User:Mewnst/sandbox/Reliable sources for geopolitical adversaries



Reliable sources as outlined in current policies have done good work in covering all kinds of general topics in a neutral and fair manner. The policy is effective at countering common political biases and research shortfalls. It is joined by neutral point of view policies with a fair means of enforcement to create a strong framework for handling almost all contentious matters.

This effective system falls apart when dealing with the wider political undercurrents of vast swaths of the world. The resulting conflicts go far beyond mere political disagreement: it may redefine the framing and coverage of events in media, and reputable outlets may utilise the trust they hold to further the political aims as popularly reflected in their nation and by their government. As with the frantic American news coverage in the lead-up to the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, no state backing whatsoever is needed for reliable sources to march along with national narratives.

In some contexts, these geopolitical biases are handled competently. Chinese media outlets that have some affiliation with the Communist Party of China such as CGTN are fairly marked as unreliable due to their tendency to create fake news to smear their Western geopolitical rivals.

There is a tendency among some Wikipedians to label the blacklisting and perennial source guidelines as "unfair" to various outlets, especially Chinese or intermittently fringe outlets, because they are punished for sharing the faults of geopolitically biased "reliable" sources. They often follow those complaints up with futile calls to strike a website off a blacklist, but this is a misled effort. The solution is to fix the framing, not warp it to oblivion by bringing more spoiled dishes to the dinner.

A nuclear means of countering geopolitical biases would be to consciously draw from international media sources that are not especially aligned with the United States, Russia, Pakistan, the Five Eyes, China, India, or NATO. Consider covering the subject from an Al Jazeera-first perspective. After establishing and weighting that geopolitical perspective in an article, the problematic biases of other reliable sources could be muted while taking advantage of their broader informational coverage.

Thanks to the deep impact that geopolitical biases may have in the formation of people's fundamental awareness of the world, it may very well be impossible to distinguish whether or not someone is a civil point-of-view pusher for their geopolitical "team." The wider issue with such biases likely cannot be countered personally like smaller political biases can. The stakes are so beyond the common experiences of normal people, it is almost an esoteric study. Those respective biases may form a critical component of one's just-so story of the world, and it would be toxic and dickish to expect certain kinds of beliefs or awareness levels from everyone who stops by a talk page. Additionally, it is not an intellectual offense to be partial over something so impactful and diverse in interpretation.

In conclusion, reliable sources are never truly evergreen. They often have a point of failure when covering topics with significant geopolitical consequences, and may resort to prioritising calls for action over honest reporting. Instead of following along with those biases when writing for Wikipedia, those undercurrents should consciously be presented in a geopolitically neutral context.