IMO, most of the serious professional media (i.e., publications like the NY Times; I'm not sure cable news qualifies) is far more reliable than Wikipedia. If someone from the NYPD secretly edited a NY Times article, it would be a shock. At Wikipedia, it's a dog bites man story, with similar things happening every hour of every day.
They are also pretty bad at providing concise overviews for somebody who hasn't been following the story since the beginning
I strongly agree and would go further: The Times pages you cite are inadequate to the task. They are stuck in the print media past. They should be updating their own public knowledge base; I think it would generate quite a bit of traffic on its own, and they could link to it from each relevant article to provide context (and save a few redundant paragraphs of writing in each story). Also, the way many reporters write, unaware of key developments, history, or issues, they could use it internally. I'd much rather read the Washington Post's knowledge base page on ISIS than Wikipedia's, for example.
what do you suggest I use instead? Unless you have some actual suggestions, then your complaint isn't really useful. I already know that wikipedia is flawed.
It may be so flawed as to be useless, at least for any situation where accurate information is valuable to you. A lack of accurate information does not make false information a useful alternative. I do think Wikipedia is good for the links and references.
By the way, for everything but current events and pop culture, Encyclopedia Britannica is excellent. Concise, authored by actual experts, and usually well-written.
"In matters of science the authority of thousands is not worth the humble reasoning of one single person." - Galileo (maybe apocryphal)
Comments
IMO, most of the serious professional media (i.e., publications like the NY Times; I'm not sure cable news qualifies) is far more reliable than Wikipedia. If someone from the NYPD secretly edited a NY Times article, it would be a shock. At Wikipedia, it's a dog bites man story, with similar things happening every hour of every day.
I strongly agree and would go further: The Times pages you cite are inadequate to the task. They are stuck in the print media past. They should be updating their own public knowledge base; I think it would generate quite a bit of traffic on its own, and they could link to it from each relevant article to provide context (and save a few redundant paragraphs of writing in each story). Also, the way many reporters write, unaware of key developments, history, or issues, they could use it internally. I'd much rather read the Washington Post's knowledge base page on ISIS than Wikipedia's, for example.
It may be so flawed as to be useless, at least for any situation where accurate information is valuable to you. A lack of accurate information does not make false information a useful alternative. I do think Wikipedia is good for the links and references.
By the way, for everything but current events and pop culture, Encyclopedia Britannica is excellent. Concise, authored by actual experts, and usually well-written.
"In matters of science the authority of thousands is not worth the humble reasoning of one single person." - Galileo (maybe apocryphal)