A Professional Journalist on Wikipedia

A Wired article has some quotes from Nicholas Carr, a professional journalist. The quotes relate to how he sees Wikipedia as a source of information. It's interesting how somebody in his position views the ideas of citizen journalists. Here's what Wired quotes him as saying:

Citing two particularly error-ridden entries on Bill Gates and Jane Fonda, Carr described Wikipedia's contents as "unreliable," "slipshod" and sometimes "appalling."

Which is completely different from mainstream media, of course. :) So I went to read his essay on the second generation web, just be sure I wasn't judging too harshly.

But as the Web matured during the late 1990s, the dreams of a digital awakening went unfulfilled. The Net turned out to be more about commerce than consciousness, more a mall than a commune.

I don't think this is true at all. The web is what you make it. If you go to Gap.com, the web is going to look like a commercial. Similarly, if you only read material which talks about the commerce side of the internet, that's going to slant your viewpoint.

The Internet had transformed many things, but it had not transformed us.

I can't think of a statement that is less true. Where does one even start? Things have changed so drastically from independent publishing and the de-emphasis of international boundaries. Maybe it's hard to see if you're not in the thick of it.

Stepping out of that context, sites like Technorati and Del.icio.us provide some real insight into what people are thinking about and interested in. I can get an idea of what's in the news just by looking at Tecnorati's top searches for the past hour.

He continues by commenting on separate article in Wired print, which talks about the long-term significant of the internet (read the article for context):

This isn't the language of exposition. It's the language of rapture.

While this is all speculation, I have to wonder if he has really stopped to think about how different things can be when people living in separate locations can cooperate to make something. How useful is a genius on a desert island? More importantly, open-mindedness takes shape when you're exposed to more than one viewpoint.

In theory, Wikipedia is a beautiful thing - it has to be a beautiful thing if the Web is leading us to a higher consciousness. In reality, though, Wikipedia isn't very good at all. Certainly, it's useful - I regularly consult it to get a quick gloss on a subject. But at a factual level it's unreliable, and the writing is often appalling. I wouldn't depend on it as a source, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a student writing a research paper.

And this is where the essay falls off the edge of a cliff. With 787,000 articles in English alone, this is a rather sweeping statement. More importantly, it evokes the phrase "let he who is without sin...". Misleading information and outright errors are rampant in commercial media. In my experience, this is frequently because the author has no experience with the topic at hand.

On Wikipedia, people tend to write about what they know. Will it always be correct? Absolutely not. But at least it tends to be current and peer-reviewed. If something is wrong in a major newspaper, you're lucky if you get a small note a few days later about it. If something is misleading, perhaps they'll print a letter to the editor. More importantly, commercial media is far more comfortable publishing the viewpoint with the least resistance. This is not the path to enlightenment.

I know three people who have been interviewed by a major, mainstream print publication and have their quotes changed or entirely invented. Writers and producers often have a particular net effect they're looking for, so the material is not allowed to speak for itself. When this sort of thing shows up on major media outlets, it simply becomes truth. That is, until the internet.

It's interesting that Carr talks about the amorality of the web when the internet has helped keep commercial media honest more than once (talk about democracy!).

But I'm not blind to the limitations and the flaws of the blogosphere - its superficiality, its emphasis on opinion over reporting, its echolalia, its tendency to reinforce rather than challenge ideological extremism and segregation. Now, all the same criticisms can (and should) be hurled at segments of the mainstream media.

The irony. Help us all.

Those despised "people in a back room" can fund in-depth reporting and research. They can underwrite projects that can take months or years to reach fruition - or that may fail altogether.

This is one of the must troubling aspects of commercial media. Those who have the money decide what is and what will be important. This is, in many ways, the reason for Wikipedia.

They can employ editors and proofreaders and other unsung protectors of quality work.

Proofreading is unlikely to change the world for the better.

They can place, with equal weight, opposing ideologies on the same page. Forced to choose between reading blogs and subscribing to, say, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Atlantic, and the Economist, I will choose the latter. I will take the professionals over the amateurs.

Which bring us to the point. Is a professional journalist the most objective individual to be taking about "amateur" journalism? More importantly, what defines a professional? A diploma? A printing press? Expensive parties? I realize this isn't a new question, but I'm still curious.

It sure smacks of "real programmer," don't it?  :)

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