Wikipedia's first sentence called it “liberal american commentator”. Today it says “american historian and journalist”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005
Eric Alterman is a liberal American commentator, author and activist, and is currently a political columnist for The Nation . The Making of the Punditocracy , and It Ain't No Sin To Be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen . In October 2004 , Alterman released "When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences" - a book version of Alterman's doctoral dissertation on lies of major consequence told by Presidents Franklin D.1
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16233167.
The opening as it stood in 2015 3 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
January 14, 1960 ) is an American historian, journalist, author, media critic , blogger , and educator.He is currently CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College, the media columnist for The Nation and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, as well as the author of ten books.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 668959927.
The opening as it stood in 2020
Eric Alterman (born January 14, 1960) is an American historian , journalist , author, media critic , blogger , and educator . He is currently CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College , the media columnist for The Nation , and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 963484933.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
American historian For the network entrepreneur, see KickApps . Eric Alterman (born January 14, 1960) is an American historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. He is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the author of eleven books.From 1995 to 2020, Alterman was "The Liberal Media" columnist for The Nation .He is a contributing writer there, and at The American Prospect , where under a two-year grant he wrote the newsletter, Altercation , until January 27, 2023.In his farewell newsletter column Alterman stated that he opened a Substack page also entitled, Altercation , on January 21. 2023, and that although publication plans were only in development, he was accepting free subscriptions.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1176959872.
The opening as it stood in 2025
American historian (born 1960) For the network entrepreneur, see KickApps . Eric Alterman (born January 14, 1960) is an American historian and journalist. He is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the author of twelve books. From 1995 to 2020, Alterman was "The Liberal Media" columnist for The Nation . He is a contributing writer there, and at The American Prospect , where under a two-year grant he wrote the newsletter, Altercation , until January 27, 2023. In his farewell newsletter column Alterman stated that he opened a Substack page, also entitled Altercation , on January 21, 2023, and that although publication plans were only in development, he was accepting free subscriptions.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1296740105. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “liberal american commentator”. Today it says “american historian and journalist”. Read the current article and compare.
2005
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
liberal american commentator
Now
american historian and journalist
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
