from Young Trigg's comment:
Young Trigg made a total of 43 contributions (many on talk pages) and announced they would retire from Wikipedia at 07:58 UTC on August 31. In addition to editing the article on Sarah Palin, the user also asked an anonymous contributor to Wikipedia about that person's edit that stated that Palin was the VP nominee, before the official announcement:
Wikinews contacted the McCain campaign a with a request for a statement regarding this issue; and, at the time of publication, had not received a response.

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News agencies suggest that campaign operative for Republican Party edited article on vice presidential nominee