Authority vs. Truth

If you haven’t yet heard David Weinberger’s position on authority vs. truth in media — the disclosure of accuracy in mainstream media vs. Wikipedia — you should, it’s one of his best ideas.

If you visit the article on “conservativism” at Wikipedia, you’ll see–at least as of this writing–a strong warning at the top, complete with a graphic of a hand warning you to stop:

“The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see discussion on the talk page.”

…The question is why we don’t see these warnings in newspapers and especially in newspaper archives.

Luke has a nice outline summary of Weinberger’s opening plenary at IA Summit 2006. The whole summary is worth reading, but especially the part on authority.