[R-G] The problem with Wikipedia and bias

[Anthony Fenton]

The problem with Wikipedia and bias
By Tim Anderson - posted Thursday, 7 February 2008
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6954
The popular online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has come to play an  
important role in informing and also shaping public debates. Yet as a  
Florida-based, US creation, it brings its own baggage to those debates.

US corporate media sources (Time, CNN, Fox, and so on) are privileged  
as reliable and “neutral” sources in Wiki entries, despite the fact  
that many of these bodies are intimately involved in many of the most  
contentious public debates, such as privatisation, intervention and war.

The online tool Wikipedia Scanner also demonstrates that Wiki is  
heavily edited by powerful organisations, such as the CIA, the  
Vatican, US government funded agencies, news corporations, banks and  
embassies.

Yet perhaps even more important is the role played by Wiki’s 1,000  
administrators, who have “special powers” to edit and summarily  
remove content, determine what constitutes Wiki’s stated policy of a  
“neutral point of view”, excluding other points of view, disputed  
fact and “biased” sources.

Here is one example of the US worldview in Wikipedia when, as a  
voluntary “editor”, I tried to help explain Venezuelan President Hugo  
Chavez’s accusation that former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria  
Aznar was a “fascist”.

The Wiki page in question was on the sideshow generated by the King  
of Spain’s frustrated demand at the November 2007 Ibero-American  
summit in Chile, that Chavez “shutup”. The page is called: Por qué no  
te callas? (Why don't you shut up?).

The Wiki page begins by putting the incident in context of an  
implicit critique of Venezuelan economic policies, using mainly Time  
magazine sources:

     Chávez repeatedly interrupted the speech of the Prime Minister  
of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to call [his] predecessor, José  
María Aznar, a “fascist“ … and accuse Aznar of having supported a  
failed coup d'état aimed at removing Chávez from power. Zapatero had  
earlier irritated Chávez by suggesting that Latin America needed to  
attract more foreign capital to combat its chronic deepening poverty;  
Chávez's leftist policies shun outside investment.

It goes on to repeat the Time magazine line (“Behind the King’s  
Rebuke to Chavez”, November 12, 2007) that a dispute over “free  
markets” and poverty policy may have been behind the “fascist”  
accusation against Aznar:

     What may have motivated Chávez was that Zapatero - who is a  
socialist - "insisted that Latin America needs to attract more  
foreign capital if it's going to make a dent in its chronic,  
deepening poverty". Because Chávez blames capitalism and insists that  
only socialism can address inequality in Latin America, he went on  
the tirade against "Aznar and other free-market 'fascists',"  
resulting in Zapatero's reminding him that Aznar had been  
democratically elected.

The Time magazine view was a bizarre distortion of the debate at the  
summit, which had been televised live through channels such as  
Telesur and Venezolana de Television. The arguments of Chavez against  
Aznar were very clear and can still be seen in the many excerpts on  
YouTube and other online video sites. But this presumes you are  
interested enough, and can understand Spanish.

On the reputations involved, let’s remember that Jose Maria Aznar  
sits on the Board of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, probably the  
largest corporate media network on earth. Murdoch was a strong backer  
of George W.Bush and the Iraq war. News Corporation, like Time  
Warner, has directors cross linked to banks and industries unhappy  
with the reversal of privatisation policies under Chavez.  
Importantly, these groups quite deliberately shape what is regarded  
“normal” (or “biased”) debate in the US, and in the English speaking  
world.

I decided to try to clarify the “fascist” references by adding this  
section to Wiki’s “Por qué no te callas?” page:

     While there was indeed vigorous debate over not simply  
investment but privatisation of basic services in Latin America,  
according to Chavez, in public statements at the summit and soon  
after (and as reported on Venezolana de Television and Venezuela  
Analysis) his reasons for calling Aznar a fascist were far more  
specific than those suggested by Time magazine:

         * Aznar in 1999 had urged President Clinton to bomb Serbian  
radio and television
         * Aznar's government, along with the Bush administration,  
openly backed the April 2002 military coup against Chavez
         * Aznar actively participated in the “illegal” and brutal  
invasion of Iraq, on the basis of false assertions about weapons of  
mass destruction.

     Chavez also recounted, after the summit, that at an early  
meeting with Aznar he (Chavez) had asked how countries like Haiti  
would survive under the neoliberal (open market) regime? Aznar's  
response, according to Chavez was: "they've already screwed themselves".

However very soon after adding this, my entire section was deleted by  
a Wiki administrator who said to me, in the Wiki talk section:

     I removed this section to the talk page, for further work; it  
has some clear POV [“point of view”] and sourcing issues, and appears  
to be original research/synthesis, but perhaps something can be  
salvaged.

When I said I thought that my section was better sourced than the  
rest of the article, the administrator replied:

     The rest of the article is scrupulously sourced. First, Zmag is  
a highly biased source. Second, you have strung together conclusions  
from several different sources into a whole … That is, you are  
presenting your own conclusions rather than conclusions of a  
secondary, reliable journalistic source. And finally, the text is POV  
… [for example when] you introduce POV language like "brutal invasion  
of Iraq". … You also cited VenAnalysis [my note: actually  
Venezuelanalysis.com] in the text (another highly biased source) …  
you should discuss and come to consensus before re-inserting the text.

So here was Wiki’s problem with clarifying the Chavez explanation of  
Aznar as a “fascist”: the BBC was OK but ZNet and Venezuela Analysis  
were both unusable “biased” sources, unlike Time magazine. No  
“original research” was allowed but rather reportage based on  
administrator-determined “reliable” sources. I was urged to agree on  
a “consensus” with the Wiki administrators. I gave it up as a bad bet.

The result is that, according to Wiki, amplifying its “reliable”  
sources such as Time magazine, and despite what all the other online  
sources tell us, Aznar was apparently called a fascist simply because  
he supported “free markets”. Further, even if the war on Iraq was  
illegal it was not a “brutal invasion”. That is apparently a “point  
of view”.

Here is history rewritten, by North American “consensus”. The full  
story is still out there, but English speakers will have to look a  
bit harder, because you won’t find it on Wikipedia.