The Right’s War on Wikipedia is Just a Repackaging of its War on Journalism
In its exaggerated critique of Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources, the Media Research Center attempts a striking feat of false equivalence
From Elon Musk’s public trolling to the Manhattan Institute’s advocacy research, and from Pirate Wires’ tech-world polemics to conservative outrage over Wikipedia’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict, right-wing figures and institutions expanded their attacks on Wikipedia in 2024, seeking to make it another front in the culture wars.
When The Wikipedian ranked conservative agitation against Wikipedia as the #5 top Wikipedia story of 2024, tensions were already high. In early 2025, they’ve only intensified.
Last month, the Heritage Foundation—recently in the news for organizing Project 2025, Donald Trump’s blueprint for dismantling the federal bureaucracy—was revealed to be planning to “identify and target” Wikipedia editors it deemed to be “abusing their position.” As Slate’s Stephen Harrison put it, “Targeting Wikipedia editors personally, instead of debating their edits on the platform, marks a dangerous escalation.”
Then last week, the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters blog launched a broadside against Wikipedia’s handling of sources with the dramatic headline:
EXCLUSIVE: Wikipedia Effectively Blacklists ALL Right-Leaning Media; Smearing Trump, GOP and Conservatives
Echoing last summer’s controversy over Wikipedia’s partial deprecation of the Anti-Defamation League, this latest uproar marks another attempt to frame Wikipedia’s editorial processes as a left-wing conspiracy.
NewsBusters offers little to no evidence of Wikipedia “smearing” right-wing figures—that isn’t really Wikipedia’s M.O. But the claim that Wikipedia favors left-leaning sources over right-leaning ones isn’t entirely baseless. The problem is that MRC’s “study”—at best a cursory skim of Wikipedia’s exhaustive catalog of source reliability—never bothers to ask why that might be.
The blog post, authored by a former Donald Trump campaign staffer, largely recites Wikipedia’s own explanation of how it evaluates sources from “generally reliable” to “blacklisted”. It leans heavily on the word blacklisted, using it 21 times—apparently to suggest Wikipedia editors are McCarthyites—while the more common designation deprecated (which means discouraged but not banned), appears just five times. In reality, a site can only be blacklisted for spam.
MRC also singles out former Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher, blaming her for (again) “blacklisting” right-leaning outlets. In reality, the WMF has no control over Wikipedia’s content, and its sourcing standards long predate Maher. Their real issue seems to be her progressive views, criticism of Trump, and later role as NPR’s CEO.
The MRC’s principal complaint is this:
Among the effectively blackballed media sources are Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Newsmax, OANN and the Media Research Center. Meanwhile, leftist media like The Atlantic, Jacobin, Mother Jones, Pro-Publica, The Guardian and National Public Radio (NPR) are given the green light.
It’s worth pausing to note how Wikipedia defines a reliable source. Wikipedia prioritizes publications with strong editorial oversight, fact-checking, and a track record of caring about accuracy. Publications that engage in rigorous reporting and issue corrections are prioritized, while those known for misinformation, sensationalism, or political advocacy are treated with skepticism. Reliability is determined through community discussions, weighing independence and journalistic standards—not political alignment.
MRC also ignores several right-leaning publications that Wikipedia considers reliable. But these outlets differ from the ones it champions. Reason leans libertarian, while Forbes—which once used the slogan “capitalist tool”—and The Economist serve business audiences. Then there are newspapers with conservative-leaning editorial pages but independent reporting, like The Times and The Telegraph in the UK, The Globe and Mail and National Post in Canada, and The Wall Street Journal and The Hill in the U.S. Also getting the green light from Wikipedia: the late Weekly Standard, shuttered in the wake of Trump’s 2016 election.
MRC’s comparison overlooks a crucial distinction between ideological perspective and outright partisanship. Outlets like Mother Jones and The Guardian undeniably have a left-leaning perspective, but they aren’t partisan in the way that Newsmax, OANN, and the Media Research Center consistently advocate for right-wing candidates and causes. Mother Jones and The Guardian regularly publish investigative journalism that scrutinizes Democrats, whereas Breitbart and The Daily Caller rarely criticize Republicans—except from the right.
Just in case you’re unfamiliar with why the MRC’s favored sources are deprecated, let’s do something MRC didn’t bother with—review the Wikipedia discussions that led to these decisions:
Breitbart News
Breitbart has been debated at least 16 times on Wikipedia’s Reliable Sources Noticeboard, including a major discussion in 2015. The site:
Published a deceptively edited video falsely portraying Georgia official Shirley Sherrod as racist, leading to her wrongful dismissal
Promoted misleading undercover videos about the activist group ACORN
Ran a fabricated claim that Chuck Hagel had ties to a nonexistent group called “Friends of Hamas”
Reported a false story about Paul Krugman filing for bankruptcy
Confused U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch with someone else
Was blacklisted for spam, not for content reliability
The Daily Caller
The Daily Caller has been debated at least eight times and was deprecated in a 2019 RfC for publishing “false or fabricated information”, including:
Promoting a fake nude photo of AOC
Falsely claiming a Miss Universe who supported Hillary Clinton was a “porn star”
Denying it paid women to falsely accuse Sen. Bob Menendez of hiring sex workers
Publishing deceptively edited footage misrepresenting an NPR executive’s remarks
Employing multiple writers with ties to white supremacist groups
Daily Mail
A 2017 Wikipedia discussion resulted in the Daily Mail’s deprecation due to issues like:
Paying $3 million in damages for falsely claiming Melania Trump worked as an escort
Publishing a misleading story about J.K. Rowling’s comments on a church community
Running a false report about a Nigerian hotel selling human meat
Promoting baseless claims that Facebook and WiFi cause cancer
Newsmax
Pushing conspiracy theories questioning President Obama’s birthplace
Settling a lawsuit with Smartmatic over false claims about the 2020 election
Facing another lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems for similar falsehoods
One America News Network
Hiring Jack Posobiec, Pizzagate and Seth Rich murder conspiracy theorist
Employing a host who spread false claims about Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg
Pushing a fake robocall scandal about The Washington Post offering money to Roy Moore accusers
Media Research Center
A 2020 Wikipedia RfC found MRC unreliable due to:
Not being a news organization, but a conservative think tank
Providing cover for conspiracy theories, including birtherism and climate change denial
Some argued MRC was useful for conservative opinion, but its history of misinformation led to its deprecation
There is nothing new about the conservative movement criticizing the mainstream media. What is new is that Wikipedia has become so institutionally important that it now ranks alongside The New York Times as a bogeyman they feel compelled to discredit.
And the real problem isn’t that left-leaning media is untrustworthy—it’s that conservative media has never fully committed to journalism in the same way. Most of the sources MRC attacks as “leftist” are primarily focused on reporting, while many of the right-wing outlets it defends are commentary-driven. This has been a defining characteristic of conservative media for decades.
The MRC itself was founded in 1987, coinciding with the Reagan-era rollback of the equal-time rule, which fueled the rise of conservative talk radio—most notably Rush Limbaugh. Even National Review, the most storied conservative publication, has historically prioritized opinion over investigative reporting. While it has employed respected journalists like Tim Alberta and Robert Costa, each ultimately left for more traditional reporting outlets.
The problem isn’t that left-leaning media is untrustworthy.
It’s that conservative media has never fully committed to journalism.
The journalistic achievements of the outlets MRC attacks far surpass those of its favored sources. ProPublica and The New York Times reported on life-and-death decisions made by medical workers during Hurricane Katrina. ProPublica’s Hannah Dreier won a Pulitzer for exposing how a misguided crackdown on MS-13 devastated Salvadoran immigrants on Long Island. Of course, it was also ProPublica that broke the Clarence Thomas-Harlan Crow scandal—so naturally, it must be in the tank for Democrats.
MRC’s analysis also lumps together explicitly progressive outlets like Mother Jones and Jacobin—which has itself been the subject of an ongoing Wikipedia RfC questioning its reliability—with publications that defy ideological characterization. The Atlantic, in particular, has long published conservative writers including former Republican administration staffers, though in recent years many of them have been Trump critics—enough to disqualify them as “real” conservatives in MRC’s view. Likewise, The Washington Post has long featured conservative voices on its op-ed pages—some of them even Trump-friendly. How many liberal columnists does the Media Research Center employ?
It isn’t necessary to defend the publications MRC disdains against all charges; they certainly do get things wrong. Wikipedia itself maintains pages explaining controversies involving The New York Times, CNN, and even liberal stalwart MSNBC. Any news consumer can cite the mainstream media’s missteps, many of them collected in Wikipedia’s Journalistic scandals category. What matters is whether a publication has a process for accountability, such as issuing corrections and engaging in fact-checking. An organization founded by a partisan to carry out partisan ends has little use for such things.
Finally, the journalism matters, too. For all their faults, mainstream and left-leaning media engage with a broad spectrum of issues beyond politics—reporting on science, business, culture, and global affairs—something conservative media outlets have chosen, despite so many opportunities over decades, not to do.