Credibility or Lack Thereof

Classic example of dubious reliability: Wikipedia. But that isn't to say it's never an appropriate tool. To avoid sifting through excessive amounts of legalese jargon in original documents (I'm narrowing down which Supreme Court case to research for my poli sci Capstone class) I find that Wikipedia is useful to establish basic information. While I can't exactly cite facts directly from it, the links at the bottom of an article are often more legitimate, such as The United States Court of Appeal Federal Circuit. It's a government run site, so while whether you can trust the government or not is a deeper question than I'm seeking to explore I believe the facts found on this page are overwhelmingly likely to be accurate. 


Another somewhat less obvious source lacking credibility?  The social media outreach branches of otherwise reputable sources. In the rush to update in real time on events still unfolding fact checking sometimes falls by the wayside, necessitating later revisions and retractions. And are the same people undertaking the actual journalism and research for these sources doing the tweeting, tumbling, FaceBooking and blogging for these sources themselves, ensuring correct information is disseminated? Probably not. It may well be staffed by unpaid interns, a contingent not exactly known for their diligence.  Even more alarming is the possibility of those accounts being hacked to intentionally disperse false information for various nefarious reasons, such as the recent NBC scandal.