User:Valjean/Essay/Thoughts on sources

"The liberal bias of facts"
Liberals and RS are a natural mix, as liberals are more adverse to fake news than conservatives. Unlike right-wing sources, left-wing sources can be fairly partisan and yet rate well for accuracy. Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman has noted why this applies mostly to liberal sources:


 * "On the Liberal Bias of Facts"
 * "Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias"

There are several reasons for this: liberals tend to get their information from a much wider variety of sources than conservatives; Democrats are generally better educated than Republicans; and liberals tend to follow the evidence and change opinions more easily than conservatives, as their labels imply.

The consequence is that left-wingers/liberals and their sources will tend to be closer to the truth and facts than right-wingers/conservatives and their sources. In a sense, it's reassuring that the truth and facts are more favored by the common people than by the aristocracy, a connection which harkens back to the origins of the terms used for the left–right political spectrum in the French parliament, and the supporters of the American Revolution, who were left-wing liberals. The left-wingers/liberals sided with the oppressed common people, democracy, revolution against the status quo, and human rights for everyone, while the right-wingers/conservatives sided with the aristocratic and wealthy ruling class, autocracy, preservation of the status quo, and full rights only granted to the ruling and propertied class. And so it is today; some things never change.

The two sides are not two sides of the same coin, but are radically different in several ways. Scholarly data analysis, published in the Oxford University Press book Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, shows that "liberals want facts; conservatives want their biases reinforced. Liberals embrace journalism; conservatives believe propaganda.... The right-wing media ecosystem differs categorically from the rest of the media environment." The authors have documented that the right-wing media ecosystem is more susceptible to "disinformation, lies and half-truths", results documented by numerous other researchers and authors.

Another difference of special relevance to Wikipedia, especially under (and because of) Trump, is that Democrats tend to favor RS and real news, whereas Republicans tend to favor unreliable sources and fake news, as demonstrated very clearly during the 2016 presidential campaign and Trump administration. Fake news and false stories helped elect Trump. It was generally rejected by Democrats, and therefore directed mostly at Republicans, who swallowed it. A deliberately disinformed base voted for Trump. The Russians have a long history as experts at spreading disinformation, and the Trump/Russia alliance and its production of fake news to aid Trump and fool his supporters is being investigated.

Note that the name of the political party favored by the ruling class can change, as evidenced by the fact that the Republican and Democratic parties have changed their views and support base throughout history, with a nearly 100% exchange of positions since the days of the civil war. (See Southern strategy for more information.)

When bad sources get it right
Keep in mind that even dubious sources will occasionally publish accurate information, but when that happens, don't use the source. Instead, find that same information in mainstream RS and use them as the source. Unreliable sources should not be used in conjunction with more reliable sources because they are not necessary and just clutter the article. Their presence can also confuse readers.

When normally unreliable sources make an exception and get it right, some may see it as a dilemma:


 * 1) Should they should be rewarded by using them as a source in that instance?
 * 2) Should they be used, because when the adversary agrees with facts uncomfortable to them, their testimony is worth more than testimony from the normal allies of said facts?

The second applies, not for documentation of ordinary information, but for very controversial information where their honesty comes as a surprise. They could be included as a source with other sources, but not alone, sort of a "here are the facts, and even the normal enemy of these facts admits it" situation. In a court of law, the testimony of a hostile witness is powerful, and so it is here. The list and ordering of sources might look like this: ABC, Guardian, New York Times, Breitbart (last). The determination of what to do with such a source will have to be a consensus decision.

For example, The Daily Caller can surprise one. Like Fox News, which rarely says anything unfavorable to Trump, they will occasionally do it. This is a good example: "Lanny Davis Suggests Michael Cohen Has Information About Campaign-Related Hacking." Mainstream sources also covered it. Later Davis tried to retract what he said. Oops! Trump must not have been happy with him for spilling the beans.

Bret Baier, chief political anchor at Fox, grudgingly admitted Trump wasn't truthful during an interview on Fox & Friends: "I mean, the president's rollout of explaining this has not been clear. The Washington Post says it's a flat out lie in their fact-checking. I think you could look back at the statements and clearly he was not 100 percent truthful as he laid that out. You've got his answer to Ainsley Earhardt, saying he knew later on." Bret's hedging is evident by saying "not 100 percent truthful", instead of the more honest "completely false statements" or, as Shep Smith put it, "not telling the truth".

Shepard Smith, who serves as Fox's chief news anchor and managing editor of the breaking news division, also noted the incident: "Remember, the president first said he did not know about the hush money payments in advance.... Now we know the president was not telling the truth." Shep Smith is one of the few at Fox who regularly points out Trump's dishonesty and criticizes fellow Fox employees for their dishonest coverage.

On occasion we need to add attributed statements from otherwise unreliable sources, and, in this case, if Breitbart admitted Trump had lied, that would be noteworthy and thus due, but we wouldn't use it to support a factual claim that Trump lied, but rather to add an attributed statement. Because what's due about their statement is that, surprisingly, Breitbart said it; not the truth that Breitbart said. That would be covered by using RS.

By contrast, if we are ever forced to quote an unreliable source to document them saying something inaccurate, we should make sure context is given, making sure it's clear to the reader, using RS, that what is being quoted is inaccurate. Leave the reader with the knowledge of what is true.

Plenty of exceptions
When RS make mistakes, they are not a reliable source in that specific instance, even though they are still generally reliable. It all depends on how and why the source is being used. The Wikipedia concept of "reliable" in "reliable sources" isn't always the same as normally used elsewhere. We have a number of principles, ideas, and unwritten traditions attached to it, so the reliable sources guideline should be studied.

In principle, practically any source, even ones that are blacklisted here, can be used for specific purposes, in other words they are "reliable" for that purpose, and possibly that purpose alone. Even misleading sources and actual fake news websites can be used to document their own point of view, just as Donald Trump is cited as a RS for the existence of his own statements, even though he is obviously not a "reliable" source for their accuracy or truthfulness, since many of his statements display his ignorance and/or are proven falsehoods. Therefore we still cite him to prove he said it.

Bias, in and of itself, is not the only reason a source may be unreliable, and our NPOV policy explicitly allows us to use biased sources. (See my essay on this subject.) It's when they are so extreme that their spin affects their accuracy, and they occasionally (or often) push inaccurate or debunked stories, that they are not considered RS. Political agendas perceived as extremist often include those from far-left politics or far-right politics.