Forty minutes before NBC News reported of its own anchor’s sudden death, someone updated Tim Russert’s Wikipedia page, changing all the present-tense references to past-tense ones — and once again, the leaking of a news story had become the news.

After Russert collapsed on June 13, word spread quickly to its affiliates and other news organizations, but the network embargoed the information until Russert’s family could be notified. NBC waited over an hour before reporting the news — and both Fox and CNN waited with them — but before their newscast aired, Russert’s Wikipedia page had already been altered. Just five minutes before NBC announced Russert’s death, the New York Times reported the news.

The Times later reported that a "junior-level employee" at Internet Broadcasting Systems (IBS), the St. Paul-based company that provides websites for TV stations, had changed the entry, thinking it was public knowledge. Eleven minutes later the Wikipedia page was changed back, by someone else using an IBS computer. The first employee was promptly reprimanded (some sources say the employee was fired, others that he or she was suspended).

While the leaker-in-question has not been identified, it is possible the individual is a Minnesotan. IBS has headquarters in St. Paul, but also runs a New York office, but according to one source close to IBS, the Wikipedia change log shows an IBS IP address; if the change had come from its NYC office, the change would’ve showed an IP from WNBC or NBC.

IBS’ punishment of its employee has irked many in technology and media-transparency circles. Alley Insider writes:

"It’s one thing for a news organization to decide to delay reporting news of a staffer’s death out of deference to his or her family (this makes sense). It’s another for the organization to expect other organizations to follow the same policy. And it is yet another thing for someone to deliberately strike accurate facts from a collective record to appease an upset client, which is what someone at IBS apparently did."

Rex Sorgatz, an Internet media strategist and former employee of both IBS and MSNBC, doesn’t see the rights of citizen journalists as the primary issue.

"Because IBS is in a business relationship with NBC, the Wikipedia update is complicated," Sorgatz explained. "Some are trying to rally around this as an act of citizen journalism, but I think that’s a bit uninformed. I have a difficult time swallowing those noble chants, and it seems to miss part of the complexity. Nonetheless, it would also be an ultimately sad irony if a news organization fired an employee for revealing news."

Calls to IBS’ communications department have not yet been returned.