On any contentious topic (eg: climate change, criminal cases, religion, politics, economics...) it is a HUGE improvement to not just read the main article but a

On any contentious topic (eg: climate change, criminal cases, religion, politics, economics...) it is a HUGE improvement to not just read the main article but also skim the associated "talk" page to see what points of view are being actively suppressed by whatever cabal currently controls that issue. If you do that, wikipedia's not too bad an information source. The primary problem is that - like google - wikipedia has been too successful. What can happen now is that when a new issue becomes newsworthy: (1) one side grabs control of the most relevant wikipedia page and slants it in their direction by the simple expedient of giving their side "the last word" in every argument and being ever-so-slightly more strict about sourcing for claims made by the other side than claims made for theirs. (2) Lazy journalists skim wikipedia to see what they should think about the issue and write news stories that reflect the slant wikipedia intially had. (3) Active editors use the articles written in step (2) to reference their own slanted claims and make the article even MORE one-sided. And so on. I don't really see an answer to this circular dynamic other than perhaps: train journalists to look at the Talk page too?