It seems almost too obvious to point out, but journalists using Wikipedia should remember that you can’t always believe what you read in an online encyclopaedia.

As an article in The Register shows, many hacks fell foul of this caveat in writing the obituary for composer Ronnie Hazlehurst this week.

It claims The Guardian, The Times, BBC News, The Independent, Reuters and The Stage all (though we can only find it in two) carried obits wrongly stating that Hazlehurst c0-wrote the song ‘Reach’ for pop group S Club – a ‘fact’ lifted straight from the Wiki site and which has now been removed. Lazy journalism or a forgivable mistake?