Wikipedia maestro Jimmy Wales says the political content of his website–the most popular reference source in the world–is balanced, in a Wash Post web video. “We do a pretty good job of neutrality,” he says. “I kind of hate to say fair and balanced, a phrase that’s sort of been taken and maybe not the best, but we try.”
This is both wrong and right at the same time. It’s wrong because Wikipedia really does have a liberal bias. I’ve written about it in NRODT. The bias exists because Wikipedians–the activist editors who control most of the site’s content–lean to the Left.
But Wales is absolutely correct in another sense: Wikipedia is a wide-open venue. Virtually anybody can shape its entries as fact checkers and content providers. Conservatives may have legitimate gripes about Wikipedia, but they also have a better recourse than complaint: participation.