Where Litigation Meets the Online World
The intro on media personality and America’s favorite homemaker Martha Stewart’s Wikipedia entry states that she is “an American retail business woman, convicted felon, writer, and television personality”. According to Wikipedia, Stewart is a convicted felon before she is a writer or television personality.
Just below the list of her many achievements, Wikipedia states: “Stewart was convicted of felony charges related to the ImClone stock trading case; she served five months in federal prison for fraud and was released in March 2005.” The section about her highly publicized, media-frenzied trial and subsequent stint in prison takes up more space than the one praising her business empire.
The narrative around Martha Stewart’s indictment and eventual prison sentence was decided long before any proceedings were in place. The internet was ablaze when the news broke out, and dragged her image through the mud as she was charged and tried, but did not show the same enthusiasm as the proceedings came to a close, settlements were reached, and Stewart began to rebuild her image.
Twenty-two years after that conviction, Stewart’s Wikipedia page and Google search results still highlight long-resolved cases for which Stewart has paid her dues.
In the Court of Public Opinion
On December 28, 2001, the FDA published its decision to reject an application for the approval of a cancer drug called Erbitux, developed by a company called ImClone. Upon learning that only two days prior, on December 26, ImClone founder Sam Waksal attempted to sell his shares of the company, the SEC commenced an investigation into the matter. During that same investigation, the SEC learned that US TV darling Martha Stewart sold her own 3,928 shares of ImClone on December 27.
On June 7, 2002, The New York Times published an article claiming Stewart, a close friend of Waksal’s, was tipped off on the FDA’s decision to reject the drug by Waksal himself, who, they alleged, also warned family members who sold their own shares ahead of the decision. The media’s reaction to this breaking story was instantaneous, and brutal. Stewart was framed as a "co-conspirator" or the "privileged insider" who got a tip while regular investors lost everything, a narrative which only intensified upon Waksal’s arrest on June 12.
Because Stewart was the face of domestic "perfection," the irony of a potential white-collar crime was a magnet for headlines. Her company's stock (MSLO) dropped nearly 40% in the three weeks following these reports. On June 25, 2002, on her regular weekly appearance on the CBS News Early Show, Stewart was questioned on the matter by host Jane Clayson. Stewart, who agreed to the segment prior to filming, famously responded that she would rather focus on her salad. By late June, she was losing advertisers.
In the year between the initial reports and Stewart’s actual indictment, The Guardian would refer to her as “the US domestic diva entangled in an insider dealing inquiry”, the Washington Post would label her refusal to testify at The House Energy and Commerce Committee as “stonewalling”, and Newsweek would publish a humiliating feature titled “Martha’s Mess”.
On June 4, 2003, the SEC filed securities fraud charges against Martha Stewart. The charges against her included a count of obstruction of justice, which further positioned her as scheming and conniving, the utter opposite of her former image. Stewart resigned from her roles as chair and CEO of her company following the indictment.
Online Encyclopedias as a Case Study
An online encyclopedia like Wikipedia may be a reflection of the existing narrative, but in many ways it also helps shape it. Wikipedia entries are written, edited, and maintained by volunteers, who by their own standards adhere to strict rules on sources and objectivity - but their viewpoints are fed by what’s available in the media. On the other hand, everyday Google users are likely to click on a Wikipedia entry in hopes that it sums up a subject neatly, instead of wading through the wealth of information right there in their search results. If they wanted to read more, they might check out some of the links cited on Wikipedia, giving them yet another boost in search results. The cycle feeds itself.
In the digital information ecosystem, visibility becomes truth. What appears first is not necessarily most accurate, but most amplified, cited, shared, and reinforced. Early coverage, produced at peak media attention, is repeatedly indexed and circulated, creating a feedback loop in which initial narratives persist long after the facts have changed.
When it comes to active court cases, many of the records may not be accessible to the public: they might be difficult to understand without the proper background, exist behind a paywall, or be sealed. Wikipedia editors therefore rely on second-hand reports on news websites that they deem reputable enough. Thus, factual records go through at least two prisms of bias before appearing on Wikipedia: first, the news outlet that reported it, and second - the editor who’s using it as a supposedly objective citation. Moreover, as media coverage dies down, not only does access to records become more limited, so does the editors’ interest in the case.
Martha Stewart may be an interesting enough character for Wikipedia editors to report about her release from prison and life post-incarceration. With many other, lesser known cases, charges dropped, acquittal, or release from custody are just not reflected on Wikipedia entries - simply because the media circus had died down and the editors lost interest. Furthermore, the actual outcome of a defendant’s trial may no longer be relevant - at least to the average reader who concludes their research where the Wiki entry stops - once they have been convicted in the court of public opinion.
The arrival of Grokipedia, the AI encyclopedia powered by xAI’s flagship LLM Grok, was supposed to address some of these issues, like biases and dwindling media coverage. It’s meant to draw resources from wherever they’re available, without picking and choosing. If records are accessible online, it doesn’t need the New York Times to report on them in order to cite them. But the most sophisticated LLM still lacks the discernment of a human editor, it cannot distinguish between an allegation and a finding, or between a charge that was pursued and one that was dropped. The result may be a more up-to-date take on the litigation process, but at the price of unverified information becoming common knowledge and harming reputations.
Online Narrative Doesn’t Wait for Due Process
As demonstrated with the case against Martha Stewart, the internet has a tendency to play judge and jury and rule against celebrities long before litigation has run its course. Stewart, who was eventually convicted and spent five months in prison, has never been able to truly rectify her public image, though she has humorously leaned into it at times.
Not all high-profile individuals who find themselves in the midst of highly publicized litigation are as resilient as Martha Stewart. Media outlets leaping onto the early stages of investigation, let alone indictment, could sour a company’s reputation for years to come. Without intervention, the online narrative often reflects the most “exciting” parts of the process: the investigation and indictment, encouraging readers to form opinions based on sensationalized headlines and moralistic op-eds. As trials go on, public interest often dwindles, and media coverage eventually dies down. What’s left behind is a patchwork of information, a fragmented narrative with no conclusion.
A lot has been written about Martha Stewart’s PR strategy - or lack thereof - during the early days of her run-in with the SEC. No amount of damage control has the power to completely wipe off months of breaking stories that painted a picture of guilt before any charges were even filed. What we can learn from this tale is that good crisis communication strategies are proactive rather than reactive. Changing the narrative once it’s set is much harder than shaping it in the first place.