Someone named Jonathon Dee, an ill-omened name if you've read Stoneheart, wrote a piece about Wikipedia and some of its denizens. Interestingly I found this on the same day the Sally Forth in the comics takes a decent shot at them too. Interestingly for me was this:

"During the editing frenzy on May 8, he told me, “There was one dispute where somebody thought we should be using the word ‘alleged’ a lot more than we were, because it was, like, how do you know they were really planning on doing it? But I was kind of against too much use of ‘alleged,’ because, well, I don’t know, I just kind of felt that the F.B.I. was a pretty reliable source.” At which point thousands of dead journalism professors turned over in their graves."

Snarky yes, but really anyone who has dealt with journalists know that those professors were either already spinning or more likely gagging in the 6th circle for twisting the truth to fit their political viewpoint. (Editor: I'd go with freezing in 9 myself. Besides I think they get interesting diseases for being falsifiers.) Ask a journalism major why they want to be a journalist and you get stuff that makes you think you are talking to cops, social workers, missionaries or firemen. Journalists today are so biased, so technically incompetent that science news is useless from general papers. Even supposedly scientific rags like New Scientist are full of idiocy and political opinions written as fact. Similarly, anyone who reads the news closely can see the immense political and social spin in it. Didn't the Democratic machine claim the news media was going to give them 15 points in the last election. Wikipedia has its issues, and quite honestly, I don't let the kids use it as a reference but they are no worse, as are the blogs, than the bigoted and one sided pap we get in the NYT and WP.(Editor: that may be overly positive. Read their Dante article and the PC required claim how its all from Islam. They got to include a discredited fringe theory make it PC.)

The problem is basic to all media today - the idea of "just the facts" is long gone. As an old timer told me in Chicago once, they have "totally lost the meaning of what "if your mother says she loves you, check it out" was supposed to be. Trust someone's claims because you find them comforting? Well, then check those out more closely than someone you distrust. Your buddy claims to be a war hero? Write the goverement for the military records. If you think he's a sham because you dislike him, you'll check stuff anyway. That's human nature Confidence games work by making you like the con artist. Like 'em enough and you don't check things. So its the folks you like you need to check. Of course, most journalist today appear to hate their roots so maybe that's the issue. Anyway, if this was understood, the Democratic Party, HCI, University Professors, and Planned Parenthood would be constantly fact checked instead being trusted sources."