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.

Appendix

Last update: April 2026

Focused searches

Google custom search has seemed to not return as many results when searching more than 20 sites, so we may add focused searches in the future to get a better experience as well as focus on specific types of content - comment on the talk page if you have any requests to add one of these!

Sources excluded

List of Opinion/op-eds, blogs, commentary, editorials, tags, author profiles and forums

I omitted some sources with because:

Can't filter to a specific time period when content was most reliable using Google CSE
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)
6. The Washington Free Beacon (after 2019)
Confusing to differentiate between opinion (or low-quality information) and news, at least for beginners (looking for search tools that could enable the inclusion of the reliable content from these sources)
1. Forbes (articles written by 'contributors' are unreliable)
2. IGN - too many caveats to memorize
3. Space.com (recommended to check qualifications of each author)
4. 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 – US progressive news website
4. The Jewish Chronicle - removed due to pre-2010 caveat and politics flags
5. Kommersant – Russian daily newspaper. Caution advised on topics important to government (MBFC rated its reliability as ‘mixed’ as of 2024) - good candidate to revisit its status since no discussions have taken place since 2021.
6. Rolling Stone (magazine) – American monthly music magazine
7. South China Morning Post – Hong Kong English-language newspaper that is only reliable for non-political topics. No discussion on reliability since 2020.
8. Sixth Tone – State-owned English-language online magazine in China explicitly banned for use on political topics.
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
11. Jerusalem Post - go back and forth on this one too - not enough of a subject-matter expert to weigh-in on my own.
12. Straits Times - State Media Monitor rated as captured by Singporean government (without editorial independence). Also in a country that scores very low on press freedoms.
13. Channel News Asia - State Media Monitor rated as captured by Singaporean government (without editorial independence).
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?

Redundant to Wikipedia Library

Nature (not added - redundant to Wikipedia Library), but nature.com/news is added
Science (not added - redundant to Wikipedia Library)
The Lancet (not added - redundant to Wikipedia Library)

Other sources added and considered

(beyond the perennials sources with a )

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 (See WP:IFCN for discussions on its general reliability in evaluating fact-checking sites) - added all English-language outlets as of early 2025
~~IPSO - many publications under this jurisdiction not deemed generally reliable by Wikipedians~~

Reputable outlets that focus on politics

Foreign Policy (added)
Foreign Affairs (added)
Ballotpedia (added)

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)
Review of Journalism (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. Yleisradio (added)
  13. EFE (added)
  14. Radio France (added)
  15. France 24 (added) parent: France Médias Monde
  16. Arte (added)
  17. Eesti Rahvusringhääling (added)
2. Not included (but will if there is content in English)

See also