Hoping to avoid misinformation about President Donald Trump’s nominees and appointments on Wikipedia? Good luck. Wikipedia has designed a protocol that directly and unerringly produces the worst descriptions about conservatives and Republicans by virtually guaranteeing that right-leaning media sources cannot be cited. The once reliable online encyclopedia ran off the rails under the leadership of its previous CEO Katherine Maher, who made sure that not a single right-leaning outlet was deemed “reliable”—a stark contrast to the 84 percent of leftist media Wikipedia deems reliable.
A new study by Media Research Center Free Speech America found that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia behemoth, has effectively blacklisted all right-leaning media from being used as source material, exclusively relying on leftist, legacy media notoriously known to spread misinformation and attack opponents of the left.
Among the effectively blackballed media sources are Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Newsmax, OANN and the Media Research Center. Meanwhile, leftist media like The Atlantic, Jacobin, Mother Jones, Pro-Publica, The Guardian and National Public Radio (NPR) are given the green light. This blatant misinformation means that Wikipedia is purposely feeding Americans information exclusively through the lens of one side of the political spectrum—the left.
Positioning themselves as arbiters of truth, Wikipedia and its editors have effectively institutionalized a blacklisting system utilizing a “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page that forbids the use of some of the most popular media sources on the right when editing Wikipedia pages. Their claims? Right-leaning sources are not “reliable,” and in some cases literally “blacklisted” — Wikipedia’s actual word — from use on the platform altogether. The predictable effect? Conservatives, Republicans and Trump appointees are smeared, maligned and slandered by the most popular online source for information about people.
Such a blockade has resulted in a disparate balance that disturbingly disadvantages right-leaning media: Wikipedia effectively blocks 100 percent of right-leaning media sources – the ones more likely to give fair treatment to the majority in Congress as well as to incoming officials to the Trump administration. On the contrary, only 16 percent of left-wing media sources fail to win Wikipedia’s stamp of approval.
Pointing out how Wikipedia’s product has degraded over time, MRC Vice President Dan Schneider explained, “There used to be a joke about how Wikipedia could not be relied on by historians and academics. Wikipedia has now become the joke. Its radical editors and staff reveal their contempt for conservatives in almost everything they inject into descriptions. It was never something people could rely on for accurate information. It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative.”
Schneider added, “The leadership as well as the rank and file editors are in constant overdrive to tear down their political opponents. From the policy issues Wikipedia highlights to the tone their editors use to castigate Trump and his appointees. Wikipedia is obviously designed to indoctrinate Americans into despising anything good and decent about mainstream conservatives.”
MRC’s findings come as the Senate holds confirmation hearings for the Trump cabinet and other nominees and appointments. Many Americans, including Senators presumably, turn to Wikipedia to learn about Trump’s nominees. Little do they realize that Wikipedia is marring its pages with derogatory misinformation due to the dominance of leftist media sources, poisoning the Senate confirmation process because it exclusively gives fodder to one political faction attempting to discredit Trump’s appointments and nominees.
Make no mistake—Wikipedia’s “reliable sources” page is tantamount to a blacklist, and it is part of a deliberate and systematic effort to make sure Americans only read media outlets that conform to the left’s political ideology. What’s worse is that Wikipedia is not even hiding it.
Where Does the Blacklist Come From?
Wikipedia provides what it calls its “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page, effectively a blacklist, as a “non-exhaustive list of sources whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed.”
This page is where Wikipedia editors tally their determinations of reliable and non-reliable sources. The determinations occur on a separate page dubbed “Reliable sources/Noticeboard.” Once a conclusion is reached, each outlet is given a label—either “generally reliable,” “no consensus,” “generally unreliable,” “deprecated” or “blacklisted.”
As detailed below, any outlet that is not part of the “generally reliable” category is effectively blacklisted and deemed guilty by lack of association.
“Blacklisted” sources are considered spam and are “automatically” blocked from being cited by any source. These sources are thrown under a “spam blacklist” or in the “Wikimedia global spam blacklist.”
“Deprecated” sources, similar to those media sources included under blacklisted, are “generally prohibited,” with users who cite them being issued a “warning message” and their entries “tagged.”
“Generally unreliable” sources are not far different from those included under blacklisted and deprecated. Wikipedia claims such sources “should normally not be used.” Users are urged to find a “more reliable source instead.”
Wikipedia warns that if “no such source exists, that may suggest that the information
is inaccurate.” In other words, the only media reports that are considered trustworthy are those reported by leftist, legacy media.
Media sources that fall under “No consensus” are “marginally reliable” and “may be usable depending on context,” Wikipedia warns. While editors have not reached a consensus on the media source’s reliability, each entry that cited that source may be reviewed on a “case-by-case” basis. In other words, users are expected to jump through hoops before confidently using such sources.
Finally, there is the “generally reliable” sources label, or the crème de la crème, under Wikipedia's eyes. (More on this category further down.)
Which Outlets Are Effectively Blacklisted?
MRC Free Speech America used the publicly available Media Bias Chart provided by AllSides, a media ratings company that classifies media sources as having a right or left bias, to check Wikipedia’s ratings of right-leaning media outlets.
MRC researcher analysis determined that not a single media source listed by AllSides as “lean right” or “right” (29 in total) is deemed “generally reliable” by Wikipedia.
On the contrary, an overwhelming majority of right-leaning media sources (22 out of 29) are stained with either the “blacklisted,” “deprecated” or “generally unreliable” label. The media sources that did not meet that initial guillotine were instead thrown under the “no consensus” category, which, as explained earlier, is more-or-less the same as being banned. In other words, Wikipedia effectively blacklists all right-leaning media sources.
Wikipedia impugned Breitbart News, one of the most recognized right-leaning media sources on the blacklist, due to perceived abuse. “The site has published a number of falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and intentionally misleading stories as fact,” Wikipedia claims of the media outlet.
Wikipedia labels other right-leaning media sources as “deprecated,” including The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Newsmax, OANN, ZeroHedge and The Epoch Times.
Outlets deemed “generally unreliable” are: Fox News (politics and science; and talk shows) Blaze Media, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, the New York Post, The Post Millennial and the Washington Free Beacon.
As MRC conducted this investigation, Wikipedia broke Fox News into three categories, describing its “talk shows,” and any news segments covering “politics and science,” as “generally unreliable.” The other Fox News news segments are placed under “no consensus.”
Outlets under the “no consensus” label are The American Conservative, the Independent Journal Review, National Review, The Washington Times and the Washington Examiner.
Wikipedia has yet to target the following media sources, which also means they have not received the encyclopedia’s approval: The American Spectator, Christian Broadcasting Network, Upward!, Just the News, The Free Press, Fox Business and The Dispatch.
To make matters worse, other media sources not included in the AllSides Media Bias Chart are also maligned.
For instance, the Media Research Center and its flagship media subdivisions—MRCTV.org and NewsBusters—are dubbed “generally unreliable” because some Wikipedia editors “believe these sources publish false or fabricated information.”
Since its founding in 1987, not one MRC study—whether it is uncovering bias in cable news or exposing Big Tech election interference—has been proven false or fabricated.
Which Media Sources Wikipedia Rubber Stamps?
While none of the right-leaning media sources have received Wikipedia’s stamp of approval, the story is quite different for the media sources on the left.
Wikipedia dubbed only one (AlterNet) out of 44 media sources deemed “center,” “lean left” or “left” by AllSides as “generally unreliable.” AllSides identifies 32 media sources that are also rated by Wikipedia as "lean left" or "left," with 27 (or 84 percent) deemed "generally reliable."
Meanwhile, the leftist encyclopedia gives the green light to (considers “generally reliable”) the following media sources in the “lean left” category: ABC News, Axios, Bloomberg News, CBS News, CNN, Insider, NBC News, The New York Times, NPR, Politico, Pro-Publica, TIME Magazine, USA Today, The Washington Post and Yahoo! News.
Wikipedia approves the following “left” media sources: The Associated Press, The Atlantic, The Guardian, HuffPost, The Intercept, Jacobin, Mother Jones, MSNBC, The Nation, The New Yorker and Vox.
The inclusion of some of these outlets as “generally reliable” is nothing short of astonishing, given their history of spreading misinformation, falsehoods and misleading information.
For instance, take the Wuhan laboratory leak theory, a story widely dismissed by the legacy media as a conspiracy theory but later confirmed as the likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By March 16, 2020, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), one of the first, publicly outspoken proponents of this theory, had his Wikipedia page soiled by a “Coronavirus conspiracy theories” subheader, detailing his position that the coronavirus outbreak could have been caused by the communist Chinese regime.
At that time, Wikipedia cited The Washington Post’s complete dismissal of the theory: “Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.”
A little over a month later, Wikipedia scrubbed the “conspiracy theories” framing from Cotton’s “Coronavirus” subheader but continued to cite leftist media pouring cold water on the theory. For instance, a headline by The New York Times read: “Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins."
Fast forward to 2025 and several federal agencies issued reports concluding that they believe COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan lab, with the CIA becoming the latest entity to back this theory. The Washington Post—and The New York Times to a lesser degree—went on to edit their articles, with The Washington Post’s correction reading:
“Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus. The term ‘debunked’ and The Post’s use of ‘conspiracy theory’ have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus.”
Another great example is the Hunter Biden laptop scandal bombshell.
Several media sources described as “generally reliable” by Wikipedia dismissed the New York Post’s Oct. 14, 2020 exposé on the infamous “laptop from hell”—which exposed the then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden had lied about his role in his son’s foreign business dealings.
NPR refused to report the story, suggesting it was false (it was not): “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
On April 1, 2021, NPR issued a correction after falsely claiming the story had been discredited: “A previous version of this story said U.S. intelligence had discredited the laptop story. U.S. intelligence officials have not made a statement to that effect.”
The false claim was likely prompted by another misleading story by Politico, another outlet hailed as reliable by Wikipedia. At the height of the laptop scandal, Politico ran a story claiming the story “is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”
The still-published story blindly quoted over 50 former intelligence officials who—at the request of Anthony Blinken, then a Biden campaign surrogate—signed a public letter claiming the story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Despite the assurances, the laptop scandal was not Russian disinformation. In fact, the FBI had possession of the laptop before the New York Post’s story and used its contents against the criminal charges of Hunter Biden.
The bombshell went on to be censored by Big Tech companies and legacy media, hindering the story’s reach. This coordinated media censorship, according to an MRC poll conducted by The Polling Company, swayed the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden.
Despite these major issues, Wikipedia continues to praise the media outlets that committed journalistic malpractice by refusing to accurately report on these events.
Wikipedia’s Long History of Leftist Bias
Wikipedia’s blacklisting system is not a random occurrence, as it appears to echo the vision of current NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher, the radical leftist who was previously the chief executive officer of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Maher joined Wikimedia in 2014 as a chief communications officer, directing the non-profit’s public image until she became executive director in 2016. From that time until she stepped down in 2021, Maher worked hammer and tong to create a system that presented the worst descriptions about her political opponents, censoring so-called disinformation and ensuring that Wikipedia relies almost exclusively on left-leaning sources that tend to be antagonistic to conservatives and Republicans
Maher seemingly referenced the blacklist during an interview with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DRFLab). When asked whether Wikipedia has faced any “threats” in terms of mis- and disinformation, Maher claimed that “the editing community has a very high sort of scrutiny on what constitutes a reliable source.”
She went on to detail Wikipedia’s policies further. “There are clear practices in place,” she added, “about if you’re editing on a sensitive topic, such as medical information or a biography of an individual or an upcoming political event or a breaking news story, around what constitutes something that’s reliable enough to go into that.”
In 2018, Maher mirrored these claims in an interview with leftist media outlet Slate’s tech podcast “If Then,” saying Wikipedia’s policies require editors to “[c]ite back to what we call reliable sources.”
She further warned, “It means that people can’t just put out fringe theories based on what their interests are. They have to find citations and information. It has to be peer-reviewed, or published, or have some editorial scrutiny.”
Maher skewed Wikipedia so much to the left that even Larry Sanger, the self-proclaimed liberal Wikipedia cofounder, spoke out against it. “Wikipedia no longer has an effective neutrality policy,” Sanger wrote in a blog on May 14, 2020.
Sanger called out Wikipedia’s glaring bias against then-President Trump, the pro-life movement and Christianity. For instance, he compared how the online encyclopedia smeared Trump while turning a blind eye to Obama.
“It is time for Wikipedia to come clean and admit that it has abandoned NPOV (i.e., neutrality as a policy),” he warned. “At the very least they should admit that that they have redefined the term in a way that makes it utterly incompatible with its original notion of neutrality, which is the ordinary and common one.”
Maher stepped down as Wikimedia’s head in 2021, leaving behind a massive $140 million endowment to “unlock the world's knowledge.” However, what she unlocked was a knowledge shaped exclusively by leftist media narratives, all while effectively blacklisting right-leaning media.
Maher came under fire in 2024 after her past social media activity exposed her leftist bias on a series of political issues. Her past tweets “could have come straight from the mouth of an ardent liberal activist,” noted National Review in 2024.
In one instance, Maher appeared to refer to Trump as a racist. “What is that deranged racist sociopath ranting about today? I truly do not understand,” she wrote in May 2020, according to National Review. In July 2020, Maher self-described as “someone with cis white mobility privilege.”
In another May post, Maher seemingly condoned looting in the name of social justice: “I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.”
In May 2024, Maher failed to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, which had launched an investigation into NPR’s rampant leftist bias. She provided written testimony instead.
METHODOLOGY: On Jan. 27, 2025, MRC Free Speech America utilized the AllSides media bias chart as a gauge to determine how Wikipedia rates media sources considered “left” and “lean left” in comparison to media sources considered “right” and “lean right.” AllSides listed 32 total media sources as “left” or “lean left” and 29 media sources as “right” or “lean right.” MRC analyzed the 32 left-leaning media sources and 29 right-leaning sources that were rated by AllSides on its media bias chart and compared them to Wikipedia’s “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page to determine what percentage of media sources deemed “generally reliable” by Wikipedia were right-leaning and what percentage were left-leaning. Media sources that were rated as “center” by AllSides were not included in determining the percentage of right-leaning vs. left-leaning media sources Wikipedia considers to be “generally reliable.” AllSides notes it has a “patent on rating bias and use[s] multiple methodologies,” not a homogenous group or an algorithm. “Our methods are: Blind Bias Surveys of Americans, Editorial Reviews by a multipartisan team of panelists who look for common types of media bias, independent reviews, and third party data."
