Jimmy Wales: belief

Transcript context

…Let’s say, in the US at least, that politics continues to polarize along educational lines. Now, obviously, most Wikipedia contributors, people on the board, are going to be well educated one way or another, if only self-educated. Is it then really still possible for Wikipedia to maintain what would be seen as a neutral stand by people on the other side? That’s a really tough question. I think that we can slice it up a little bit and get a little more refined and say, “Can Wikipedia maintain a neutral stand?” Yes. That, I think, yes. Objectively speaking, yes. But that would be recognized as such by some people on the other side or that would be universally recognized as such — that could be quite hard. We’re in an era where there’s such a decline in respect for traditional journalistic institutions across the board, that you begin to think . . . I think about quality publications that matter, and so I think about the Wall Street Journal tending to be a bit more on the right, and the New York Times tending to be a bit more on the left. Then you think, yes, but where does Breitbart fit into that? Where do some of the new media publications fit into that? And where do people who believe that all of those things are part of some sort of the elite conspiracy to hide the truth about pedophiles or whatever? It becomes hard. I think it’s very hard when you have people who have given up on the concept of objectivity, the concept of neutrality. That isn’t necessarily just on the right. Certainly, when we think about postmodernism and some of the critiques of the ideas of neutrality and objectivity that come from that end of the world, it’s a deeper philosophical question, I would say. How well and how fairly has the media covered Wikipedia?…

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