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Wikipedia Bans Daily Mail As 'Unreliable' Source (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Wikipedia editors have voted to ban the Daily Mail as a source for the website in all but exceptional circumstances after deeming the news group "generally unreliable." The move is highly unusual for the online encyclopaedia, which rarely puts in place a blanket ban on publications and which still allows links to sources such as Kremlin backed news organization Russia Today, and Fox News, both of which have raised concern among editors. The editors described the arguments for a ban as "centered on the Daily Mail's reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication." The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia but does not control its editing processes, said in a statement that volunteer editors on English Wikipedia had discussed the reliability of the Mail since at least early 2015. It said: "Based on the requests for comments section [on the reliable sources noticeboard], volunteer editors on English Wikipedia have come to a consensus that the Daily Mail is 'generally unreliable and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. This means that the Daily Mail will generally not be referenced as a 'reliable source' on English Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are encouraged to change existing citations to the Daily Mail to another source deemed reliable by the community. This is consistent with how Wikipedia editors evaluate and use media outlets in general -- with common sense and caution."
The Daily Mail has always been an absolute dreadful comic, calling it a newspaper is just wrong as it is nothing more than sensationalized fiction.
I would agree with you if wikipedia held other news outlets to the same standard.
And Wikipedia is a reliable source?
Only when compared against the Daily Mail.
They're like all media outlets in that they pander to their viewers' prejudices. Everybody loves the news when it confirms their already strongly held opinions. Wikipedia's editors are no different it seems. If they were genuinely impartial they would hold all outlets to the same standard.
Wikipedia doesn't claim to be a reliable source for these purposes; you can't use Wikipedia pages as references on other Wikipedia pages.
Oh come on. Have you even looked at the Daily Mail? It's frequently sensationalistic in its coverage to the point where some of its headlines and stories more resemble The National Enquirer than a serious newspaper. Often times I don't think it even takes itself that seriously. The headlines are often extremely hyperbolic.
Quite frankly, I can't imagine anyone taking the Mail that seriously. PApers like the Guardian and Telegraph have their flaws, and their obvious ideological leanings that at times leak on to the front page, but the Daily mail is just one big absurd mess, a sort of TMZ with news stories.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There's a delightful exchange from Yes Minister that, while reflecting the major British papers as they were in the late 70s and early 80s, is still relatively true today:
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Daily Mail actually has some very competent, very tenacious, not to mention ruthless, investigative journalists. It's not uncommon for them to break stories of real consequence.
The editorial spin that gets put on them, that's another matter. And their choice of subject matter is often open to question. But the journalism itself is some of the best you'll find, and I find it a sad comment on the state of Wikipedia that its politburo doesn't recognise that.
That's quite interesting, though the anchor did not reveal anything I did not already suspect. With RT you know what you get - news with an extra helping of bias, just like everyone else. It's actually easier to see through RT's because the bias is focused on Russian interests, but everyone does it. Fox's is deeply conservative, CNN's is deeply liberal, and BBC is close to neutral but still very western-slanted. The best approach is to read / watch news from different sources and form opinions then, especially while keeping in mind the biases of each one. For internet news I cycle through CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Straits Times, Asahi Shimbun, and yes RT.
My complaint is the way the original article threw "Kremlin backed" out there, as if that were unusual. BBC is backed by the British and Al Jazeera is backed by Qatar. Yet the same people who decry RT espouse these two as bastions of truth. While I do trust BBC more than the average US-based news site and certainly over RT and Al J, I recognize that is an opinion shaped by being Western rather than some magical knowledge. Both sides of US media bought the "we have proof Saddam has WMDs!!" rhetoric hook line and sinker for years. Either they suck at their job or pressure was put on to avoid digging into that.
The Daily Mail is about as reliable as Wikipedia is these days.
To be fair you're not allowed to cite Wikipedia as a source in Wikipedia articles either. ;-)
The Daily Mail is the exactly opposite of what you describe. A typical story starts with several paragraphs of reaction and outrage, before right at the end on page 7 mentioning the facts.
Here's a classic example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea...
Note how even in the byline they manage to sneak a lie in (the straight banana law was debunked when it first surfaced in the 90s). If you can wade through all the ranting you will find a perfectly sensible, rational explanation for the ruling.
That's why the Daily Fail has been banned. It's not a serious source of news, it's a source of outrage and vitriol. Almost entirely fact free, virtually pure opinion (so long as it's the opinion of people who are angry, or who you should be angry about not being angry).
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The difference is that RT reporting is often selective, biased, opinionated - painting facts in certain light, keeping silent about some facts and emphasizing others thus painting incomplete image and with misleading implications. The facts they present are just facts though, even if they may mislead you into drawing wrong conclusions through clever wording. If you're careful though, and use multiple sources, confronting them, you are able to extract objective truth; take what the article *says*, not what it *implies* and you're good. If RT says "Kremlin announced plans of X..." you're not getting information that X is or will be true, but you're getting an absolutely true, objective information that announcement of plans of X by Kremlin occurred - regardless of what opinion the article expresses about X.
Meanwhile, Daily Mail fabricates facts. "Russia begins X!" - Nope. It does not. The announcement doesn't make it a fact. The chance Kremlin follows up with actual actions is indeterminate, the time scale was not announced, and there's not even a trace of X in Russia as of now. The news is fake.
Biased reporting is still a valid source, even if you need to proceed with caution because the wording is not conductive to impartial conclusions. Fake reporting is not a valid source, period. The only actual fact we can draw from a link to such an article was that Daily Mail announced that Russia begins X.
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I'd hardly blame CNN for making the peeing thing public domain, as you point out Buzzfeed already published it. If you think Buzzfeed is obscure and it wasn't going around like crazy as soon as it hit Buzzfeed's website, then I have this thing called "The Internet" I need to tell you about. It's entirely reasonable for CNN to cover something that everyone is talking about anyway.
Another problem with your complaint is your assumption that the peeing thing was false. The paper itself was a genuine report put together by a respected ex-MI6 officer. It was unlikely to be 100% true - and contained caveats explaining that - but it is more likely than not that most of the facts reported are true. The odd thing is that the only statement of fact debunked so far, that a Trump aide went to another country to conspire with Russia, was actually the only statement of fact in the entire report that the report itself said it wasn't certain about. The others, including the peeing thing, had no such disclaimer attached.
And meanwhile, in Russia, people matching the description of the various sources in the paper have been arrested, suggesting that Putin himself does actually take it seriously and believed the report was mostly correct.
What's interesting is that you and everyone else focus on the peeing thing. This is a fact that to most people would be embarrassing rather than disqualifying. Nobody wants their sexual fetishes or their temperament (the incident was a unique demonstration of both) discussed in public. But that shouldn't disqualify anyone for the presidency. It was the rest of the report that should have concerned you.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Blanket bans of sources considered poor news sources is a slippery slope, a slippery slope I say!
FD:I just posted a link to the Daily Mail in the last /. article.
And for that you should be ashamed.
Also you should be ashamed for calling this censorship. Its not, it's a private organisation setting their own rules in their own house. You haven't been censored, you've been told that they think the Daily Mail is unreliable and full of falsehoods... which if you've read any decent news source is blindingly obvious.
If the Daily Mail were to accidentally print something true and accurate, they would not be the only news source to do so. So in that regard, absolutely nothing is being hidden from you.
Wikipedia wants to be considered a reliable reference site, this means they need to be mindful of their sources. The DM is known for deliberately printing lies, slander and well, crap. 90% of their stories are celebrity trash that would make E! blush, the other 9.99999999999999% are exaggerations or outright fabrications to suit the homophobic and racist tendencies of the owner.
I consider the Daily Mail to be an unreliable and often, utterly incorrect source of information. I'll happily and openly state that I think anyone using it as a reference source is a complete Muppet who struggles to know which end of a spoon to hold... but I wont stop you from reading it, I'll just point out you're an idiot for doing so. That isn't censorship, if you're offended by it, thats your problem.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This is fake news. There was a completely unsubstantiated claim by an NY Times reporter, which seems like a bizarre false flag op:
That's not a bizarre false flag op, that's cognitive dissonance on your part.
So at best we have a rumour
No, an eyewitness account from a reporter that matches other violence at the event that's been caught on film, such as this flag pole attack, or this woman being pepper sprayed while giving an interview, or this college Republican being attacked wearing a suit and Trump hat the morning after.
based on a story that clearly makes no sense (why would an anti-hate, anti-discrimination protester identify as Syrian as a Nazi?)
Probably because the left has been throwing around the term "Nazi" like it was confetti, and he was wearing a suit, as the reporter mentioned, something you'd associate with the right, establishment, and conservatism at a lefty protest where hate-filled thugs are violently attacking people and property to shut down another person's free speech. Also, maybe he was wearing a Trump hat that was knocked off before the reporter saw the attack.
If anything it suggests that the protest was sabotaged by Milo supporters.
You truly have your head up your ass. And I suppose the 200+ people arrested and charged as part of a gang committing violence during Trump's inauguration were Trump supporters?
What you don't want to admit is that the left has become the party of violence, openly condoning it in many cases.
This somehow became a factual report when repeated on alt-right websites. And you either didn't bother to investigate it, or didn't want to, or are too incompetent to make a sensible judgement.
*snort* Yes, because you've done such a good job investigating it yourself with your baseless claims of false flag attacks and "fake news".