cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/23066599
Since 2017, Wikipedia editors have compiled a list of news sources from which articles are highly likely to employ systematic bias, lack professional editing and/or journalistic standards, regularly misrepresent sources, and/or fabricate information.
While its list is by no means a complete list of publications with the aforementioned problems, it has helped make Wikipedia articles more reliable by basing them off of sources covering the same events and information from a less biased point of view.
To make Lemmy news communities better than their Reddit counterparts, I think avoiding links to those sources in favor of more reliable alternatives would be worthwhile.
Making a mental note to come back here later, as I am busy today and this looks important.
If you are too busy to click through, the list is here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deprecated_sources
The list itself looks reasonable. Note that on Wikipedia, this is not a blanket ban on discussion, but links that go to those sources generally get removed.
Sounds like a good idea, but I need more time to process the list. It looks like there are tiers to it, not every source is banned outright.
There’s the Perennial source list here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources
Also a searchable notice board. Should probably cross check it against things like ground news and other fact checking websites.
For those worried about blocking certain viewpoints, it’s important to note that the sources on the list aren’t there for the unpopularity of their opinions, but rather the frequent publication of misinformation. For instance, Fox News, despite its frequent bias, is not one of the publications on the list.
As others have noted, the list can essentially be summarized as state-sponsored, tabloid, and extremist media outlets that, intentionally or not, have editing standards that result in misinformation on a regular basis.