It’s free, global, non-profit, and crowd-sourced; it strives for a neutral stance in a media world filled with trolls, polarization, and automated disinformation
The value of trust
It’s hard to find information you can trust these days. Powerful algorithm-driven marketing machines flood us with news and reviews about everything from pizza to politics, from fashion to fascism. (See Gallup study tracking confidence in mass media.)
Public confidence in U.S. mass media (green line) has declined steadily over 50 years. From Gallup Organization.
My antidote. I routinely refer to Wikipedia at least once a day for some facts. Often it’s something about science — nuclear fission, primate evolution, or the language of whales. Or it’s about political figures and movements — because Wikipedia avoids partisan spin.
Wikipedia is enormously valuable — effectively priceless. In economic terms, it’s a public service, like a public library or a museum. It exists to serve the public, not to make a profit. But its market value is, in theory at least, as great as Google or Facebook or Netflix.
It benefits from network effects — the more people who use it, and the more content it contains, the more valuable it is to each user. Wikipedia publishes in more than 60 languages and has at least 1 million articles in each of 18 different languages (6.8 million of them in English).
Not the last word — the first
University professors and high school teachers despair when students cite Wikipedia as a source for their papers. But I encourage students to use it as a starting point, just as previous generations used the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Consider all the sources in the Wikipedia article, I tell them. Where did the information come from? The best articles list multiple sources with many points of view, I say.
Use the exercise as a way to sharpen your skills at evaluating the quality of those sources and the information they publish.
‘Don’t trust us’
Because Wikipedia itself says that its information is simply an “open collaboration” in which anyone can contribute, “some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship” while “others are admittedly complete rubbish.”
Their disclaimer goes on: “Also, since Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time, articles may be prone to errors, including vandalism, so Wikipedia is not a reliable source.”
The English profile of a Spanish public figure, for example, won’t have as much information or as many sources as the Spanish language version. And vice versa. Here’s the English language profile of controversial American politician Liz Cheney, and here’s the Spanish version, which has maybe one-tenth the detail. But that short piece might be perfectly adequate for the Spanish audience.
However, I find Wikipedia’s admission of fallibility, their requests for further sources, and their striving for depth and context to be more reassuring than others’ claims of publishing “truth.”
A ‘neutral point of view’
When I want to escape polarization while searching for information, I go to Wikipedia. Here are some of their standards, from their web page:
“Articles in Wikipedia do not include bylines, and contributors are unpaid volunteers. Whether you claim to be a tenured professor, use your real name, prefer to remain pseudonymous, or contribute without registering, your edits and arguments will be judged on their merits. We require that verifiable sources be cited for all significant claims, and we do not permit editors to publicize their personal conclusions when writing articles. All editors must follow a neutral point of view; they must only collect relevant opinions which can be traced to reliable sources.”
An investigative journalist’s viewpoint
Justin Arenstein
A big advocate for the value of Wikipedia is Justin Arenstein, a leader in investigative journalism globally and founder of Code for Africa.
At a United Nations event in New York, he questioned the value of current media literacy projects of the U.S. and European Union to fight disinformation. These projects aim to teach citizens how to identify false or misleading information in media.
“Let’s also strengthen trust online, by investing into the champions who are creating trustworthy, credible content. Let’s channel a significant slice of the hundreds of millions of dollars currently squandered on ‘disinfo literacy’ into . . . supporting platforms like Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. It’s already the world’s largest source for factual info. Let’s make it even better, especially in indigenous languages.” — Justin Arenstein
Here are some of his remarks on video: “Wikipedia is basically the biggest knowledge content platform on the planet. And it’s excellent because it’s peer reviewed. Every piece of information in there is checked by others, normal citizens, who do not get paid.”
Wikipedia’s funding
The Wikimedia Foundation hosts Wikipedia. As of Dec. 31, 2023, it had annual revenues of $180.2 million, annual expenses of $169 million, net assets of $255 million and an endowment that surpassed $100 million in June 2021. It employs over 700 staff and contractors.
Who ‘owns’ it. Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales has said over and over again that it’s not for sale. The information on its website is a public service and should be treated as such. He doesn’t own Wikipedia. Nobody does, despite rumors to the contrary. And he isn’t trying to sell it — also contrary to the rumor mill.
Why we support it
Again, trustworthy information is hard to find these days. My wife and I subscribe to a number of news publications that adhere to the highest ethical standards and professional practices.
Mostly trustworthy. These news sources don’t always get it right, and they sometimes betray their biases in their headlines, the topics they choose, and the people they interview for commentary. We will pay for an 80% level of confidence. In a lifelong career as a paid, trained skeptic, I’ve learned to live with a certain level of uncertainty.
In addition to paying for news, we donate about $1 a day to Wikipedia, $380 a year. It has arguably the largest worldwide collection of information on human knowledge that has ever existed. And its mission is one we agree with. They care about the quality of their work.
Trust and credibility have tremendous economic value for publishers of news and information. If you are a publisher, be one of those trustworthy sources. Adopt standards of transparency that will persuade your viewers, listeners, or readers to trust your work and recommend it to others. Build your business model on trust. Some models for building trust:
- In France, financial transparency earns trust, donors
- In a crisis, people seek trusted news brands
- With trust in short supply, sell your credibility
- How publisher credibility creates economic value
What are some of the sources you find trustworthy? Please leave me a comment, and I’ll publish the results.