Don't get me wrong, I have my favoured news websites, the most prominent being The Guardian site. However, I like this because being an eco-vegetarian, existentialist, authority-suspicious traveller, most of my beliefs and political views tend towards the left, and I know the good ol' Guardian will give me what I want to read. It also gives me Charlie Brooker, who is my generation's apathetic genius.
Every now and then, though, a stable, rational person (so not the readers of the Daily Mail) needs a source of news not tailored to their personal needs. You need to put yourself up against something that makes you reassess your thoughts. Not to subject yourself to this is to risk becoming fundamentalist in your opinions - and criminally uninformed.
Where does one turn in this situation? The Independent? Fox News? The Sydney Morning Herald? A random person's blog? Each has their own agenda, an opinion of their own, because each one is controlled by a will that must be adhered to, whether it be the will of the writer, the owner, the political system or the rich companies that sponsor it.
Where does that leave us?
Wikipedia.
It's sort of like news by committee; everything stated is checked over by thousands of pairs of eyes. Every bit of bias is weeded out, every fact is updated, and every inevitable info-bombing situation that anyone cares about is removed in minutes.
I realised this when I wiki'd far-right Republican fucktard Glenn Beck, and found this:
"Beck has become a well-known and polarizing public figure, whose provocative views have afforded him media recognition and popularity, along with controversy and criticism. To his supporters, he is a patriotic stalwart, defending traditional American values from progressivism,[4] while to his detractors he is notorious for conspiracy theories and incendiary rhetoric.[5]"
I honestly can't think of where else I could be given such balanced information. Not even in my own head are things this unbiased.
I often lose myself in Wikipedia for hours, because it feeds my need for information about something, then with a swift click of a track-pad shoots me over to something relevant but different. There are always more links, always more things to learn. It gives me a shallow pool of knowledge about absolutely everything, meaning I understand a lot more in the most accessible of ways, but always lets me know how to find out more if I want to.
It's informative but light-hearted; I can research the Troubles in Northern Ireland, find out the impact of MGMT's new album or find a list of kids' TV shows from the 80s. I can graze the top of a theory, or I can dig deeper and get more out. If I find a hole in their infonet, I can plug it.
There's no limit and no cost. No bias, no agenda, no moral or ethical or religious preachings.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but in a media circus filled with badly-hidden agendas and bare-faced lies, it might just be the best we've got.
Personally, I think if your not up to speed on a subject and want a good general picture of the situation, then wikipedia is fantastic. Where it falls down is on any sort of in-depth analysis. To get that, you just need to read tons of literature from polarised sources and come up with your own opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian site, imho, has become just a comment site, not dissimilar to a very upmarket version of blogger.com, in fact. Comment is Free started off with the best of intentions but has become like a cancer infecting the rest of the site, until almost all of the journalistic output from the Grauniad has been stripped of even the faintest semblance of journalistic style. It's mostly just comment. That works if your Charlie Brooker but not if your a Tanya Gold or a Hadley Freeman (shudder).
Unless your really interesting, then dont write an opinion piece. Frankly, your opinions tend to be boring, Grauniad staff. Reading the Grauniad online is a bit like going to see a Billy Connolly gig in the 80's, getting there and then realising that you have been transported through time to a Michael McIntyre show. The disappointment is so palpable my craw is being physically impaired from closing....
Totally agree D; the problem with allowing the general to public to comment on things is that people seem to get drawn into pointless, reactionist ramblings, and unfortunately the same seems to be true for journalists as soon as they get any autonomy in their writings. Charlie Brooker is so awesome because he's just so sardonic he shows everyone else's idiocy.
ReplyDeleteso when you researched the troubles in northern ireland how many times did you think of me?
ReplyDeleteI would stay away from the aussie press hev, as Newscorp seems to be at the helm of more than 3/4 of its output. Murdoch not the best man for encouraging serious debate you feel...
ReplyDeleteOh man, I just realised how much I use wikipedia to research 20th century history - its a lot! It is such a fantastic tool yet I always get a kind of itchy feeling about its neutrality sometimes; like its being TOO fair by balancing the issue. I love the idea of that conceptual space hanging unconnected from anything but at the same time its difficult to be balanced when it comes to ethnic cleansing or outrageous injustices based on a whole variety of things. Maybe thats more my thing than wikipedia's though and perhaps its a fantastic democratic resource with the limitations that implies. Still use it EVERY day though.
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