User:John Smith (nom de guerre)

The Centrist Ideology of the Media (and parts of Wikipedia)

Some of the biggest problems with wikipedia on controversial issues seem to be that many of the US users and others have a thoroughly conservative view on history as well as economics. In this respect they seem to believe that any attempt at even remotely displaying signs of the actual historic controversy and debate that has in fact occured throughout the years must be POV. An incredible amount of energy is directed into silencing opposing views and voicing the winners version of history and historic events on even the smallest pieces of history. It's beginning to become almost frightening and reminiscent of the rewriting of history in some dictatorships we used to know all too well.

I don't know if this has something to do with the educational system, the US media, or just the general POV or political preferences of the users of wikipedia, but it creates a huge gap between many europeans views are of what is a fair and balanced view of history and the US version one meets on wikipedia.

No serious debate is generated and there seems to be a grave lack of understanding what the history subject is all about in some cases. Often encyclopedic form is used as an excuse although huge amounts of wiki articles on current entertainment industry pieces are far more extensive and cover several scores of pages and references and supplimentary pages.

(One media analyst summed it up in this fashion in his article):
"Propaganda from the Middle of the Road" - The Centrist Ideology of the News Media

"Another hallmark of centrist propaganda is to affirm, no matter what the evidence, that U.S. foreign policy is geared toward promoting democracy. Journalists are not unaware that the U.S. helped overthrow democratic governments, for example, in Guatemala in '54, Brazil in '64, Chile in '73 -- but these cases are considered ancient history, no longer relevant. (In centrist ideology, since the system is constantly fixing and renewing itself, U.S. abuses -- even against democracy -- become distant past overnight.)

Mainstream journalists respond to such criticism by explaining that articles for the daily press are not history texts and cannot include everything. That's true, but centrist propaganda finds space for certain histories and not others.

from a www.fair.org article by Jeff Cohen

from www.fair.org
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1492 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nunamiut (talk • contribs) 09:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

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^{(return fire)} this linkcreates and edits new comment paragraph that resides in the "discussions" page, for the user "John Smith (nom de guerre)".

From user FearÉIREANN's page :)

Question: If we have to go back a while in terms of content, does this mean -

• 1. That out deletions are undeleted?
• 2. That our undeletions are deleted?
• 3. Will that make wiki user nn happy or unhappy?
• 4. Does this mean we have to rename pages - Votes for Deletion becomes Votes for Redeleting Undeletions (VfRU) and Votes for Undeletion becomes Votes for Undeleting Redeleted Undeletions (VfURU). And if so, as User nn any suggestions for how we can keep the contents, maybe even the titles of the pages, under 32K?
• 5. Does that mean our hardbanned people now become only squiggely banned?
• 6. Does that mean we might lose the records of some of Michael 2417 identities?
• 7. Does that mean that DW might become a wiki version of the Undead, the 'Unbanned'?
• 8 Does that mean we might have lost 172's reversion of Fred Bauder's additions to Communist State, Fred Bauder's reversions of 172's reversions, 172's reversions of Fred Bauder's reversions of 172's reversion, Fred bauder's reversions of 172's reversions of Fred Bauder's reversions of 172's reversion, my reversion of Fred Bauder's reversion of 172's reversion of Fred Bauder's reverson of 172's reversions of Fred Bauder's reversions of 172's reversion of Communist State?
• 9. When Wiki re-opens, will we find that it was all secretly a lockout by Pizza Puzzle so he could rewrite New Imperialism without anyone stopping him?
• 10. Will Liza Minnelli have found a new husband by the time wiki reopens for business?
• 11. Will David Gest have found a new husband by the time wiki reopens for business?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jtdirl

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