WikiEqual: Is Mainstream Media That Reliable?
As promised last week, we will present an ongoing series of arguments about whether mainstream media always represents the most reliable sources for information. This is in response to the many Wikipedians who think that only subjects with mainstream media notability can have verifiable and useful articles written about them.
Wikipedians prize mainstream media sources. Many consider such sources to be the only reliable sources for many topics. This has also been an excuse to defend the Notability policy, as in ‘no notability in mainstream media, no reliable sources available’. In fact, Wikipedians aren’t alone in preferring established, mainstream media outlets. In the wake of Fake News scandals everywhere, major internet media companies like Google and Facebook have also been adjusting their algorithms to prioritise news from so-called reliable sources. On the other hand, many independent journalists and activists, myself included, think that this is a mistake. Let me explain why.
It is true that mainstream media outlets almost never outrightly publish fake news. After all, they have a reputation to maintain, and if they spoil their reputation, they will suffer great loses for years. They simply cannot be caught publishing fake news. However, there is a big gap between an information source that is certainly not lying and an information source that is reliable. Bias does not constitute lying, but bias means unreliability. And mainstream media has a lot of bias problems. Firstly, the kind of people who get featured in mainstream news (with the exception of criminals) tend to come from rich and connected backgrounds. They are not a representative sample of the whole population. If Wikipedia only includes subjects relevant to this subset of the population, it will be a case of biased sampling. In academic research, biased sampling limits the validity of the whole study. Wikipedians should therefore consider this very seriously. Secondly, journalists in the media establishment work as a clique, and often develop ideas together. Hence, the perspective and opinion offered in mainstream media is necessarily narrow and unrepresentative. Again, basing the world’s largest encyclopedia on this limited perspective is analogous to a poorly done literature review in academic research, which does not give confidence of its robustness and reliability.
Many Wikipedians may then counter that the use of mainstream media as a ‘standard’ is still a lesser evil than allowing non-establishment sources to be used, because the latter may outrightly lie and even publish libelous pieces, potentially exposing Wikipedia to litigation if used as sources. Here, I propose a compromise: controversial claims have to be backed up by establishment mainstream media sources. But not everything is controversial; some things are just neutral facts. An interview of a subject with a college newspaper, for example, should still be seen as a reliable source, because the information is given by the subject itself, college newspapers are not known to be libelous in general, and subjects of interviews are generally aware of any libelous claims very soon after publication. Similarly, a self-published book where the author states their date and place of birth should again be seen as uncontroversial and reliable. (If you argue that the author can lie in their self-published book, then similarly a ‘notable’ person can lie in a mainstream media interview, and unless the subject is a high profile celebrity, we will probably never know they lied in either case.)
With great power comes great responsibility. The recent fake news scandals show that when internet media giants get it wrong, there will be important consequences for all. The internet media giants should not just pretend that mainstream media outlets are reliable without considering this issue of biased sampling thoroughly. And this includes Wikipedia.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter, independent journalist and author, who is passionate about liberty and equality.
