Wikipedia is 60 percent wrong

Where are you getting your trusted information? (AP Photo)

Despite the effort to convince the youth of America, and internet users in general, that blindly trusting “facts” published to internet isn’t a good idea, people continue to trust unknown sources every day.

Ron & Don, along with previously-burned-by-Wikipedia-Producer Libby, weren’t surprised to find out that 60 percent of what’s on Wikipedia is wrong.

Specifically, articles about more than half of companies listed Wikipedia have errors. Don thinks that articles about public personalities probably have about the same amount of errors.

What to trust on Wikipedia is a familiar topic for MyNorthwest. We’ve devoted time to telling you about how Luke Burbank can’t update his Wikipedia page. Meanwhile a source many trusted, the Encyclopedia Britannica, went out of print.

“I’ve been burned by Wikipedia before,” Producer Libby told Ron & Don. When producing for Dave Ross, she made up a fact sheet about incoming guest Harry Shearer.

For the record: Shearer is not a llama farmer, as his Wikipedia page had told Libby.

It’s not the only time she’s been burned by the encyclopedia-replacing website, but it’s easily one of the most memorable.

“I felt like I could trust the encyclopedia,” said Ron. “When I went to the encyclopedia as a kid it would settle an argument.”

But, Ron acknowledges that things have definitely changed. “Now I go to Wikipedia. Why do you I think I’m wrong so much?”