Re:Facebook, Axios and NBC Paid to Whitewash Wikipedia Pages
by tptacek on Friday March 15, 2019 @05:26PM
(#19404476)
Technically, press releases can't be used on WP as reliable sources; they fall afoul of WP:SPS, right?
Re:Facebook, Axios and NBC Paid to Whitewash Wikipedia Pages
by ilamont on Friday March 15, 2019 @06:16PM
(#19404826)
That's right. But because the details from the press release or PR pitch is embedded in a news story -- and no reporter or editor would admit that the story was based on a press release or PR pitch -- it's seldom detected. Wikipedia editor sees "ABC News" or "NY Times" as the source, so it gets a pass.
The irony here is so many of the citable articles aren't the result of some gumshoe reporter searching for "the truth" by sifting through facts and conducting independent research and interviews. They start with a press release or PR pitch. This is especially true of tech coverage.
There was a flurry of articles late last year about astronauts on the space station treating a robot poorly. Guess where that story came from? The IBM Watson communications team! Now that the story has been "reported" on CNET, The Verge, ABC News, etc., it can be now be cited in Wikipedia articles.
It's the same with arts coverage (the New York Times supplements on Sunday are particularly obvious), political interviews, business profiles, and reporting about science and medicine. Not all of this news is planted or shaped by PR teams ("you can have access to X as long as you mention Y") but a lot of it is.