We have all heard of Wikipedia by now, the free online community driven encyclopedia? If not, climb out from under the rock you are under and go check it out.. wikipedia.org
Anyway, Wikipedia has an NPOV (Neutral Point of View) policy, which states that every post must be made from a nutral point of view, that is to say, the content should be posted without bias and represented fairly from both sides of the argument, if there is one.
For our EMAC 2321 assigment today, the Professor wants us to look at a controvercial article and see wiether or not the editors and writers of the article upheld the NPOV at all times…There are the same old controvercial topics such as Obama, Global warming, 9/11, ect but lets look at something a little less mainstream…Lets look at the G20 (Group 20) summit protests in Pittsburgh..Protests that got no coverage on the news, no coverage in the papers, and hardly any coverage, even on wikipedia.
At first glance, the summit page looks rather dull: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_Pittsburgh_summit
The protest section is a rather minimal coverage over the three days of protests that took place during the summit.
The first section on the discussion page of the article happens to be Neutrality, and the first like on the page hits us with this quote:
As most articles that are about and created by the political Left, this article seems to be prone to bias. Please keep a neutral tone and remember that wikipedia is not a soap box
Which Ironically strikes me as being bias. However, lets evaluate how the editors approached a single aspect of the protest, one being the sources of information…
A user named “YardsGreen” comes forward and says:
the previous version included a distorted timeline and a curious insistence that the demonstration was peaceful
Then another user named “Dr. Cash” comes in and says:
what you put is NOT an accurate representation of what actually happened. ….. Stop trying to change this. I was there. I know what happened.
Another user “Blackngold29″ finally chimes in and says
Be careful though, personal experiences mean nothing if you can’t cite it to a reliable source
I believe these are good indications that civility and NPOV without bias is withheld in the article, any questionable material is reverted.
Although the wikipedia page is only a few paragraphs, have a look at these videos, they say much more than is said on the wikipage…
While I do not agree with the protesters anti-capitalism message, I respect their first amendment rights, and these videos are EXTREMELY harrowing, however I suppose that is another post…