Posted on 24 July 2020
Don’t doubt that Wikipedia is liberal. Fierce debate erupted among Wikipedia moderators about whether Fox News could even be used as a credible source in Wikipedia entries. It ended by being a source that could only be used with proper warnings in place.
Wikipedia labels itself as the internet’s encyclopedia. Like so many other internet institutions, it seems to have been co-opted by left-wing radicals. “The Wikipedia community recently engaged in a spirited debate over whether Fox News is a reliable enough source to use as a citation in entries on the encyclopedia,” CNN’s’ Reliable Sources newsletter reported.
The administrators overseeing the platform decided that since there was “no consensus regarding the reliability" of Fox News, that it “should be used with caution.” Perhaps this shouldnt be a surprise from an institution which has received $2 million in donations from liberal billionaire George Soros.
While anybody can contribute to Wikipedia in theory, established editors are the gatekeepers picking and choosing what remains on the platform. Wikipedia itself has admitted it is not to be relied upon as a primary source for research, despite its ubiquity as the Internet’s go-to reference guide of choice.
As a result, “Fox News — which was previously a green-level source - is now categorized as a yellow-level source with the administrators' note attached to it,” Reliable Sources observed. Now, going forward, editors reportedly explained that while Fox News can still theoretically be cited for politics or science articles, it will be an ordeal to put into practice:
“[P]rior to this discussion an editor would need to make an argument why not to use a Fox News source, but now the expectation that any disputes will require the person wanting Fox to be the primary source/reference will have to make the argument for inclusion."
Wikipedia contributors supported the inclusion of Fox News by making arguments such as claiming it “would give Wikipedia some sorely-needed political diversity in its ‘gold standard’ sourcing on US politics, something we lack if we treat it any less than CNN, NYT, etc.”
Another user suggested that both that “Fox News does appropriate fact checking on their reports” and explained that “This establishes reliability of their works in general and the fact that it is cited quite a lot means that most in wikipedia understand that it is a standard news organization.” The same user went on to explain:
"CNN and MSNBC were wrong about Russian Collision, Muller Report, impeachment proceedings on Trump, and other stuff, but they would not be unreliable in Wikipedia's eyes either.”
Another user made similarly scorching critiques of liberal news networks whose biases seem to do nothing to degrade their credibility in the eyes of institutionally powerful liberals.
“They all do it, David. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo - left-leaning media are not unlike the right because they are all spewing political commentary right on their front pages. CNN chooses to call their pundits ‘news journalists’. The first sentence in the Don Lemon lead tells our readers that he is ‘an American television journalist’ whereas Sean Hannity is ‘an American talk show host and conservative political commentator.’”
This is not the only massive dustup within Wikipedia to go public. A former Wikipedia editor recently blasted Wikipedia in a massive exposé for not only failing to be neutral, but for allowing contributors to wage a multi-year scorched-earth campaign against popular conservative talk radio host Mark Levin.
Wikipedia contributors also resorted to verbal fisticuffs over whether the entry about the 1918 Spanish Flu should be changed as controversy erupted regarding COVID-19 being referred to as the “Wuhan Virus” and other names relating to its purported location of origin.
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