Fact checking is actually not as good in technical articles. Look at any article that you are knowledgable about, then think about all the stuff they missed in the other articles. I seem to remember a couple of "This Week in Media"s where this was discussed in-depth.

I would be surprised if Wikipedia was, on average, more accurate than the NY Times. You'd have to account for what's knowable in some way, and the timing of what was published.