User:Superb Owl/Reliable Source Engine

Search a selection of reliable news sources

This custom Google Search engine searches mostly perennial sources of generally reliable () journalism. It excludes sources rated as no consensus on reliability (or as unreliable) and excludes op-eds when possible. See Wikipedia library for academic sources. Some sources have not been rated by the community, so please feel free to provide feedback and insight to the talk page if you feel that some should or should not be included.

Appendix

Up-to-date as of: February 10, 2025

{{Search for expanded}} template

I am no longer proactively updating this search engine given the limitations of Google programmable search (which seems to be getting worse somehow) and hope there will, within the next year or two, be an AI search assistant that will be far better than anything I could do to improve upon this tool (please post on the talk page if you have found such a tool). As long as this search engine being used, I will respond to requests to clarify or otherwise fix the search engine.

Sources used

Full list available in different formats on Github

Sources excluded

List of Opinion/op-eds, blogs, commentary, editorials, tags, author profiles and forums (also on Github)

I omitted some sources with because:

Can't filter to a specific time period when content was most reliable using Google (Bing Custom Search API might be able to though...)
1. CNET (before October 2020)
2. ZDNET (before October 2020)
3. Newsweek (before 2013)
4. The Independent - concern by editors starting in March 2016, though very close to including anyway
5. The Weekly Standard – US opinion magazine (1995–2018), the domain is inactive and redirects to an unreliable source, so the main issues is finding a domain to search (https://web.archive.org/web/20181231145630/https://www.weeklystandard.com/ did not work)
Confusing to differentiate between opinion (or low-quality information) and news, at least for beginners (looking for AI-assisted search tool that could enable the inclusion of the reliable content from these sources)
1. Forbes (articles written by 'contributors' are unreliable)
2. Jacobin - difficult to tell blog from article
3. IGN - too many caveats to memorize
4. Space.com (recommended to check qualifications of each author)
5. Yahoo! News (aggregates news from a number of sources, including very unreliable ones)
Not reliable for all political topics
1. ADL.org - not reliable for Israel/Palestine
2. Business Insider - just reliable for culture
3. HuffPost – American news aggregator, blog launched 2005
4. The Jewish Chronicle - removed due to pre-2010 caveat and politics flags
5. Kommersant – Russian daily newspaper
6. Rolling Stone (magazine) – American monthly music magazine
7. South China Morning Post – Hong Kong newspaper
8. Sixth Tone – State-owned English-language online magazine in China
9. TheWrap – American entertainment and media news website - not evaluated for reliability on politics (and includes significant politics coverage)
10. Times of Israel - torn on this one because discussion seemed contentious on political questions and there are legitimate press freedom concerns. Open to feedback
To avoid explicit content ('safe search' is also turned on for this search engine)
1. AVN (magazine) – American magazine covering adult entertainment
2. Playboy – American lifestyle and entertainment magazine
Video Game-specific sites
1. People Make Games - removed and suggested for inclusion on the custom Video game search engine (though YouTube might not be indexable like other sites)
Unclear whether it would be helpful:
1. Aon (company) – Professional services firm - can't find weather-specific page
2. Geographic Names Information System – Geographical database - useful in this kind of search engine?

Other sources added and considered

(beyond the perennials sources with a )

All English-language fact-checking sources that are members of IFCN (itself listed reliable for determining fact-checker credibility)

Obviously reliable sources not listed as 'Perennial'

Nature (not added - redundant to Wikipedia Library)
Science (not added - redundant to Wikipedia Library)
The Lancet (not added - redundant to Wikipedia Library)

Non-profit outlets with some accountability as members in:

Institute for Nonprofit News (see Talk:Using INN membership for reliability discussions?)
Global Investigative Journalism Network (see Talk:Should GIJN membership indicate general reliability?)
International Fact-checking network (English language sites added only to Fact-checking search engine) See WP:IFCN for discussions on its general reliability in evaluating fact-checking sites
~~IPSO - early discussion indicates not enough for general reliability given inconsistent enforcement and many publications under this jurisdiction not deemed generally reliable by editors~~

Reputable outlets that focus on politics

Foreign Policy (added)
Foreign Affairs (added)
~~Ballotpedia (not added - too much WP:False balance)~~

Outlets that focus on the media (given the importance of media criticism for building Wikipedia)

Poynter (added)
Columbia Journalism Review (added)
Nieman Lab (added)
Editor & Publisher (added - caution: many are press releases)
Current (added)
Tow Center for Digital Journalism (added)
American Press Institute (added)
Media and Journalism Research Center (added)

Regional Newspapers of Record

Chicago Tribune (added)
SF Chronicle (added)

Public broadcasters

List of public broadcasters by country (that are listed as having editorial independence from the government by State Media Monitor and have a Wikipedia article)
1. English-language outlets (or sections) - included
  1. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (added)
  2. CBC (added)
  3. Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (added)
  4. PBS (added)
  5. Channel Four Television Corporation (added)
  6. Special Broadcasting Service (added)
  7. Radio New Zealand (added)
  8. Television New Zealand (added)
  9. Pacific Media Network (added)
  10. Swissinfo by Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (added)
  11. Radio Slovenia International - by RTVSLO (added)
  12. https://www.kbs-america.com/ by Korean Broadcasting System (added)
  13. Yleisradio (added)
  14. EFE (added)
  15. Radio France (added)
  16. France 24 (added) parent: France Médias Monde
  17. Arte (added)
  18. Eesti Rahvusringhääling (added)
2. Not included (but would if there were an English section)

Articles are republished and cited often by reputable outlets

States Newsroom (96k+ articles republished, including by local NPR stations)

Next steps

Update Templates (see above prototype of 'Search for expanded')
1. Change WRS description from: 'a Google search that only searches sites vetted by Wikipedians.' to 'a Google search limited to hundreds of higher-quality sources' for:
Helping to update WP:WRS
1. Submit xml files with sources to add and exclude

References

[1] User:Superb Owl/Reliable Source Engine

[2] Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources

[1]

[2]

See also