Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Survey (Democracy Now!)

• I do not recall it being established ther was any change in their reputation, so no change. Slatersteven (talk) 14:48, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

  Just added sourcing supporting that there was a reputation change, let me know what you think. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 14:59, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

  As ElKevbo noted previously, it doesn't appear the WP:DEMOCRACYNOW accurately reflects the discussions it is supposed to be summarizing, with the last discussion in 2013. The premise for any change in their reputation is that the status quo is not flawed, which is an incorrect premise.

  As I've noted, this case isn't to be understood as one for an "upgrade"; it's one for the rectifying of a flawed downgrade. إيان (talk) 15:46, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Support based on sources and arguments presented in the previous discussion which I will summarize here.

Bias and reliability are two separate things. A source can be biased but highly factual. Sources should always have opinions attributed, which accounts for bias. And I believe WP:DEMOCRACYNOW is a biased but highly-factual source, and therefore meets the threshold for being considered WP:GENREL. The previous analysis of this source deeming it WP:MREL was over a decade ago and a re-evaluation is WP:DUE.

Reliability checkers

• https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/democracy-now/
• MBFC (not reliable, removed this part of my comment)
• https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive?utm_source=SourcePage&utm_medium=OnPageLink
• Adfontes (not reliable, removed this part of my comment)
• https://ground.news/interest/democracy-now
  • Media bias: Left
  • Factuality: This was paywalled, so I wrote a webscraping script to fetch factuality data. And it says High factuality.

Additional sources

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0163443712449500
• Journalistic field wars: defending and attacking the national narrative in a diversifying journalistic field
  • While this source does not explicitly say it is "generally reliable", it seems to praise its reporting.
  • Democracy Now! - In contrast to the established networks, alternative media focused their criticisms on U.S. foreign policy and establishment journalism’s reporting of WikiLeaks. The New York-based Democracy Now!, far from framing WikiLeaks as a threat to national security, employed the term ‘whistleblower’ to describe the organization in nearly every story. Amy Goodman, the program’s host, associated the WikiLeaks-released cables with the Pentagon Papers and Assange with Daniel Ellsberg, the man who released the Papers. The name of the program – Democracy Now! – suggests a radical belief in citizen access to information that facilitates self-governance as well as a demand for positive rights. Democracy Now!, consistent with its radically democratic principles, did not merely praise or condemn WikiLeaks but hosted a debate between Steven Afterwood of the Federation of American Scientists, who condemned WikiLeaks as irresponsible, and Glenn Greenwald of Salon, who framed WikiLeaks as a whistleblower.
• https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262514897/digital-media-and-democracy/
• Digital Media and Democracy
  • Again generally positive sentiment.
  • The strategies of practice that are studied or exemplified here include: (a) reform-changing media policy and legislation around ownership and concentration, in order to limit the monopolization of media and exclusion of diversity within public agenda setting; (b) establishment of grassroots, independent news channels and networks such as Pacifica, Democracy Now!, and Al Jazeera English...
  • Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 500 stations in North America. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the United States, Democracy Now! is broadcast on community, Pacifica, and National Public Radio stations, public access cable television stations, satellite television (on Free Speech TV, channel 9415 of the DISH Network), shortwave radio, and the Internet.
• https://transformationsjournal.org/index.php/transformations/article/view/4239/2715
• Transformation (journal)
  • Caveat that this reads like an opinion piece and was written in 2008, but it argues Democracy Now! is free from corporate interests and is a better alternative to mainstream media outlets.
  • It is my contention that Democracy Now! is at the vanguard of an emerging independent media sector that is revitalising US news media at a decisive moment in American (journalism) history.

The reliability checkers are the strongest sources, but other sourcing seems to praise Democracy Now! for its status as a independent news organization that is free from harmful media practices (propaganda model, protest paradigm) that pervade most US mainstream news outlets.

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 14:58, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

@Alexandraaaacs1989 I’ll hold off on voting for now pending further analysis, but WP:RSP already establishes that for our purposes, Ad Fontes/MBFC are not reliable sources, and I’m also not encouraged by the newest of the academic/journalistic sources you’ve provided being from 2012. The Kip ^(contribs) 15:07, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

That's useful to know, thank you. I'll strike those parts of my comment, and if I don't get around to adding better sourcing soon, hopefully someone else does in the meantime. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 15:11, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

The same is true of ground news. The discussion is about whether the site is reliable for Wikipedia's purposes based on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. These sites don't base their ratings on those policies and guidelines, so the ratings are worthless. Their left/right bias is even worse as bias has not part in discussions about reliability. They're useful for researching a source, as they report things that can be used here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:51, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Basically whenever "reliability" is used the context is always "reliable per Wikipedia's policy and guidelines for Wikipedia's purposes" not a general idea of reliability that other websites might be using. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:54, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

They also have a long list of awards, some seem to be minor but others point to a reputation for reliable journalism. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:02, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Here's some newer sources:

• Media, Culture, & Society

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443712449500

Whereas the networks had constructed WikiLeaks-as-criminal-and-threat, Democracy Now! reporters read through the cables to construct news that focused on U.S. crimes and imperial actions abroad: U.S. pressure on Germany to suppress arrest warrants for CIA officers who abducted an innocent man and held him in captivity for several months; Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice ordering embassies to collect foreign dignitaries’ ‘frequent flier numbers, credit card details, and even DNA material, like fingerprints, [and] iris scans’; pressure to halt Spanish investigations of U.S. torture at Guantanamo Bay, CIA rendition flights, U.S. troops killing of a Spanish journalist in Iraq; transfer of prisoners to countries where, in the words of U.N. Special Rapporteur Juan Mendez, U.S. officials ‘knew that these people were going to be tortured’; the storage of banned cluster bombs in Britain; ‘massive civilian casualties’, in Goodman’s words, following a U.S. attack on Yemen; American opposition to Afghani reconciliation talks with Taliban leaders; and neutralization, co-optation, and marginalization of states opposed to inadequate American plans to curb global warming. Unlike the networks, Democracy Now! correctly pointed out that Assange had reason to conceal his location because of assassination threats coming from talking heads on cable networks and U.S. House members. Fox News commentator Bob Beckel, for example, called for the murder of Assange because a ‘dead man can’t leak stuff’ and U.S. Representative Peter King called Assange a terrorist.

• Social Movement Studies (2019)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14742837.2019.1681954

Democracy Now! is the flagship program of the pacifist politically left Pacifica Radio Network, and research on activist media consumption suggests the program is an important source of information for movement participants (Rauch, 2007, 2015). The host and public face for Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman, has written and done speaking tours for several solo and co-authored New York Times best-selling books, her most recent titled, 20 years of covering the movements changing America (Goodman, Goodman, & Moynihan, 2016).

Describing themselves as ‘the largest public media collaboration in the country’ (Moynihan,2008), the program is targeted at a U.S. audience, is distributed online (http://democracynow.org), and is currently carried on over 1,400 stations around the world – mostly community and public radio stations, and public television stations in the U.S. As a daily news magazine broadcast from New York City, the journalistic practices of Democracy Now! staff interact with the political actions of activist movements, co-producing narrative resources that listeners/viewers can use to understand what movements ‘mean’. Democracy Now!’s position within the movement milieu makes it a valuable resource for understanding narrative connections among movement labels over time, and this paper draws on it to build a targeted diachronic multi-issue corpus of spoken-word texts that is structurally consistent in size and genre."

• Toft, A. (2018). Chapter 13. Cross-talk in political discourse: Strategies for bridging issue movements on Democracy Now!. In M. Kranert & G. Horan (Eds.) ‘Doing Politics’: Discursivity, performativity and mediation in political discourse (pp. 301-329).

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/dapsac.80.13tof/html

Democracy Now! is one of the most widely distributed independent media programs in the United States. Started in 1996, this nationally syndicated hour-long daily news-magazine broadcast is currently syndicated on over 1400 public access TV stations, and public, community and low-power FM radio stations. Funded in large part by listener/viewer/reader contributions, Democracy Now! offers a well-resourced and professionally produced program that covers the national news for the day, and routinely sources high-profile activists, artists, authors, scholars, journalists, and politicians. The broad grassroots distribution, funding, and political reputation of Democracy Now! elevate the importance of who speaks and what they say, and guests on the program often appear to qualify as what Eyerman and Jamisen (1991) would call “movement intellectuals”: people who develop their expertise and source legitimacy through their leadership in uncovering injustice and working for social change.

• What’s the Point of News?, by Tony Harcup (2020)

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-39947-4

Chapter 3 will apply the critical theoretical perspectives on journalism and news introduced in Chap. 2 to examine in detail the output from specific alternative media projects ranging from the Liverpool Free Press in the 1970s to Democracy Now! today. This chapter will draw on extant empirical studies where appropriate but will apply fresh thinking and critical reading to such material in an effort to explore the social and journalistic significance of such alternative forms of practice. It will argue that alternative news values are not merely desirable in principle, but that they can be found operating in practice in some forms of media. In their different ways, the approaches to news exemplified in these examples of alternative media all critique what it means to be a journalist, and what we might mean by news.1 Edittttor (talk) 21:40, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

I don’t find these compelling as evidence for reliability.

• Handley & Rutigliano 2012 in Media Culture & Society isn’t making a claim about reliability but about bias: that DN had the opposite (anti-US) bias to the “dominant” (mainstream) outlets and is therefore preferable from a (US) anti-nationalist perspective. It’s also quite old.
• Toft 2019 in Social Movement Studies isn’t making a claim about reliability but about usefulness to an activist audience. It’s saying DN’s embedded in a “pacifist politically left” movement. That doesn’t make it unreliable, but it doesn’t make it reliable either. It emphasises the outlet (and Goodman’s) reputation within this milieu so might suggest due weight when we discuss such movements.
• Toft 2018 (same author) in the book Doing Politics is making the same point again, but also emphasises that it is slick and well funded. I don’t think that’s a reliability data point.
• Harcup 2020: I don’t have access to this but the overview doesn’t seem to be making a claim about reliability. Might be worth getting access to see if it does.

BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:00, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

(Moved under my !vote.) In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 21:48, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

• I'm not against us re-evaluating the source, as the RSP entry is old and may not perfectly represent our discussions, but I don't think the upgrade case has been made yet. As I noted in the preceeding discussion, the evidence presented above simply tells us that its bias is held in high regard by some left-wing media scholars, or was over a decade ago, not that it has a reputation for reliability today. My strong impression is that:

• its "Stories", as it calls them, showcase the opinions of various guests and are reliable primary sources for those opinions and beyond that we should at best see these as RSOPINION or possibly on a case by case basis depending on whether the guests are subject matter experts on the topic the WP article is about.
• its "Headlines" are generally accurate but often with a partisan spin but that they are effectively sourced from other sources such as wires and we'd be better to use the originals. I'd be curious to see what we would gain by using these instead of the legacy networks and wire services they depend on.
• When it does original reporting (e.g. the Tom Morello example report mentioned by Visviva below), these should generally be regarded as reliable.

My conclusion then is we should keep it as "additional considerations apply" to make these distinctions clear and treat it as weakly reliable. But I'm open to persuasion if there is better evidence coming. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2026 (UTC) [edited 16.05 to add 3rd bullet point and fix indenting]

Hi Bob. I agree with each of your three bullet points, but I'm not sure why "additional considerations apply" is the conclusion from your three bullet points (likely due to the lackluster strength of my original sourcing provided?). I think ActivelyDisinterested made a very strong case below that responds to some of the points in your argument, so I'm curious what your thoughts are. Paraphrasing where thing seem to be, guests saying something in "Stories" should be treated like RS opinion pieces by requiring attribution like in any other WP:GREL, WP:HEADLINES are not RS regardless, and DN original reporting is factual, which seems to leave no differences between DN and other sources we currently consider to be GREL. The awards list seems like the most compelling piece of evidence yet in favor of DN being GREL if we're making an inductive argument to supplement the other points I just mentioned. Hope to hear your response! Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 20:40, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

+1 I also agree that Bob's conclusion of "additional considerations apply" doesn't follow from their 3 points. Even for GREL sources, WP:RSOPINION always applies (eg. NYT published an op-ed written by Vladimir Putin), so does WP:HEADLINE. VR 23:06, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Not sure to be honest. I don’t think WP:HEADLINES applies to the posts that DN labels “Headlines”, which is the label it gives to its news bulletin rather than literal headlines. If we discount those, we’re left with opinion and occasional first hand reports. So maybe green flagging but with the kind of warning we give for the Atlantic, the Diplomat or the Hill. One reason I’m hesitant to consider its “Stories” as just RSOPINION is that is geared to written pieces that go through editorial before publication whereas the DN’s format means these are unfiltered oral comments where the speaker is talking off the cuff without the opportunity to check themselves, so I’d always want us to say something like “speaking to DN, X said” or “in an interview on DN, X said” BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:09, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

• Comment (summoned by bot): As noted above it's difficult to imagine a situation in which the DN headline news items are a good source to cite. They are generally just a transcript of the host's summary of the news, and reliable or not, there should almost always be something better. But I would think that what we're really talking about here from an RS standpoint is the show's original reporting, such as its award-winning coverage of the Standing Rock protests, or more routine pieces like this one from today on the May 12 ICE protest in New York. For what it's worth, I have never heard anyone challenge the factuality of DN's reports such as these (or for that matter, the faithfulness with which its interviews are presented). Nor am I seeing any such challenges thus far in this discussion or the one immediately preceding. If we're going to say that there is no consensus that this is a reliable source, I think it would be helpful to see some arguments (or examples) for why it might not be reliable. -- Visviva (talk) 01:55, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

• Support I consider Democracy Now! Reliable and oppose a downgrade of its reliability on Wikipedia—I have watched their news. It has its own point of view, but I have never seen a news report that was unreliable. I don’t consider the score given by Media Bias/Fact Check or Ground News. My vote is based on my personal experience and views. 🐈Cinaroot   04:14, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

  To note there is no proposal to downgrade DM, it's currently considered a reliable source with additional considerations. The question is whether it shouldn't have those additional considerations. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:14, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

  I slightly edited my vote to make it less confusing. 🐈Cinaroot   16:56, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Generally reliable Their award page is a laundry list but with that list are notable awards. They also have WP:USEBYOTHERS, mostly university presses but also works from Bloomsbury Academic and Springer. I can't find any reports of factually incorrect output. They are biased, but editors should deal with that by separating opinion from fact and if necessary using other sources to balance them. Bias isn't a reliability issue unless that bias effect factual accuracy WP:RSBIAS. There was mention of headlines in the discussion before this RFC, but headlines are always unreliable WP:HEADLINES. A lot of the criticism I see online is about what a guest has said about a situation or event. They do publish a lot of opinion and interviews, these shouldn't be used for statements of fact, per WP:RSOPINION, but should be fine for attributed statements. I don't see why they shouldn't just be handled like any other WP:NEWSORG, they are biased, they publish opinion that shouldn't be used to support statements of fact, that's just like any other news organisation. Unless someone can show they have issue with accuracy bornfact checking I think they should be considered reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:49, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Awards list stops at 2017. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:15, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

That looks to be because it hasn't been updated fully. Amy Goodman won the Frederick Douglass 200 in 2018 and the William Sloane Coffin Jr. Peacemaker Award in 2023. Those are just the two that I could find within a few minutes, there could be more. Edittttor (talk) 15:56, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

They have a more recent Izzy award too, but that seems to get given to multiple unreliable sources (Aaron Mate!) so I wouldn’t let it count for much.

Very few of the awards are ones usually recognised actual solid reliable reporting but a couple of them are. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:19, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

• Status Quo The source is very biased and we should be careful about both what facts they cite as well as what they may have left out. For this reason we should always be careful about such sources. As a yellow source it's can be citied for statements of fact and to establish weight. It simply means people should be cautious with the source given they are typically writing not just to convey the facts but to support a POV. To be honest, we should always be careful with sources/articles that write to persuade vs simply provide the facts. Also, a note about the use of Adfontes and MBFC. Both sources are cited by scholars as expert sources. I previously found a source that actually compared the various rating cites and said despite different methods they were generally consistent. RSN/RSP discussions have generally said these sources shouldn't be cited in Wiki articles. They do not say they are unreliable or not useful for discussions such as this one. With that said, consider that Democracy Now's Adfontes bias rating of -16.15 makes them more biased than Breitbart (13.59) and near The Heratage Foundation (16.30). Their reliability score of 31.5 is almost the same as the Post Millennial.

Springee (talk) 13:22, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Is news bias fueled by journalists supplying slanted views or readers’ demanding them? An economist weighs in

There are supply-driven and demand-driven biases. I think many reliable sources in the U.S. and around the world are biased. It all depends on one’s personal point of view. Bias is not a factor to consider when determining reliability. 🐈Cinaroot   17:29, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

If you would like to change the reliability assessment of Adfontes or MBFC you are welcome to submit a new request, but for now we should not be using them as evidence due to their rating as generally unreliable. See WP:ADFONTES and WP:MBFC. Edittttor (talk) 15:36, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Please read the discussions. The concern in those discussions was because editors were using the ratings in article space (The .... Times is rated as "left/right" by MBFC. The discussions did not say editors aren't allowed to make reliability arguments based on those sources. This is a bit like saying we can't use a SPS to point out issues with another source. As editors on a talk page yes we can. We are allowed to engage in OR and use sources that aren't acceptable for the article space. To be clear, I agree, we should not use those sources for material in article space. We should consider them when discussing topics like this. Springee (talk) 17:00, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

This is just basically ignoring WP:BIASED, which makes it clear that bias doesn't relate to reliability. Katzrockso (talk) 05:16, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

It even goes further and say Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.

Everyone has bias. Seems like we are using our bias to say the source is biased. Times of Israel is biased. Yet it is a reliable source. Democracy now is no different. 🐈Cinaroot   05:24, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

The problem with bias isn't that the raw facts are false. It's that the source may give excessive weight to facts that support their POV while ignoring ones that refute it. If they say it was a sunny day I would trust them. If they say a company was motivated (a subjective assessment) by X, we should be very cautious about using them if not avoid them as not reliable for such a claim (that would depend on the supporting evidence). This is why yellow makes sense - to the extent that our stupid 3 bucket scale makes any sense. Yellow means we can use them but editors who use them should be aware of their very strong bias and the issues that may come out of the bias. Springee (talk) 12:01, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

It's that the source may give excessive weight to facts that support their POV while ignoring ones that refute it. Well that's the beauty of this website - that we get to decide how to present biased information in a neutral way ourselves (such as by omitting undue facts in an article), as opposed to being required to carbon copy an article's own decisions as to how to weigh and present information. Subjective assessments speculating about how "[company] was motivated by X" should be treated as attributed opinions regardless of whether Democracy Now! is updated to GREL.

Again, I'm getting the sense that the arguments being made against Democracy Now! being updated to GREL are not criticisms of Democracy Now!'s reliability, but are instead general critiques of bias in sourcing that just as easily apply to all GREL on WP:RSP as they do to Democracy Now!. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 14:37, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:59, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

The question isn't whether additional considerations technically apply to every source. They do. The question is whether there are recurring source-specific considerations that editors are likely to encounter often enough to justify retaining guidance. In DN's case, multiple editors have pointed to distinctions between interviews, commentary, and original reporting. If those distinctions are recurring enough that editors keep raising them in this discussion, doesn't that suggest the current entry may still be serving a useful purpose? Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:30, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

No, to me it suggests that most editors voting against this RfC are conflating partisanship with factual reporting in spite of WP:PARTISAN. There are distinctions between regular articles and Opinion pieces in WP:WAPO too, and this doesn't stop us from treating WAPO as GENREL. So like I've said before, I don't understand why DN is any different than run of the mill GENREL. I suspect it's simply because left-wing political bias is further outside the Overton window than centrist/pro-establishment reporting, so people feel entitled to dismiss it without putting in as much effort as they would for a political source with mainstream bias. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:51, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the impact of editor bias on the vote count is apparent here, for exactly the reason you describe. I hope that the closer will take into account the stronger argument.

It's telling that one of the major arguments putting DN at risk of maintaining its marginal reliability in this discussion is the mere aspersion of editorial interference on the part of Amy Goodman, unsupported by any affirmative evidence. Meanwhile, the last few discussions about CBS went nowhere, despite being founded in affirmative, if not necessarily definitive, evidence of editorial interference. The latest (and most serious) allegations by Scott Pelley and his colleagues have not even been discussed yet.

In this discussion at least, it seems that a certain reading of WP:SPS has a number of editors convinced that being oligarch-owned is somehow an indication of greater reliability, because of layers of abstraction in the ownership structure. We see with DN, by comparison to CBS, that this couldn't be further from the truth.

In order for Wikipedia to continue being a reliable resource in an era of increasing media consolidation and subordination to powerful interests, source reliability and admissibility must not be determined in a manner that excludes or disfavors independent media. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 02:27, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the question is whether independent media should be disfavored or whether large corporate media should be favored. The narrower question seems to be whether the existing guidance remains useful for editors evaluating material from DN. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:39, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Idk, I think that question needs to be answered in the context of how sources are evaluated on the whole. Guidance for independent media should be applied with an even hand to establishment media, to avoid an undue establishment bias, which is especially dangerous at a time when the establishment is cannibalizing the very purported values that supposedly made it the standard for reliability when Wikipedia's policies were written. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 13:27, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

It's true that there are distinctions between reporting and opinion with GREL sources, but the question I'm struggling with is whether the distinctions being discussed here are merely the ordinary distinctions present at most news outlets or whether they are significant enough in DN's case that editors find themselves needing source-specific guidance. It seems to me that this is the central disagreement here. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:13, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

WP:RSOPINION applies to everything. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 17:04, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

whether the distinctions being discussed here are merely the ordinary distinctions present at most news outlets or whether they are significant enough in DN's case that editors find themselves needing source-specific guidance - If this is the case, I still haven't seen any evidence that DN's reporting is not factual that would be necessary if you're going to make that argument. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:03, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

If they say a company was motivated (a subjective assessment) by X, we should be very cautious about using them if not avoid them as not reliable for such a claim (that would depend on the supporting evidence) No, we should not conduct WP:OR, analyze evidence ourselves and check if we agree with what sources say. WP:NEWSORGs are given presumptive reliability and actual evidence needs to be presented to downgrade this presumption. Katzrockso (talk) 16:12, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

An aside but "presumptive reliability" is not a thing, NEWSORG says they are "generally consider reliable". Editors still have to use their own good judgement when looking at sources, just because it came from a generally reliable source doesn't mean it will always be reliable in every given context. If a generally reliable source say "bill scored 10", but ever other sources says he scored 9 then maybe they just got it wrong that time. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:24, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I didn't say that every article published by them is reliable, I said that the (rebuttable) presumption is that established WP:NEWSORGS are generally reliable. Generally reliable does not mean that every piece of information they publish is factual/correct. Katzrockso (talk) 21:24, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry misunderstanding over language, I agree. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:00, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

But we don’t seem to have consensus yet that this is a “well-established news organisation” per NEWSORG. BobFromBrockley (talk) 02:33, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Is that seriously in question? They're a 30 year old, award winning, nationally airing daily news program. A lot of the GREL outlets in the perennial sources list are nowhere near as well established as that. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 02:51, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

It seems some editors question it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:01, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

• MREL - As highlighted by many people, updating the discussion to include changes that have occurred in the past 13 years is a good idea, and I am particularly supportive of BobFromBrockley's suggestion in how we break down and consider output from DN. ActivelyDisinterested has highlighted their many awards, and while they seem to stop in 2017 (Edittttor found awards from 2018 and 2023), that is still four more years of awards since the last discussion linked in the Perennial Sources list. As multiple people have highlighted, DN's original reporting seems to meet what we expect of news outlets, so it may be possible to break that out into a separate entry of GREL, but we probably need more evidence to support such action than has currently been presented. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support The close of the previous discussion was incorrect and should have been challenged - the available evidence shows that this source is reliable. ElKevbo (talk) 21:15, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo. Per CJR, Goodman is often described as a progressive activist, but she denies that her work is partisan. So it can definitely be used but the weight and attribution should be decided by the editors in each case. Alaexis_¿question? 21:29, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

  She is a host on the program. They have other hosts too. I would prefer if we vote based on the news they air rather than Goodman’s past or her reputation. 🐈Cinaroot   21:53, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

  She is a co-founder, executive producer and basically the face of DN. Alaexis_¿question? 06:43, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  In addition to what Cinaroot said, are you conflating bias and reliability? There is a difference between the two. Edittttor (talk) 15:32, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  RS are supposed to be independent. You will notice that we deem very few advocacy organisations generally reliable. Alaexis_¿question? 18:54, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  Democracy Now! has held steadfast to our policy of not accepting government funding, corporate sponsorship, underwriting or advertising revenue. I think this is one of the best things a RS can do to stay independent. 🐈Cinaroot   18:58, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  That's right but they are financed by various nonprofit foundations. Alaexis_¿question? 08:46, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

  You are mixing up independent (politician) with WP:RSBIAS. From RSBIAS: Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.

  Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering.

  Of the perrinnial sources that are currently rated as generally reliable, WP:ALJAZEERA, WP:AXIOS, WP:BELLINGCAT, WP:CNN, WP:CODA, WP:CSM, WP:TELEGRAPH, WP:GLAAD, WP:GUARDIAN, WP:HAARETZ, Hope Not Hate, WP:HUFFPOST, The Intercept, WP:THEMARYSUE, WP:LEMONDEDIPLOMATIQUE, WP:MOTHERJONES, WP:NEWREPUBLIC, Newslaundry, WP:OKO, WP:POLITICO, WP:REASONNEWS, The Register, WP:SPLC, WP:TIMESOFISRAEL, and WP:VANITYFAIR are all listed in their description to have some bias, so clearly that is not a prerequisite.

  DN is also not an advocacy organization, but even if they were, several of the sources I listed above are advocacy organizations and are still rated as generally reliable, so that is not a prerequisite either. Edittttor (talk) 21:51, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  Independence is a separate requirement - see WP:REPUTABLE. This is related to but distinct from bias. Alaexis_¿question? 08:47, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

  WP:REPUTABLE has a definition which mentions independence. Independence is a link to a definition, which includes An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a given Wikipedia topic and therefore is commonly expected to cover the topic from a disinterested perspective. Independent sources have editorial independence (e.g., advertisers do not dictate content) and no conflicts of interest (i.e., there is no potential for personal, financial, or political gain to be made from the existence of the publication). and Independence does not imply even-handedness. An independent source may hold a strongly positive or negative view of a topic or an idea. For example, a scholar might write about literacy in developing countries, and they may personally strongly favor teaching all children how to read, regardless of gender or socioeconomic status. Yet if the author gains no personal benefit from the education of these children, then the publication is an independent source on the topic. What definition of independent are you using? Edittttor (talk) 21:44, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

  I acknowledge that this is not a clearcut case. However, the explanatory essay you cited explains why an advocacy organisation may not be independent (Independent sources have ... no conflicts of interest (i.e., there is no potential for personal, financial, or political gain to be made from the existence of the publication).) Alaexis_¿question? 21:48, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

• Support per ActivelyDisinterested. As this is a discussion about the reliability and not bias, I see a consensus forming for upgrading to generally reliable, as long as it is noted that their "Stories" should be treated like RSOPINION and require attribution (like in any other GREL of course).Edittttor (talk) 15:21, 17 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support I wish they had a public editorial standards or ethics policy, but it's unfortunately common for news organizations not to, and I'm not finding evidence of unethical or deceptive reporting.  81567518  W  19:13, 17 May 2026 (UTC)
• MREL/weak GREL Bobfrombrockley pretty much sums up my thoughts. Original reporting can probably be treated as biased but reliable (perhaps look for a supplemental source as well), but opinion pieces are governed by the policy on op-eds, and non-original reporting should probably be sourced from a more neutral/mainstream outlet. The Kip ^(contribs) 01:36, 18 May 2026 (UTC)
• Additional considerations per Bobfrombrockley. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:19, 18 May 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo per Bobfrombrockley. Case is not yet made for an upgrade. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:28, 18 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support. It's generally reliable, but it leans left. It's not an neutral source, just a reliable one. Snokalok2 (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo per Bobfrombrockley.— Preceding unsigned comment added by NorthernWinds (talk • contribs) 23:06, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

• Support per ActivelyDisinterested. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:48, 19 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support upgrading to generally reliable per ActivelyDisinterested and my own comments in this section.VR 23:06, 19 May 2026 (UTC)
• Weak status quo I don't think we should be treating news sources, in general, as WP:GREL because this is often used to end discussion about whether or not said news source is appropriate in a specific context. That being said I don't think this is any worse than the New York Times or the BBC. Each has their biases. So, while my preference would be to vacate all news organizations from WP:GREL I'm not going to lose any sleep if this source is added to the ranks of news sources that are called generally reliable. Simonm223 (talk) 16:39, 20 May 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo/MREL per BobFromBrockley. They are not great, and the case for an upgrade is very weak. PARAKANYAA (talk) 16:59, 20 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support for upgrading to WP:GREL. I would agree that this should be done with the intention to rectify a flawed downgrade as إيان says since I believe that Alexandraaaacs1989 provided good evidence for it being WP:GREL and there isn't any source I've seen discussed that refutes that reliability. I believe that the fact-checking sources as well as its recognition among multiple academic sources for factual reporting shows that it is recognized by most to be factual and again, I haven't really seen any source call that into question. Like many others, I would also agree that they are fairly biased in their perspective and what is chosen to be included, but as for Wikipedia's purposes that doesn't seem to be an issue when using a segment in a DN publication to cite a fact. I think that their non-opinion based articles can regularly be relied upon and when looking at any opinion piece, WP:RSOPINION applies just as VR mentioned. Plus, when you consider that other publications like WP:CNN are WP:GREL due to their bias not being seen as affecting their reliability, there seems to be no reason to me that it can't be WP:GREL. ◀ Juniperol (bingus) ▶ --(talk) 00:45, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support. The initial case for MREL was poorly made and not compliant with currently existing policies and guidelines. The mistake here is treating the previous 2013 discussion as if it has a meaningfully durable consensus from 13 years ago. Wikipedia policies and guidelines have changed significantly since then, as has recognition that WP:BIASED sources can be perfectly reliable.Katzrockso (talk) 05:19, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo MREL The organization does not appear to have sufficient structure to produce content that wouldn't be called self published. Most of the content appears to be advocacy journalism or human-interest reporting. The marketing structure implies that the purpose is to engage in advocacy journalism. So at best this source should be treated as RSOPINION. --Kyohyi (talk) 12:35, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
• Weak Support and no-clear-delineation: I disagree with the Before's discussion framing this is as "rectifying of a flawed downgrade", because no consensus is the default state, not assuming all articles should generally be reliable. GRel is an upgrade from the default for sources that have a demonstratively good reputation for accuracy.
  That said, the UseByOthers cited is quite strong as it is academic praise for their writing without mentioning any doubt of their accuracy, so I am inclined to support saying that this source is stronger than default just by reading previous discussions (the discussions besides the one that preceded this RfC are... interesting...), even though I am unfamiliar with this source and a quick skim of their website gives me serious tabloid vibes.
  Also, regardless of what status we give this, we should have consensus that the source doesn't always clearly separate ("delineate" as many RSP entries say) opinion and factual content. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:53, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

  To address "the evidence supplied is of their opinions, not of their factual reliability":

  Per WP:UseByOthers, widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation, i.e. uncritical reference is endorsement. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 21:24, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

  WP:NEWSORG does provide a baseline for news organizations; News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact. Every time a news organization is brought to this noticeboard without a substantive reason, editors always point to this and note that news organizations are presumed generally reliable. So presumably existing consensus is that by default news organizations are WP:GREL. Katzrockso (talk) 02:29, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

  I don't consider Democracy Now! a well-established news outlet by default, and I definitely wouldn't have at the time of our last discussion of Democracy Now! (2013). In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 03:58, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

• Status Quo MREL, partisan source. Use with attribution, maybe relevant in articles where the source has expertise, though as it is partisan, better to utilize non-partisan sources.--RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 21:03, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

  WP:PARTISAN says reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 22:41, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

• Support—If the low-quality journalism put out by uncritical commercial media outlets like CNN is considered GREL, there is no valid reason why Democracy Now! should be considered less valid. DN!, led by one of the most celebrated independent journalists of our time, provides vital critical reporting on stories corporate media deems unimportant, asks questions corporate media does not, and is used and praised by the academic community in a way that corporate media is not.

As for the claims that this independent media outlet is "partisan"—are we to believe that the corporate media outlets accorded GREL status are not? إيان (talk) 23:07, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

This comment reads as much more based in personal feelings on the media landscape than in WP policy - I'd like to see some backing for statements such as uncritical commercial media outlets like CNN (which is also borderline WP:OTHERSTUFF), provides vital critical reporting on stories corporate media deems unimportant (what makes them "important?"), and led by one of the most celebrated independent journalists of our time. The Kip ^(contribs) 04:51, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

The Kip, you shouldn't read my points as much more based in personal feelings on the media landscape than in WP policy; you should read them as enjoining the community to take a comparative approach that applies standard metrics in the evaluation of sources and not to accept or endorse a status quo prima facie for the sake of precedent when those precedents are flawed.

I will respond to your concerns above with supporting passages from RS soon.

In the meantime, regarding the characterization you made in your statement above expressing preference for a more neutral/mainstream outlet, could you explain why you believe that 'mainstream' is coterminous with or can be slashed with 'neutral'? Do you believe that the corporate media you describe as 'mainstream' doesn't have its own biases or partisanship? If so, why? إيان (talk) 06:58, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

could you explain why you believe that 'mainstream' is coterminous with or can be slashed with 'neutral'? Do you believe that the corporate media you describe as 'mainstream' doesn't have its own biases or partisanship? If so, why?

I will not because doing so will derail this discussion into WP:FORUM territory. The Kip ^(contribs) 18:41, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

• You implied mainstream media outlets are inherently more reliable / inherently less biased than non-mainstream sources
• You used this to inform your opinion on the RfC
• إيان challenged your reasoning, asking you to elaborate
• Your response is that doing so is WP:FORUM? That doesn't seem fair.

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:18, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

It would strengthen your case to provide evidence beyond "I personally hold the source in high regard". SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:26, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: Many (but not all) of the !votes seem to be based on personal opinion/perceived reliability by editors as opposed to evidence suggesting (or not suggesting) consistent accuracy in factual reporting. This is undesirable. Descriptors of factual reliability by external sources should take preference over the opinions of editors. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

  I strongly agree with this. Analysis of reliability by secondary sources is ideal, but this discussion would benefit immensely if editors at least took a look at the external link search for the source so that we could have a meaningful discussion about whether DN's use on-site is improving Wikipedia or not, based in factual analysis of the specific DN articles cited across the project. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 21:11, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support with the note that it is biased when it comes to politics and generally requires attribution. The secondary coverage I could find usually treats it as reliable.^[1][2][3][4] Most of these emphasize the awards it won, among other things. Most of the arguments above focus on their biases (which are obvious) and not their reliability; but there's no reason to think they're unreliable, and plenty of reason to think they're reliable. Also, as a particular note, someone above objected that they lack "structure"; this is flatly untrue. From one of the sources above: The program currently lists 22 staffers, and was reported in 2005 to have a $1.8 million budget (p. 30). The program reflects the prototypical hierarchical bureaucratic model of modern news routines, using Reuters video feeds, teleprompters, and the use of specialized personnel such as full-time directors, producers, and graphic designers. Goodman herself received mainstream professional recognition for her journalism, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, and the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award. She also received awards from the Associated Press and United Press International.^[2] --Aquillion (talk) 22:19, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support: I have used Democracy Now! in my edits relating to current events and have found it generally reliable and an important component of the media ecosystem used by Wikipedia editors to provide a comprehensive overview of world events. In particular, I think its interviews with experts who are not privileged by mainstream journalism and its attention to international affairs, which often exceeds other English language sources, is valuable to this encyclopedia. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 19:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

  I'm noticing that analysis of DN material cited on-wiki is conspicuously absent from this discussion. I don't understand how editors can support an MREL designation in the absence of any affirmative evidence of DN's marginal reliability. Surely, if there is any reason to be skeptical of DN's reliability, examples should exist of its questionable material being used on-site to the detriment of Wikipedia's own reliability.

  That being said, my own comment and those of many in favor of an upgrade are not much better. I hope some more time will be given before the close of this RFC; I would like to comb through the external link search and perform a source analysis so that this decision can be based in evidence rather than popular opinion. I'll be building out the results of my inquiry in the space below

  Secondary coverage of and/or primary source audio recordings from important historical events:

  John Kerry's testimony at the Fulbright hearings (Cited there as an external link):

  Transcript and audio of Assata Shakur's 1998 letter to the pope:

  Interview with Gary Hart:

  Interview with Roger Toussaint, leader of the 2005 New York City transit strike:

  Bobby Ray Inman criticizes NSA domestic surveillance: (Possibly the only coverage of this statement other than Wired.)

  Israeli ambassador Dan Gillerman on the 2006 Qana airstrike: *DN is valuable in this context because its translations and transcriptions of audio make statements by public figures verifiable

  Coverage of interviewees' views:

  Michael Berg (activist) on his decision to run with the Green Party:

  James Ridgeway on an editorial shakeup at The Village Voice: *A note on this citation in context: It is paired with Ridgeway's NYT obituary, which includes a quote from him saying he was never censored at the Voice. It's clear from the context in the NYT article that he's talking about his 1973-2005 career there, not the few months he continued to work for the newspaper under Lacey. The NYT doesn't cover the editorial shakeup that forced him out; only DN does.

  Interviews with experts and investigators whose findings are cited to support facts on-wiki:

  Interview with investigative journalists on the MAINWAY NSA program:

  Coverage of the Dasht-i-Leili massacre supplemented by an interview with the reporter who broke the story:

  One of DN's most important contributions to Wikipedia is in its use as a source that gives voice to the other side of disputes in which there is a severe power differential. When a protest is attacked, when security forces kill someone, when a military's conduct comes into question, mainstream outlets often take the explanation of the powerful at face value. It's independent media like DN that platforms the other side of the equation: eyewitnesses, families of the victims, experts outside the halls of power. We need sources like DN in order to give balanced coverage of controversies in which power is called into question. Here are some examples of such coverage:

  An Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq disputes American claims about the accidental killing by American soldiers of an Italian military intelligence officer sent to rescue her (multiple interviews cited at Giuliana Sgrena):

  This list is far from complete. This is just what I was able to find in the two hours I spent searching through the external links catalog. But I wanted to get the conversation started about how DN is actually used on-wiki. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 22:42, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

  Note that hosting a copy/record of primary sources (as defined by history—see linked article—not Wikipedia's WP:PRIMARY) is likely a permissible use even if we don't find DN to be GenRel. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 22:52, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

  Yes to your point about historical primary sources, and I would add that in most other sources, the use of primary material (which would fall under WP:PRIMARY were it not for DN's secondary coverage) would be cited as evidence of good verifiability practices. Democracy Now's frequent use of audio samples (across multiple language, with world-class translation services) make it a source that is in some cases more verifiable about its own claims/coverage than many prestige sources that use print, whom we just have to trust when they say that someone said something. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 23:58, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

  The fact that DN can be used appropriately in many articles is not really in dispute. The question is whether the existing cautionary note remains useful and accurate. Demonstrating that it can be used successfully doesn’t necessarily tell us whether source-specific guidance remains helpful for editors. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:52, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

  What source-specific guidance would you propose, and what affirmative evidence of marginal reliability would you point to that justifies it? Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 16:55, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support having a bias, even if a very strong one, is not by itself reason to consider a source anything less than generally reliable (see WP:BIASED). They have a respected by left-wing scholars, which speaks for itself (see WP:USEBYOTHERS). TarnishedPath^talk 06:18, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

• Status quo- I do not think the case for an upgrade to WP:GENREL has been established. Much of the outlet's content consists of interviews, commentary, and opinion-oriented material, which already requires additional editorial judgment under the existing policy - WP:RSOPINION. The current MREL assessment does not prohibit use of the source; it simply reminds editors that additional considerations apply depending on the context. I also find BobFromBrockley's distinction persuasive, original reporting may often be reliable, interviews are generally reliable for what participants said, and opinion/commentary content requires attribution and contextual evaluation. Given these differences, I think the current assessment is better than a blanket upgrade to WP:GENREL. King of Kings III (Dear Sir ...) 13:10, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not opposed to maintaining MRel status with a  Jacobin (RSP entry)–like summary (save the first sentence, of course). In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 17:42, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

• Status quo - The news stories are cherry-picked and show up on the website only when they support a progressive view; the opinion columns have a clear bias towards the left. It should remain as is. Their reporting of facts is usually fine, but the editorial lens is definitely leftist. Nothing has changed, except the missing weekly column by Goodman and Moynihan. Ar1201u1 (talk) 18:45, 30 May 2026 (UTC) User:Ar1201u1

  Per WP:BIASED, doesn't that mean it should be GenerallyRELiable then? In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 02:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

  Ar1201u1 has stated "Their reporting of facts is usually fine". I read that as an argument for GREL. TarnishedPath^talk 01:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

• Status Quo as Democracy Now is an opinion site with an extremely thin veneer of news reporting that reinforces the site's opinions. It has none of the characteristics of verifying information and fact checking that would be necessary to make it a reliable source in its own right. Material from the site should only be used with the needed precautions to attribute it to a biased source, and any opinions expressed on the site by individuals should be attributed directly to the individual who made the claim, both for statements from hosts and from interviewees. The requirements of WP:GENREL are not met here and no upgrade of reliability is appropriate. Alansohn (talk) 04:02, 31 May 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo, there is not enough new evidence to alter the existing consensus. It needs a clear, demonstrated reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and not political orientation. Democracy Now! has editorial perspective, this does not by itself support an upgrade to WP:GREL. Reliability and viewpoint are separate considerations as per WP. In fact their unreliability has decreased since the last discussion. The existing WP:MREL designation is the correct reflection of the source.Dz5t 8O12 (talk) 15:54, 31 May 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo, MREL, clearly a partisan source. Ok to use, but with attribution. BBQboffin^{grill me} 03:58, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

  WP:PARTISAN applies. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 11:55, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

• Status Quo - I don’t see a clear reason to replace the current designation. Much of the discussion about whether DN can be reliable in many circumstances is not in dispute. The question is whether the existing "additional considerations apply" designation is inaccurate, and I don’t see a compelling case that MREL is causing problems or mischaracterizing the source. Retaining the status quo seems the more cautious choice. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 17:54, 4 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo I have found what other editors have found: DN has a left-wing bias and is generally factual. ^[5] A lot of their reporting does seem like WP:FRINGE to me, so I think keeping it as is would be the most appropriate course of action.Redvelvetvanilaaaaaaaaa (talk) 22:05, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
• Support upgrade to GREL. Alexandraaaacs1989 has made an excellent case for the upgrade and I don't see any compelling evidence or reason why DN!'s reliability should be doubted. They are biased, but bias is allowed. "Additional considerations apply" isn't very useful here, because there are additional considerations to every source, regardless of designation. Those can be taken up by editors on the talk page on a case-by-case basis. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 19:44, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

  Maybe every source requires judgment, but are there recurring source-specific issues that come up often enough that keeping the guidance is still useful? Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:40, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

  If there are, I do not believe anyone has substantiated them in this discussion. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 16:46, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

  An example of what I'm referring to would be BobFromBrockley's distinction between interviews/opinion-oriented content/original reporting. It seems to be one of the central themes here. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 17:07, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

  The source is used on 2373 articles. Are there any talk page discussions about source-specific issues? TurboSuperA+_[talk] 17:04, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support In my experience, this source is generally reliable. I have not seen any evidence that it is not. Rainsage (talk) 05:05, 17 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo per Bobfrombrockley. ScottyNolan (talk) 15:44, 22 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo This source still falls short of WP:GENREL. The current wording under WP:DEMOCRACYNOW states, "Most editors consider Democracy Now! a partisan source whose statements should be attributed. Syndicated content published by Democracy Now! should be evaluated by the reliability of its original publisher." Given the discussion above, I think that this very much continues to be the case. Gjb0zWxOb (talk) 16:26, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo highly biased, but factually reliable. Seems in line with other similar sources like Jacobin and National Review, both of which we keep in the yellow. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:23, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

  WP:BIASED applies. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:34, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

  I don't think it's necessary to point this out every time someone calls the source biased. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 21:52, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

  Because "they are biased, but factually reliable" is the very definition of GREL. All sources are biased, what we're interested in is factual reliability. Saying "they're factually reliable, but not generally reliable" is a contradiction. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 22:14, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Discussion (Democracy Now!)

• Just to note that I've closed the previous discussion with a note directing editors to this RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:01, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
• How much of the content is made by Amy Goodman? Is the organization set up so that her content gets some sort of independent review prior to publication? She's the host and executive producer, and I don't see any sort of editor panel which could go/no-go stories. If she is making the content, and controls what gets published we have a self-publishing issue. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:31, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

  states Mike Burke is the editorial director. Katzrockso (talk) 13:45, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

  That would be a good sign for people other than Amy Goodman, but everything I see on that site is done by, or co-done by her. And she is executive producer, and president of the non-profit that funds Democracy Now!. So I'm not seeing how an editorial director has functional veto power over any content she wants to publish. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:06, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

  See the Democracy Now! staff list here. There's a lot of staff in the company, so it's definitely not unilaterally being run by Amy Goodman. If you're worried about higher-ups in a news company domineering, this is how most news companies work, with many run by a board of directors with absolute authority over everything the company reports, e.g. The New York Times run by the Sulzberger family. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:03, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

  I'm aware of the staff list, I'm also aware that the amount of content that doesn't have Amy Goodman's name attached is vanishingly small. I'm also aware that Amy Goodman sits at the top of democracy now productions as president. Content created by Arthur Ochs would have similar problems. But content isn't created by Arthur Ochs, it's done by Jeremy Scahil or Ryan Grim, or other writers. Amy Goodman's direct influence in the creation of the material, while also being president of the publishing organization, is the self publishing concern. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:25, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

  Even if she is a self-publisher to a certain extent... if a self-publisher reports information factually, then why can't we consider it GENREL if it's a notable and prolific news source? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 00:17, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

  I personally don't believe this is selfpublished, but if it was selfpublished information is held to a different standard. See WP:SPS and WP:BLPSPS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:48, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

  WP:SPS says Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. So wouldn't this simply be an instance where Amy Goodman is an established subject-matter expert and we can simply deem it RS even if it is self-published, making the whole self-published distinction irrelevant? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:55, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

  That's not the relevant part of the sentence, the important part is "previously been published by reliable, independent publications". The point of the policy is that selfpublished work has to be from someone that other unrelated people have published as an expert. Just being an expert is not enough. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:27, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

  selfpublished work has to be from someone that other unrelated people have published as an expert Yes, and we have shown this to be the case with sourcing in this discussion, no? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 08:59, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

  I don't see that anything to show she's published books or articles (in independent sources (not DM)) in the field of political analysis. Again this is an aside, as DM isn't selfpublished. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:33, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

  Does it have to be books? She's received lots of awards for DM's indie reporting, five of which while it was under WBAI/PACIFICA Radio, an independent publisher. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 15:57, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  I would think that the more important part is the definition, in the paragraph above the one you cite: Self-published material, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, podcasts, Internet forum postings, and social media postings, are largely not acceptable as sources.

  I think it may be a better approach to interpret this prohibition as applying moreso to sources that can be published without the meaningful assistance of others, rather than sources produced with the nebulous approval of an imagined arbiter of reliability, which seems to be the main thing that is elusively argued around in countless reliability discussions.

  Anyone can start a blog and say whatever they want, but one person, even if they are extremely talented can't be the sole force behind decades of independent reporting and comprehensive daily news coverage. Democracy Now's work is thorough and established enough that it is necessarily the work of many talented people, in the same way that traditional news orgs are. That's what is supposed to be their marker of reliability: a form of peer review upstream of but not dissimilar to Wikipedia's own. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 01:56, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  There is another section of WP: V that goes more in depth on what is self-published material, Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content. Further examples of self-published sources include press releases, the material contained within company websites, advertising campaigns, material published in media by the owner(s)/publisher(s) of the media group, self-released music albums, and electoral manifestos And in this case the example of material published in media by the owner(s)/publisher(s) of the media group is the case example why Democracy Now! is largely self published. --Kyohyi (talk) 12:53, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  I think your assertion that DN falls into this category mischaracterizes the nature of the citeable material produced by DN. Material produced by DN that could be cited on Wikipedia would include excerpts of its headlines segment (I would say that in most cases, another source would be better if one is available, as these are relatively surface-level aggregations/reproductions of news broken elsewhere. However, in some cases DN is the best English-language source for international news.) and its interviews with subject matter experts and people on the ground in developing situations of national and international significance. If an editor cites such material, they would not be citing Amy Goodman's/DN's self-published original research, but rather DN's publication of an independent person's research or perspective on the relevant situation. As host and executive producer, Amy Goodman is setting up the interviews and asking the questions, but an independent source (the interviewee) is giving the answers, and the answer is what would typically be relevant to Wikipedia. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 19:22, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

  People on the ground type interviews are not particularly useful for encyclopedic content; it suffers from Primary and recentism issues. Regarding the interviews, there isn't much reason her interviews are any more reliable than those done by podcasts like Joe Rogan. Interview reliability is more dependent on the interviewee than the source so it doesn't really change it from MREL. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:02, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

  I definitely disagree that DN's interviews are like those on the Rogan podcast. On the contrary, I think DN's expert interview-based reporting is far more similar to the way that all mainstream news outlets seek and publish statements from subject matter experts when reporting on a given topic. Can you demonstrate any evidence that DN's interviews are closer to Rogan quality than the comment given by other experts (or sometimes, the same experts!) to outlets like CBS, CNN, the WSJ etc. that are used by them and subsequently by Wikipedia editors to establish facts about the world on good authority? Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

  And I definitely disagree that DN interviews experts. Most of them are moral activists trying to get you to adopt their brand of morality. The problem is that moral expertise and authority is not some universal metric it's actually just another POV. Moral activists are only at best experts on what their morality is, but not at all experts on what is moral. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:31, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

  Some guests on DN that I have used in citations on-Wiki or heard on the program recently, off the top of my head, include Rami Khouri on topics related to conflict in the Middle East, Greg Grandin and Ada Ferrer on Latin America, Jules Boykoff on sports, Maria Hinojosa on immigration, Reed Brody, Francesca Albanese and Craig Mokhiber on international law. In what world are these people "moral activists" lacking expertise in their topic area? They may have strong moral inclinations that you disagree with, but dismissing their expertise is not warranted. Furthermore, I see no contradiction between expertise and advocacy. Many experts are advocates, because their expertise compels them to speak up. DN also interviews people with absolutely no public profile (who therefore couldn't possibly be "moral activists"), such as lawyers in contentious legal cases, who provide an essential counterbalance to government claims. I think you need to check your own POV, because what you're asserting here is not at all based in fact. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 14:56, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

  Sounds like you're speculating about how much influence she has and how resistant she is to the editors. We can't know this. The fact that there are multiple editors employed at the company suggests that they probably do some editing though. Edittttor (talk) 20:45, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

  She's president of democracy now productions, it doesn't matter if she were resistant to the editors or not. That means any internal editors and reviewers are functionally subordinate to her, and not independent. --Kyohyi (talk) 20:59, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

That argument seems absurd. By that logic no source is reliable if anyone is ultimately in charge of it; we would have to declare the New York Times unreliable because all its editors are ultimately subordinate to A. G. Sulzberger; or that the Wall Street Journal is unreliable because it is ultimately owned by Rupert Murdoch; or that Washington Post is unreliable because it is owned by Jeff Bezos. What matters is whether there's structures in place that can give it a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; and as I noted with a citation above, secondary sources say that does have them. WP:SPS is for sources that lack editorial controls (or ones where there is actual reason to believe the editorial controls are so insufficient as to be just window-dressing and functionally nonexistent); it's not for "someone ultimately owns this source and is in charge of publishing it." If the mere possibility that someone exists who could notionally override a source's editorial controls and fact checking exists were enough to render it a SPS, not a single source would be reliable. --Aquillion (talk) 22:27, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Did you even read the argument? It's that the owner is actively and heavily engaged in content creation for the organization. Is Murdoch on the byline for all the articles on the Wall Street Journal? Is Bezos actively writing all the articles for the Washington Post? No, they obviously are not, so those comparisons have no basis in reality. It's not someone ultimately owns this, it's that the person who owns this is heavily involved in the creation of the content. It's that the person who can override any editorial control is also doing the content work is what makes it an SPS. --Kyohyi (talk) 03:50, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Okay, then let's assume for the sake of argument that Amy Goodman runs Democracy Now! like a dictator and fires employees who write things she does not like.

Even in this circumstance, WP:SELFPUBLISH explicitly says Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. We have demonstrated they have been published by reliable, independent publications. So DN! is RS, and whether Amy Goodman is pulling all the strings is irrelevant. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 08:35, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

For this to be a factor someone would have to show that DM is not editorially independent of Goodman. The have an editorial staff, so even if she has a lot of influence it appears doubtful that she can simply publish on her own. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:39, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Democracy Now Productions LLC is the organization that owns Democracy Now! Amy Goodman is president of Democracy Now Productions. An example of self-published media from WP: V is material published in media by the owner(s)/publisher(s) of the media group which is an accurate description of Amy Goodman's relationship to Democracy Now!. So Amy's content in Democracy Now! would be self published. --Kyohyi (talk) 12:49, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

• I've made a request on WP:CR for a close. The discussion may get archived while it waits, but if that happens it will be unarchived when it's closed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:34, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Survey (Idolator)

• Option 2: Just because links to the archives cannot be included on Wikipedia doesn't mean the source is completely inaccessible: archive.today can still be accessed by editors willing to do so, and editors can also screenshot the archived pages and upload those.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 00:01, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
• Snow close Whether a source is easily accessible or not, is not a reliability issue per WP:SOURCEACCESS. Dead links should be marked with {{dead link}} and repaired or replaced as appropriate, per standard practice. Whether reviews from a particular website should or shouldn't in articles is a NPOV issue. Finally reading the prior discussion I don't see anyone calling for deprecation, so the RFC question is inappropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:02, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

  SNUGGUMS suggested removing all usages from Wikipedia articles. I don't know if that's deprecation or blacklisting, they didn't specify. SNUGGUMS, is deprecation what you propose?----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:10, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

  • To be clear, I recommended removing the ones relying on archive.today to access dead URLs, and wasn't necessarily planning to take out all the pages that work without it unless people decided this as a whole isn't a usable resource anymore. The unfortunate reality is how most or all of the archived links come from that bad domain instead of WayBack Machine or any feasible alternative. Come to think of it, there have been instances of people preferring other sources over Idolator to begin with long before February 2026 deprecated archive.today domains. It certainly never held as high of a reputation as things like AllMusic, MTV News, Variety, VH1, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, etc. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:29, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

  That's neither deprecation or blacklisting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:17, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

  I don't think it's quite that simple. It's not just that archive.today cannot be linked to, it has been deprecated. I distinctly remember the RfC in part focusing on the fact the site was found to have altered archived pages, rendering it unreliable for verification of them, and I went back to check and the close does indeed explicitly state there is evidence to support that.

  I can accept informally using archive.today for the sake of pragmatism as a faster way of verifying something that can also be reliably verified, but if archive.today is the only way to verify it then that means that the website's operators can change the page at will and there would be no way to check that the archived version is accurate, as the archive.today version is the only one available. It would effectively be to use archive.today as the source. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 08:39, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

  Is archive.today the only place that these links are available? There are many archiving services and the source could have been reproduced at a different source. But if it is the case that no other sources is available it still doesn't mean the source needs deprecation. The decision on whether to still include the reviews is a content question. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:36, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

  I think it might vary, with some available elsewhere and some not. I suppose I agree that Idolator shouldn't be deprecated and that whether or not to include a review of it should be a matter dealt with at the relevant talk page, as there is nothing to indicate reliability issues with the site itself, but it's important to remember that you a reliable source reporting what Idolator says is required, which archive.today is not due to aforementioned reasons. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 16:57, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

• “Difficult to access” or “no longer available” are not problems of reliability, and deprecation and blacklisting are not appropriate tools to deal with those problems. ~2026-28259-76 (talk) 13:35, 12 June 2026 (UTC)
• Comment A generally reliable source doesn’t necessarily become unreliable because some citations are unusable. It may be more productive to work out guidance for handling dead links and cases where archive.today is the only surviving copy rather than treating this as an all-or-nothing reliability judgement.Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:46, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion (Idolator)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums § Idolator links

 – --3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 23:59, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

When archive.today got deprecated this past February per WP:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC 5, the outcome appears to have rendered most (if not all) archived URLs from Idolator unusable since that website somehow was excluded from Web Archive as well as other viable backups for dead links. Many of its pieces aren't even accessible these days without using archive.today links. I therefore believe we should reassess its overall presence within Wikipedia articles. Does anyone think it's best to take the Idolator website out from the list of generally reliable publications (found at WP:WikiProject Albums/Sources#Generally reliable sources)? SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 13:59, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Agree. I once asked about this source when people were discussing whether to deprecate archive.today, and they replied to me that there's no way to resolve this issue. I think we should find how to replace this source with other reliable sources. Camilasdandelions (✉️) 14:39, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

No objections to that, and we inevitably will have to delete their reviews altogether unless they still work without archive.today URLS (which unfortunately seems to be rare among whatever isn't already dead). SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 17:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

@SNUGGUMS I don't think we should. It's too soon. I wouldn't say it's an unreliable source. Consensus has been that links that can't be verified need to be taken down eventually, though I personally don't know if I agree with that. I think it's way too soon for taking down, though. --3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 22:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Not sure if this is "too soon". I have seen dead Idolator links for a long time (which failed to be archived through archive.today), and I think this should be addressed now. Even worse, the links archived through archive.today also became unavailable; thus we cannot verify the contents through that website. IMO there's no reason to keep this anymore? Camilasdandelions (✉️) 22:32, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

The problem with leaving this as a trusted listing, 3family6, is being unable to view let alone verify countless pages without the bad archive.today domains in the first place. At this point, the only Idolator things we could possibly rely on are the unarchived versions of whatever they still have on its webpage. That's a rather limited scope. To be honest, I'm surprised its overall use hasn't come under scrutiny sooner once that RFC concluded. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 22:38, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Then view the domains without citing them on Wikipedia.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:48, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

You can still verify through that website, you just can't link to it from Wikipedia.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:48, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm following. How does this affect Idolator's RS status exactly? "Removing dead links" and "sources being reliable" are two completely unrelated concepts. One does not influence the other. Sergecross73 msg me 23:54, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Actually, like SNUGGUMS, I have thought to remove the website from RS too. The website is no longer available and not even accessible anymore — then why leaving it in the RS list? It's unnecessary. Camilasdandelions (✉️) 23:57, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

That doesn't answer my question. If three years ago someone correctly cited it as an RS, there's no justification for actively advocating its removal retroactively today. It's no different from the fact that someone shouldn't remove my citation of an 2003 issue of Rolling Stone's print mag just because they don't have a copy in their own hands to double check. Sergecross73 msg me 00:04, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

For one thing, Idolator never at any point had print editions of their pieces. I would be less worried if it did because then we could've used page numbers/ISBNs as backups for citations. Upon request, somebody can theoretically provide images of physical prints containing the articles in question whenever uncertain about verifying offline references. That sadly isn't an option here. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 00:38, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

I know, my point was more that just because you can't immediately verify a citation doesn't make it immediately (and retroactively) unreliable. Print mags were simply an example. Paywalled ones are another. Don't get me wrong, by all means, remove Idolator links if you have doubt of the claim or have a better source to add. But there isn't justification to deem it unreliable and scrub it out of Wikipedia-existence entirely. Sergecross73 msg me 02:18, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Right.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Someone could (and should) save screenshots from the archived articles.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

A source being hard to access is not an argument against its reliability. If it was we would consider all book which are not online to be unreliable and we don't. TarnishedPath^talk 01:11, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

My personal two cents on this issue are that if it's excluded from the WBM (unfortunate), we shouldn't be leaving the wrong impression to uninformed readers that we're letting rotted links dictate fact while we tout information as verifiable. Just because we know how to bypass the dead links via questionable means doesn't mean everyone does who reads a given Wikipedia article. On the other hand, if an Idolator link functions, there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We determined the source is reliable a while ago; accessibility should not outright disqualify a source. Why would we use print information from any source in that case? In hopes someone in our comparatively tiny community has a screenshot or account of it? Please... TL;DR: Leaving defective links with no possible fix is poor form, so dead links of an excluded domain should be fair game to chop off, but if it's still running there is no reason to remove them. mftp dan ^oops 15:41, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Just because a source isn't easy to access doesn't mean it should be deprecated.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 23:48, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

You don't think leaving dead links that cannot be repaired without A.Today makes us look bad from an encyclopedic standpoint? mftp dan ^oops 00:03, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

No. Because someone could access that link via A.Today if they wanted. We also need to give time for people to take screenshots via A.Today archives (as some editors have talked about).----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:48, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I was also considering to take a screenshot of Atoday's page, but how to upload and put these in citation |url=? I don't see any helpful guideline related to this. Camilasdandelions (✉️) 13:14, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

My thought would be wordpress.com or some other free host site that you upload the screenshots to as an image file.-- --3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 01:11, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Sure they could, 3, but I'm not making this about us or those privy to A.Today. How many of Wikipedia's typical readers do you imagine are aware of that resource? We aren't allowed to link to it anymore, so it's kind of hard to allude to its existence or how to view the pages now. What we're left with is a rotten link that by definition isn't outwardly verifiable. mftp dan ^oops 14:28, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I think this is a much bigger issue that needs to get worked out as a result of that RfC deprecating A.Today. I'd say there should be a guidance put out, and that could be linked to in the reference as a note.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 01:12, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

SNUGGUMS (and Camilasdandelions, what exactly are you proposing here? Deprecating the source? Blacklisting it?----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:12, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Has there been a check if old Idolator links have been archived by other services, such as Megalodon?----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 23:52, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

I have never seen yet. Camilasdandelions (✉️) 23:59, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose alternatives to WBM archives, if that can be achieved. mftp dan ^oops 00:06, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Assuming WBM stands for Wayback Machine, that particular archive has no working backups for Idolator pages, and I already tried that one before starting this thread. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 03:48, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

You tried Megalodon? Judging from your response I don't know if you're reading the intended message. But yes, WBM is Wayback Machine. mftp dan ^oops 03:56, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I tried Megalodon and so far I haven't been successful. Need some more old links to try, though.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:46, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

This does not make any sense to me. The site is still avalable trought archive.is (even if we can't link to it anymore). I see no reason to remove it as a reliable source. Wikipedia sites a ton of sources which can't be viewed with a link directly from Wikipedia.★Trekker (talk) 12:36, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

SNUGGUMS, perhaps this discussion should be moved to RSN, given that Idolator is listed on the perennial sources list and a re-evaluation should involved more editors.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 23:43, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

No objections to starting a thread there. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 00:55, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

CBS News Weiss Survey

• Option 3: Generally Unreliable for any and all United States political (Federal, state, local), United States geopolitical, and related U.S. geopolitical matters related to Gaza, Iran, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, the European Union, and NATO. Anything sourced to modern Weiss CBS News for same needs additional corroborating non-CBS sourcing. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 14:51, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• The case for general unreliability is not made, imo, Pelley resisted whatever thing Weiss wanted. In other words, that shows editorial controls working. And "propaganda palooza" is another way to say very biased. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1. - a disgruntled former co-worker is not a reason to make a source unreliable. Also, this statement is patently false. “intentionally trying to kill an ICE officer (though he resisted,” PerseusMeredith (talk) 16:03, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Please put the text in the right section. Also, I made it clearer. RedDeadGuy (talk) 16:15, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  It still has the false statement. Pelley alleges that Weiss wanted him to state that Good was,

  "driving toward the officer" PerseusMeredith (talk) 16:31, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Whatever, the OP was rewritten. RedDeadGuy (talk) 16:48, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  But it's still not accurate. PerseusMeredith (talk) 16:58, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Option 3 It does appear that editorial interference is causing chaos at CBS. I would also periodize this specifically to the start of the Bari Weiss tenure. Example sources discussing the problems there: Simonm223 (talk) 16:33, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1. Evidence of unreliability has not been established; that the management has experienced problems is not unreliability. The idea of declaring 60 Minutes, one of the most significant news magazines ever, unreliable for delaying releasing something is ridiculous. PARAKANYAA (talk) 16:59, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Sources also report Weiss pressured Pelley to lie on his report about Renee Good. RedDeadGuy (talk) 17:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Option 1/2/too soon we need to wait until the unreliable news has been published. There are reports they have thrown wrenches in the gears but we are by definition, taking a WP:LAGGING stance of the world (yeah i know thats a notability guideline, but we must take a wait and see approach)
  Bari weiss is definitely concerning but we need a smoking gun, not that she did editorail bias. Maybe we state cbs is a biased source now? (Though i feel we need more evn for that) User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 17:23, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Rhododendrites below captures my feelings exactly User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:29, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: Note that we currently have FOX as MREL for non-political/science topics. Are we saying that CBS is even more biased than FOX, to the point that even their non-political/science reporting has to be considered GUNREL? If so, why? ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 17:26, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  For what it's worth I suppose that I at least Support Option 2 while reserving judgement on whether or not taking the step to Option 3 is warranted. Granted, I think most news outlets should be thought of as MREL for publications that amount to more than just basic news reporting, considering questionable editorial and Pulitzer Prize winners get published next to each other. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 18:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell, there are allegations of editorial interference and a ton of justifiable criticism directed at Weiss, but where is the pile of links showing uncorrected factual errors or other concrete problems with what's actually been published? There are all manner of news organizations more overtly biased than this that we nonetheless consider reliable because what they don't let that bias erode their factual accuracy. There are claims about efforts to do so at CBS, but to what extent has it happened? In general, while the legal and ideological capitulation of CBS News/its parents suggest a deleterious trajectory, we need to actually see that manifest in factual unreliability. TL;DR seriously premature, and as I've said before I'd love it if we could just stop using this genre of source-bucketing RfC for anything other than extreme cases. It's possible to just talk about what's going on with a source without jumping into a vote. Sigh. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:27, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah I also feel like we could have just had a standard discussion instead of reaching for the RfC button. It was about half a year ago since the last discussion about CBS and I'm not aware of widespread disputes about usage of it as a source. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 17:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Comment. Option 1. I agree with Rhododendrites. So far no evidence has been presented that CBS News is currently an unreliable source. There has been a lot of upset and a change in leadership that has recieved a lot of coverage. But that does not translate into general unreliability at this point. This survey is premature, imho. --Steve Quinn (talk) 17:44, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 with a side of too soon - I agree with others that we don't yet have sufficient evidence of breaching norms reliability, and I think Maltazarian's highlighting of how this case compares to FOX is relevant. That having been said, based on the RS reporting of Pelley's firing, there is a credible allegation that the editorial leadership of 60 Minutes insisted on including false reporting relating to Renee Good, that this was rejected by the journalist, and that the journalist was consequently fired; while I wouldn't throw out any of CBS News's coverage just yet, this incident gives cause for serious pause if we were to come across an example of CBS (and especially 60 Minutes) making WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims that aren't repeated by other RS, especially in relation to US politics. That's not GUNREL, but it's not quite GREL either. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:47, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  If CBS is firing journalists who refuse to falsify reports then it raises the question of how many journalists are complying to protect their jobs. Simonm223 (talk) 17:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  I think that's basically the essence of my argument, yes. CBS also tends to cover topics that get abundant attention from other RS, so it should be relatively simple to identify points where they do step out of line if that happens. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:01, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, the firing is not tied to the January reporting, much other stuff happened in May, and it centered on some supposed things he said in a meeting to a new producer who was not there in January. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:05, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  But the biased reporting wasnt published though.

  we cant judge a source for what wasnt published even if they got really close to having put it out. Im close to an option 2 myself but think we really cannot ding for bias until the trigger is pulled and we see cbs put stuff out we know is unreliabel/undue/biased af User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:30, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Option 3: Generally Unreliable There is clear evidence of political interference in CBS News output. This goes beyond WP:BIASEDSOURCES and is broadly on-par with a British tabloid newspaper now. Weiss isn't the only person in this story but her appointment was the crossing of the Rubicon marking a decisive shift away from responsible journalism. The decline started immediately after. Maybe there was some interference before that. Maybe there was some successful resistance to interference for a short time after that. Nonetheless, that's where the line should be drawn. I'm not sure if there is anything to gain by trying to set different levels for different topics. It's like the curate's egg. If any part of it is rotten then the whole thing is bad. It's about the organisation as a whole. (BTW, I see the disparity with Fox News. That's probably worth revisiting separately but it's off-topic here.) --DanielRigal (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Bias alone does not make a news source outright unreliable. It's when that bias interferes with their editorial processes to the point that errors are left uncorrected. Could you provide any actual examples of uncorrected errors in its reporting? After all, we didn't downgrade Fox News until we saw a recurring pattern of uncorrected errors in its reporting. SVG-image-maker (talk) 00:17, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

• Let's also note that CBS News New York does not run the news operations of its affiliates, each have there own editorial staff. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Comment. I agree with Rhododendrites. Should anyone want to read a copy of the letter firing Pelley / outlining the ostensible reasons for his firing, there's a copy here. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:38, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Speedy close Why was their no discussion prior to this, what evidence is there that the factual accuracy of CBS has changed? It's not until they do published fake news or false reporting that anything changes. Presupposing that change before it happens just makes Wikipedia look biased in the way that people tend to make up about us for money. I've watched with growing concerns the details coming out from within CBS, and the growing hyperbole of it's reporting. But bias doesn't mean a source unreliable, that has to be held onto. So until other sources start reporting on a change in the accuracy of CBS's reporting what are we doing here? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:03, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Ok this report from the independent directly calls into question CBS's reporting, so I've struck my !vote, but we should still have discussion this first. Is there any more of this outside of Pelley's firing? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Actively Disinterested. I saw this article from the Independent earlier today. The thrust of the article is criticism of Weiss's behavior but there has been no published anti-factual reporting, so far, that has come from CBS (that I know of). Also, notice that this article from the Independent was published on March 6th. So, that is two and one half months ago, and I have not been made aware of any unreliable reporting from CBS. I am thinking when the unreliable reporting happens other reputable news sources are sure to report on it. I surmise that it will become widely known very quickly. So, maybe Speedy Close is the best option at this point. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:59, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Agree. The independent article (reporting stuff from Zeteo and Semafor second hand) has a total of one (1) example of an egregious omission (an anchor not including mention of 1953 in a timeline of US-Iran relations) and zero (0)

examples of factual inaccuracy BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:25, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Also the Independent article is very Iran-specific, so as grounds for a downgrade it would only point to additional considerations about Iran specifically. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:28, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

This could all have avoided with some discussion before the RFC started, there really isn't enough here to have to go through the whole RFC process. But with more than a dozen editors already taking part it probably best to let this wind it's course. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah theres a broader issue of everyone being triggerhappy on rfc process on this noticeboard anyways. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:38, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I try and kill off as many unready and undiscussed RFCs as I can, but this one was well under way before I noticed it. There have been repeated evidenced free discussion about Weiss and CBS, maybe having a RFC result to point will actually help. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:55, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

There is no policy that allows

rfcs to be “killed” off early automatically. By the time an rfc is started, it usually has to be closed User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 13:01, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Sorry just short hand, try and persuade that RFCs are closed early and a normal discussion be had instead. RFCs or any other discussion can be closed by consensus of the participation without forming any consensus on the matter as hand. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:51, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

The issue of hasty RFCs is an editor issue anyway, rather than an issue with this noticeboard. There aren't that many 'regulars' here, and the few that are wouldn't brush to start a RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:07, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Speaking of Scott Pelley this from CBS Evening News the night after he was fired certainly suggests editorial independence from management. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:59, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

The thing with Pellet is that he's not independent of the situation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 07:18, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, that's true. But I was talking about CBS Evening News and what looks like some editorial independence from management, evidenced in the link. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

• Status quo I don't think the current evidence is sufficient for changing the source's rating. I think that the current evidence indicates that a change will be warranted soon as it seems likely that there will be evidence that the organization's reporting is being significantly undermined and damaged - but we don't yet have that evidence. ElKevbo (talk) 22:25, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo, per Rhododendrites. This is premature, and absent a pattern of specific incidents I don't see how it would benefit editors to change the description at WP:CBS, except perhaps to add a small addendum about political bias. Cheers, Suriname0 (talk) 22:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 or anything that isn't option 3... this is WAY too soon, which has already been pointed out by editors above. aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 23:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 with an addendum to WP:CBS. I rewrote the RfC question as a courtesy to the OP, since I thought the issue deserved a hearing. In my view Option 3 is not supported by extant reliable sources, though I wouldn't be surprised if we have to revisit in a year or so. Option 2 is workable, and I agree entirely with Rosguill's !vote above. My own preference would be to retain GENREL (for now) but add to the entry at WP:CBS to state that additional scrutiny may now be required for claims related to politics. Generalrelative (talk) 23:50, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 Obviously we should be watching for any signs of bad reporting and editorial practices by CBS under Weiss, but at this point we really can't point to anything we can call foul on. The bulk of their reporting is in line with all other mainstream sources. They may not be as neutral as they were before Weiss, but remember that bias alone does not impact reliability; it has to be editorial standard going lax or outright failing because of that bias, like with Fox News. Masem (t) 00:02, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2, unfortunately, but it should be politics- and controversy-related – Now with stuff about Weiss and Trump, we can't treat CBS under Weiss the same as WP:CBS, can we? Now with departures of journalists from Weiss's CBS (People), we shouldn't rush into thinking this is the same CBS as it had been before Weiss and SkyDance takeover. George Ho (talk) 07:29, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 there has been nothing yet to indicate a change. We might suspect the change but we need some evidence of it being there. Andre🚐 07:48, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 In reading over the previous discussion I did not see any hard evidence of unreliability. It seemed mostly based on hunches. Slava570 (talk) 12:21, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 While concerns about CBS at the moment are legitimate, there needs to be evidence of a track record of misleading/inaccurate reporting that actually airs/is published before it is reevaluated. Also worth mentioning that the Free Press is listed at WP:Perennial Sources as being under additional considerations. EaglesFan37 (talk) 13:10, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo/Option 1. There is growing evidence of bias - which may or may not be worth including at WP:CBS - but no evidence of unreliability in published reporting has been presented here. Astaire (talk) 15:35, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1: I have yet to see any evidence of widespread falsehoods, or general unreliable reporting from CBS. I'm not opposed to adding a note to its entry at RSP though. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:31, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 Bari Weiss is certainly causing damage, but calling CBS News "generally unreliable" is a bridge too far at this point. We should be careful of editorial bias playing a role in their coverage, but they still have good journalists doing good journalism. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:36, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. There is strong evidence that leadership attempted to change the facts of a story to fit a political narrative. While there is no evidence that the factual changes made it into the reporting, the Paley interview also contains hints that the framing of the reporting had been changed to suit leadership, like portraying protestors to be more violent for example. So, while there is no clear evidence that factual reporting has been slaved to the political narrative, that seems to have been the goal. Caution is therefore advised using CBS for any contentious reporting. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:02, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 / Status quo. No evidence has been provided that CBS News has become unreliable, even if a more rightward slant is being imposed. Bias, be it liberal of conservative, isn't defacto reason for unreliablity per WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Acceptable bias include choosing what issues to cover and what not to cover. Mother Jones is considered a biased yet reliable sources, as is the Daily Telegraph and The New Reepublic, although the distinction between news and partisan opinion is often blurred in such sources. It's very fashionable to hate on Bari Weiss because she's not as liberal as many other prominent journalists, and she has made some decisions I'd call bad, but that alone isn't reason for downgrading CBS's reliability yet. What I see is evidence that journalists and commentators assume news media is, and should be, left-leaning by default, and become upset when this worldview is challenged. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:43, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Mostly 1 with a dash of 2, much per Muboshgu above. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:24, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 per others above. Don't see evidence yet that CBS News has become unreliable. Some1 (talk) 01:43, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 Is Bari Weiss a poor manager? Quite possible. Does Bari Weiss have opinions? It seems so. We know/assume every corporate news organization is biased. We know/assume every corporate news organization gets things wrong. What we don't have is evidence that puts the reporting itself beyond the pale, certainly not generally and not even specifically. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:03, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1. No evidence for lack of reliability. I've checked the first three links prvided by u:Simonm223 and none of them even mentions reliability issues. Alaexis_¿question? 12:47, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1. My fellow editors have made the case far better than I could. I think this is premature and I have seen no evidence of decreased factuality CBS' reporting under Weiss. Most of the arguments on the other side here are about bias which is different than factuality. Redvelvetvanilaaaaaaaaa (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1, on grounds of anything else would be going out of our way to prove Larry Sanger's point. Samuelshraga (talk) 13:05, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 - no evidence of lack of reliability. DoubleCross (‡) 13:55, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo/Option 1 The evidence of any issues here is limited at best. Certainly there is no evidence of factual errors for false claims. Even the claims of bias are still in the areas where it can be reasonable differences of opinion vs anything more. With any media source we really should be more careful with how we use them and spend more time deciding if the actual facts/claims make sense rather than using any blanket rule. But within the confines of the simpleton 3 bucket system the status quo is fine here. Springee (talk) 10:38, 26 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo Decisions should be based on demonstrated problems and not predictions. My crystal ball isn't reliable enough to downgrade a source before the evidence exists. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:35, 26 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo/Option 1 I think there is pretty decent evidence that CBS has shifted to the right. I also think that if all allegations made are true, Weiss has created a less-than-good work environment. But there has been no significant evidence of unreliability, no large-scale change in editorial policy, and no other issues in that category. Bad management and right-wing politics, even if many consider them morally bad, are not factors in reliability. FortunateSons (talk) 17:18, 27 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo I'll by saying Bari Weiss has not done CBS any favors she's taken control of the organization. For example, losing Scott Pelley is certaintly an loss to the image and nostalgic CBS and 60 minutes that many grew up with. However, when I look at CBS and its local affiliates they still do good work. I also have to imagine Bari Weiss will not be at helm forever if this dive in ratings continue. I don't want a downgraded rating to impact the ability of us to use the great local reporting affiliates do or rely on the investigative reporting that's still done. You can argue CBS isn't what it used to be and there is certainly a political shift. But we have to think about its actual reliability and the long-term impact of a downgrade.AadamentAardvark (talk) 15:58, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo Weiss is trying her best to make CBS worse, but bias =/= unreliability and I haven't seen any info presented here that they've outright reported false info a la Fox or OAN (yet). The Kip ^(contribs) 14:12, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. Decreasingly reliable on contentious US politics wherever Weiss intervenes. There's a reason we don't consider The Free Press generally reliable. CopyleftEverything (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  We don't consider TFP GREL because they're a start-up publication with a very short/unproven track record in addition to their considerable bias. As much as Weiss is trying to wreck it, CBS has a far longer record. The Kip ^(contribs) 16:02, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah thefp is considered a self published substack by bari weiss, isnt it? User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 17:30, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  Started as a substack, now it’s its own site with a wider news staff iirc. The Kip ^(contribs) 00:03, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

  No, it's not self-published, at least mostly not. It wasn't in 2024, and is still not today. Bari Weiss is the founder, and but one of several senior editors. She may well be chief editor, and until CBS acquired the FP may even have been considered the publisher, but aside from articles she wrote herself, most articles by the various contributors, staff writers, and columnists are not self-published as Wikipedia defines it. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:28, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

• Status quo/Option 1 What's the rush? Stikkyy (talk) 01:11, 2 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 Too soon. No evidence of a pattern of misleading reporting yet. The Inside CECOT scandal doesn't affect reliability since that's what they didn't air. Start this again when there's proof we're actually at risk of getting false claims sourced to CBS in articles. Flounder fillet (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

CBS News Weiss Discussions

Added these subsections. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 14:52, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. RedDeadGuy (talk) 15:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

As I see, the RFC tag is removed because the OP isn't written neutrally. I'm thinking about writing a more neutral statement for the subsection "Written for RFC tag". Would that be all right? —George Ho (talk) 15:26, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah this was not formulated neutrally and should not be an RfC in its current form. Simonm223 (talk) 15:28, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Can I readd the RfC tag while George rewrites it? RedDeadGuy (talk) 15:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

No, you should wait for a neutrally worded RfC statement before adding the tag. Otherwise you're wasting other editors' time. Generalrelative (talk) 16:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Go ahead, then. RedDeadGuy (talk) 15:29, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• RedDeadGuy I have rewritten the RfC statement myself, and posted your original non-neutral statement below. You may wish to move this to a !vote in the Survey section. If you do so, feel free to delete this comment. Generalrelative (talk) 16:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  The combination of Generalrelative's and my statements was attempted, but then Generalrelative changed it back. (Could've been mixed better, IMO, if Generalrelative let it be, but...) I didn't realize how important deadline or timing may be more than patience. Sorry for letting you both down a lot. Still, I did wanna post right away, but edit conflicts interfered. BTW, Generalrelative's statement is... very, very brief. Too brief perhaps? George Ho (talk) 16:57, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Guess we just have to live with it. RedDeadGuy (talk) 17:07, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@whoever uninvolved closes this RFC discussion: please note that headcount alone does not constitute consensus. Indeed, IMO, arguments should weigh more than mere votes. George Ho (talk) 20:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Any closer that's not doing that shouldn't be closing discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:41, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Previous OPs (CBS News)

There are currently accusations from reliable sources saying Bari Weiss has turned CBS into a Donald Trump propaganda machine. Inside CECOT was just one of the issues. Former 60 Minutes member Scott Pelley accused her of demanding him to alter the story regarding the killing of Renee Good to show her as intentionally trying to kill an ICE officer (though he resisted), something that is false but in line with the administration's claims, and has been accused of running a "propaganda-palooza" regarding the 2026 Iran War.

Sources:

• https://zeteo.com/p/bari-weiss-cbs-iran-war-dukoupil
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/cbs-bari-weiss-iran-war-trump-b2933098.html
• https://www.ms.now/news/scott-pelley-cbs-news-60-minutes-firing-statement
• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/magazine/scott-pelley-interview.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/arts/television/scott-pelley-60-minutes-interview-takeaways.html
• https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/01/media/scott-pelley-nick-bilton-60-minutes-cbs-bari-weiss

RedDeadGuy (talk) 14:48, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

There goes my (other) statement:

The reliability of CBS News has been discussed, e.g. prior discussions from December 2025 (with a conclusion) and from January 2026 (archived without closure). Recently, its reliability has been debated and questioned, especially with the management of Bari Weiss and now ex-CBS anchor Scott Pelley's statement about CBS under Weiss trying to favor President Donald Trump and his views and statements.

As-is, WP:CBS labels CBS News as "generally reliable". However, is CBS News under Bari Weiss also "generally reliable"? If not, then which of the other following options: (2) "additional considerations needed", (3) "generally unreliable", or (4) "deprecate"?

Well... which one is better? George Ho (talk) 16:27, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I think yours has less bias. Putting it up! RedDeadGuy (talk) 16:38, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Propose speedy close (CBS News)