Reliable sources/Perennial sources

Reliable sources/Perennial sources buckets sources as being "generally reliable", defined as being "independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"; "marginally reliable", defined as being usable only in "certain circumstances"; "generally unreliable", which "should normally not be used"; and "deprecated", which is "generally prohibited".{{cite journal |last1=Lawrence |first1=Amanda |last2=van Wanrooy |first2=Brigid |title=Sourcing public policy: organisation publishing in Wikipedia |journal=New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia |date=1 October 2024 |volume=30 |issue=3-4 |pages=181–200 |doi=10.1080/13614568.2024.2343845 |doi-access=free |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13614568.2024.2343845 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |issn=1361-4568}}{{Cite web |last=Bandler |first=Aaron |date=2024-06-21 |title=Wikipedia Editors Label ADL Only Reliable for Antisemitism When "Israel and Zionism Are Not Concerned" |url=https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/372532/wikipedia-editors-label-adl-only-reliable-for-antisemitism-when-israel-and-zionism-are-not-concerned/ |access-date=2025-05-03 |website=Jewish Journal |language=en-US |archive-date=2024-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240622020506/https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/372532/wikipedia-editors-label-adl-only-reliable-for-antisemitism-when-israel-and-zionism-are-not-concerned/ |url-status=live }} Deprecated sources are of questionable reliability and include sources that are known for promoting unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Separately, the list indicates when a source is "blacklisted" on Wikipedia due to "persistent abuse, usually in the form of embedded external links".

Reliability discussions are held on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard public forum, where editors discuss how well a source complies with Wikipedia's guideline on reliable sources. Sometimes, debates are held within Wikipedia's Request for Comment (RfC) process. The debates are public and archived, allowing people to see how a reliability assessment was reached.

Sources considered generally reliable include news channels such as CNN, MSNBC and Al Jazeera, traditional newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Nation, as well as Slate, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Amnesty International.{{Cite web|url=https://jewishinsider.com/2024/06/wikipediai-israeli-palestinian-conflict-zionism-adl-encyclopedia/|title=Inside the war over Israel at Wikipedia|date=26 June 2024|website=Jewish Insider|last=Deutch|first=Gabby|access-date=11 May 2025|archive-date=19 September 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240919042704/https://jewishinsider.com/2024/06/wikipediai-israeli-palestinian-conflict-zionism-adl-encyclopedia/|url-status=live}}

Sources under the "no consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" category include National Review, Jezebel and Salon.com. Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times is also in this category, with its entry stating, "given known practices of self-censorship and political meddling into coverage, news related to Singapore politics, particularly for contentious claims, should be taken with a grain of salt". Sources that are considered generally unreliable include The Daily Wire, the New York Post, the Jewish Virtual Library, NGO Monitor,{{Cite web|url=https://www.jta.org/2024/06/18/united-states/adl-faces-wikipedia-ban-over-reliability-concerns-on-israel-antisemitism|title=ADL faces Wikipedia ban over reliability concerns on Israel, antisemitism|date=June 18, 2024|website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|last=Elia-Shalev|first=Asaf|access-date=May 12, 2025|archive-date=June 19, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240619082259/https://www.jta.org/2024/06/18/united-states/adl-faces-wikipedia-ban-over-reliability-concerns-on-israel-antisemitism|url-status=live}} the Daily Kos, BroadwayWorld and Amazon user reviews.

Deprecated sources include Breitbart News and Infowars (which are also included on the spam blacklist),{{Cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/wikipedia-banned-breitbart-infowars/|title=Wikipedia Bans Right Wing Site Breitbart as a Source for Facts|date=2 October 2018|website=Vice|last=Cole|first=Samantha|access-date=14 May 2025|archive-date=21 February 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250221100748/https://www.vice.com/en/article/wikipedia-banned-breitbart-infowars/|url-status=live}} Occupy Democrats, One America News Network, The Epoch Times, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit,{{Cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-why-wikipedia-is-much-more-effective-than-facebook-at-fighting-fake-news-1.8378622|title=Why Wikipedia Is Much More Effective Than Facebook at Fighting Fake News|last=Benjakob|first=Omer|date=10 January 2020|work=Haaretz|archive-date=20 June 2020|access-date=11 May 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200620203412/https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-why-wikipedia-is-much-more-effective-than-facebook-at-fighting-fake-news-1.8378622|url-status=live}} The Grayzone, Russian state media outlet RT{{Cite web|url=https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/grayzone-xinjiang-denialism/|title=Enter the Grayzone: fringe leftists deny the scale of China's Uyghur oppression|date=30 July 2020|website=Coda Story|last=Thompson|first=Caitlin|access-date=11 May 2025|archive-date=19 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019184243/https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/grayzone-xinjiang-denialism/|url-status=live}} and Newsmax. Advocacy organizations that have taken overtly pro-Russia, pro-China or pro-Arab perspectives have also been deprecated.{{cite news |last1=Harrison |first1=Stephen |author1-link=Stephen Harrison (author) |title=Project 2025’s Creators Want to Dox Wikipedia Editors. The Tool They’re Using Is Horrifying. |url=https://slate.com/technology/2025/02/wikipedia-project-2025-heritage-foundation-doxing-editors-antisemitism.html |access-date=5 February 2025 |work=Slate |date=5 February 2025}} Blacklisted sources include the Hindu nationalist websites OpIndia, Swarajya and TFIPost,{{cite web |last1=Kauntia |first1=Nishant |date=30 November 2020 |title=How Wikipedia earned the ire of the Hindu Right |url=https://caravanmagazine.in/media/wikipedia-earned-ire-hindu-right |url-access=subscription |access-date=9 December 2020 |website=The Caravan |archive-date=7 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201207013821/https://caravanmagazine.in/media/wikipedia-earned-ire-hindu-right |url-status=live }}{{cite web|first1=Ayush|last1=Tiwari|access-date=29 June 2020|title=OpIndia: Hate speech, vanishing advertisers, and an undisclosed BJP connection|url=https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/06/23/opindia-hate-speech-vanishing-advertisers-and-an-undisclosed-bjp-connection|website=Newslaundry|date=23 June 2020|archive-date=17 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217205447/https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/06/23/opindia-hate-speech-vanishing-advertisers-and-an-undisclosed-bjp-connection|url-status=live}} as well as The Points Guy, ZoomInfo, Natural News and the Heritage Foundation.{{Cite web |last=Bandler |first=Aaron |date=2025-03-25 |title=Wikipedia Editors Blacklist Heritage Foundation Following Report of Plan to Unmask Antisemitic Editors |url=https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/380190/wikipedia-editors-blacklist-heritage-foundation-following-report-of-plan-to-unmask-antisemitic-editors/ |access-date=2025-04-26 |website=Jewish Journal |language=en-US |archive-date=26 April 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250426034949/https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/380190/wikipedia-editors-blacklist-heritage-foundation-following-report-of-plan-to-unmask-antisemitic-editors/ |url-status=live }}

In 2017, Wikipedia editors downgraded the Daily Mail, a British tabloid newspaper, as being "generally unreliable" on RSP after a prolonged debate on the site; any attempt to use the Daily Mail as a source on a Wikipedia page would be met with a disclaimer. Wikipedia editors cited "the Daily Mail's reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication" as the reasoning behind the ban. Of the more than 90 editors who contributed to the debate, 58 supported the ban. At the time, tens of thousands of articles used the newspaper as a source. The Daily Mail thus became the first deprecated source.

The decision led to a large volume of British media coverage for the unprecedented ban.{{Cite news |last=Jackson |first=Jasper |date=2017-02-08 |title=Wikipedia bans Daily Mail as 'unreliable' source |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia-bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website |access-date=2025-05-03 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077 |archive-date=2017-02-08 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170208211856/https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia-bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website |url-status=live }} Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales affirmed the site's choice, while the Daily Mail responded with criticism of the site and its editors.

As of 2022, thousands of articles on Wikipedia use Fox News as a source. Since 2010, Fox News has been the subject of numerous debates on Wikipedia regarding whether or not it can be used as a reliable source, with discussions running over hundreds of thousands of words in total and concerning the input of over a hundred editors.

Many conversations have sought to establish or enforce a distinction between bias versus reliability, with the latter having more to do with fact-checking and accuracy, though some argued that a consistent amount of errors and retractions in reporting are normal conduct for even a reliable media outlet.{{Cite news |last=Breslow |first=Samuel |date=2022-09-29 |title=Wikipedia's Fox News Problem |url=https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/wikipedia-fox-news-reliability.html |access-date=2025-05-04 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339 |archive-date=2022-10-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221006081833/https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/wikipedia-fox-news-reliability.html |url-status=live }}

On Fox News, opinion talk shows like Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight, which ran from 2016 to 2023, are considered generally unreliable for statements of fact and not to be used as sources on Wikipedia. Fox News articles about topics other than politics and science have been considered generally reliable.

The assessments do not apply to local affiliates owned by Fox.

In February 2023, Wikipedia editors downgraded the reliability rating of CNET, a technology website owned at the time by Red Ventures, to "generally unreliable" after it was revealed that CNET was publishing content generated by artificial intelligence. CNET's reliability rating is broken into three time periods: pre-October 2020 (generally reliable prior to the acquisition), October 2020–October 2022 (no consensus on reliability following the acquisition by Red Ventures, "leading to a deterioration in editorial standards") and November 2022–present (generally unreliable, after CNET began using AI to "to rapidly generate articles riddled with factual inaccuracies and affiliate links").{{Cite web|url=https://futurism.com/wikipedia-cnet-unreliable-ai|title=Wikipedia No Longer Considers CNET a "Generally Reliable" Source After AI Scandal|date=29 February 2024|website=Futurism|last=Dupré|first=Maggie Harrison|access-date=15 May 2025|archive-date=29 February 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240229230807/https://futurism.com/wikipedia-cnet-unreliable-ai|url-status=live}}{{Cite web|url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/wikipedia-downgrades-cnets-reliability-rating-after-ai-generated-articles/|title=AI-generated articles prompt Wikipedia to downgrade CNET’s reliability rating|date=1 March 2024|website=Ars Technica|last=Edwards|first=Benj|access-date=15 May 2025|archive-date=5 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240305194215/https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/wikipedia-downgrades-cnets-reliability-rating-after-ai-generated-articles/|url-status=live}} The CNET incident resulted in editors expressing concern about the reliability of Red Ventures-owned websites, such as Bankrate and CreditCards.com, which also published AI-generated content around the same time.

In 2024, following a discussion on the state of Red Ventures-owned tech website ZDNET, a discussion was initiated with regard to the reliability of all Red Ventures websites. Red Ventures websites The Points Guy (TPG) and Healthline are on the spam blacklist, due to TPG having questionable relationships with credit card companies it covers and Healthline publishing misinformation.

In April 2024, a discussion was launched about the reliability of the Anti-Defamation League in three separate areas: one on the group's reliability on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; one on antisemitism more broadly and the third part on the advocacy group's hate symbols database.

The discussion engaged 120 editors over two months,{{Cite news |date=2024-06-26 |title=Wikipedia defends editors deeming Anti-Defamation League 'unreliable' on Gaza |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/26/wikipedia-adl-jew-zionism-israel/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708080659/https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/26/wikipedia-adl-jew-zionism-israel/ |archive-date=2024-07-08 |access-date=2025-05-04 |work=The Washington Post |language=en |url-status=live }} and included a wide range of perspectives, summarized by editors as "ranging from those who enthusiastically defended the ADL in all contexts, to those who viewed it as categorically unreliable".

As a result, the ADL was downgraded in June 2024 to being a "generally unreliable" source on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, limiting how the organization can be cited in that context on Wikipedia.{{Cite web |last=Merid |first=Feven |title=Wikipedia's Reluctant Resisters |url=https://www.cjr.org/the_new_gatekeepers/wikipedia-reluctant-resisters-musk-trump.php |access-date=2025-05-03 |website=Columbia Journalism Review |language=en |archive-date=2025-05-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250501012955/https://www.cjr.org/the_new_gatekeepers/wikipedia-reluctant-resisters-musk-trump.php |url-status=live }} On the topic of antisemitism, the editors reached a consensus that "the ADL can roughly be taken as reliable on the topic of antisemitism when Israel and Zionism are not concerned". With regard to the organization's hate symbol database, editors determined that "the rough consensus here is that the database is reliable for the existence of a symbol and for straightforward facts about it, but not reliable for more complex details, such as symbols' history".

The RSP listing for the ADL was updated to state "that outside of the topic of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the ADL is a generally reliable source, including for topics related to hate groups and extremism in the U.S."

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said the organization was never formally notified of the rating and only learned of it when it was contacted by news organizations.

RSP affects whether sources are cited and how they are summarized in Wikipedia articles. According to Sverrir Steinsson of George Washington University, by classifying the reliability of news sources, "Wikipedia has accepted the use of contested labels and taken sides on contested subjects, ultimately producing a type of content that is distinctly anti-pseudoscience and anti–conspiracy theories, and which has the perception of a liberal bent in U.S. politics". This led to discontent and departures among the "Pro-Fringe camp" of Wikipedia editors, which Steinsson defined as "Editors who were more supportive of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and conservatism".{{cite journal |last1=Steinsson |first1=Sverrir |title=Rule Ambiguity, Institutional Clashes, and Population Loss: How Wikipedia Became the Last Good Place on the Internet |journal=American Political Science Review |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/rule-ambiguity-institutional-clashes-and-population-loss-how-wikipedia-became-the-last-good-place-on-the-internet/FC3F7B9CBF951DD30C2648E7DEFB65EE |date=February 2024 |volume=118 |issue=1 |pages=235–251 |doi=10.1017/S0003055423000138 |doi-access=free |access-date=14 May 2025 |archive-date=1 May 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250501201031/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/rule-ambiguity-institutional-clashes-and-population-loss-how-wikipedia-became-the-last-good-place-on-the-internet/FC3F7B9CBF951DD30C2648E7DEFB65EE |url-status=live }}

A 2023 Association of Computing Machinery conference paper found that the median lifespan of a source citation on English Wikipedia decreased by a factor of three after the source was designated as deprecated or blacklisted on RSP.{{cite conference |last1=Baigutanova |first1=Aitolkyn |last2=Myung |first2=Jaehyeon |last3=Saez-Trumper |first3=Diego |last4=Chou |first4=Ai-Jou |last5=Redi |first5=Miriam |last6=Jung |first6=Changwook |last7=Cha |first7=Meeyoung |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3543507.3583218 |title=Longitudinal Assessment of Reference Quality on Wikipedia |book-title=WWW '23: Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2023 |publisher=Association of Computing Machinery |date=30 April 2023 |pages=2831–2839 |doi=10.1145/3543507.3583218 |doi-access=free |access-date=14 May 2025 |archive-date=5 March 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250305095305/https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3543507.3583218 |url-status=live }}

While the debates are public and archived, critics say it is not clear who the volunteer editors are and how they are vetted.{{Cite web |last=Collins |first=Michael |title=Anti-hate group ADL slams Wikipedia after site labels it 'unreliable' source on conflict |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/06/21/wikipedia-adl-israel-palestinian-conflict-antisemitism/74172605007/ |access-date=2025-05-04 |website=USA TODAY |language=en-US |archive-date=2024-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240622021018/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/06/21/wikipedia-adl-israel-palestinian-conflict-antisemitism/74172605007/ |url-status=live }}

In January 2020, Omer Benjakob of Haaretz stated that with RSP, "Wikipedia offers greater transparency and a much better model for fighting disinformation than any social media platform has yet to do, simply by building a community of fact-checkers dedicated to keeping the site accurate". In 2019, the decision by editors to deprecate pro–Donald Trump outlets such as The Epoch Times, One America News Network, The Daily Caller and The Gateway Pundit led to the American right claiming that Wikipedia has a liberal bias. In 2025, the list was criticized by American conservative group Media Research Center as a blacklist with a bias against conservative outlets.{{Cite web |last=Hurley |first=Bevan |date=2025-02-06 |title=Wikipedia accused of blacklisting conservative US media |url=https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/wikipedia-blacklist-sources-websites-rltf92jlx |access-date=2025-05-03 |website=The Times |language=en}}

• Ideological bias on Wikipedia
• Reliability of Wikipedia

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Category:Wikipedia reliability

Category:Sources (journalism)

Category:Media analysis organizations and websites

Category:Wikipedia content