> What possible motivation could exist for establishing a online reference using the media as the canonical and sole source of truth?
Because "the media" is... the best source we have?
To be clear, Wikipedia doesn't require that you cite mainstream media sources only. You can cite anything that's a primary source as fact (whether that be a work of investigative journalism, a book, a letter, a blog post by someone involved, a study described in a journal paper, etc); and anything that's a secondary source as an attributed quote (whether that be a work of editorial journalism, a magazine article, a blog post by someone who isn't involved, a meta-analysis described in a journal paper, etc.)
That's actually a very low bar. For example, people who are discouraged from "original research" on Wikipedia, can simply stick said original research onto a website they own, and then edit Wikipedia to cite that, and that's 100% allowed. (It's disincentivized to promote your own investigative reporting or quote your own words on Wikipedia, but if you did it all "by the book", nobody's going to revert the edit.)
In all cases, the only real requirement is that everything Wikipedia says has to be be attributable via citation to something, somewhere, that exists in the public sphere of semi-permanent accessibility, such that a reader could reasonably be expected to be able to fact-check the citation qua citation by "chasing the pointer" to its referent. So you can't cite a person (as a person won't necessarily give you the same answer twice); but you can cite an interview with said person recorded at a specific time and put into some form of public record (e.g. a court proceeding.)
Actually, to correct this: it's highly recommended by Wikipedia to use secondary sources where possible, not primary, precisely for this reason.
"Original research" is exactly the opposite of what you mean, original research in the context of Wikipedia generally means citing primary sources. The "research" that is original is the interpretation of the raw data (the primary sources). The preferred approach is to cite an expert's interpretation of the data or event.
You can disagree whether this makes sense, or whether most articles follow this, but this is Wikipedia's policy:
> Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources.
> Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary or tertiary source and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. [1]
This applies to editorial statements (opinions, interpretations); but if you're just quoting blunt facts, a primary source is preferable, no? E.g. if you're citing a statistic, it's better to cite the study that supplied the statistic, than to cite a science-journalistic review of said study. You can then cite some statement the review made to put the statistic in context; but that should be a separate, second citation, so that the statistic itself can be grounded in a primary source — especially since science-journalism does not often cite the primary sources itself, making it hard to chase the citation for the statistic otherwise.
Or, maybe to couch this in language more friendly to how a Wikipedia editor might think of the process: if you are already providing an attributed quote of a secondary source; and in the secondary source, a fact is quoted from some primary source without a true citation being provided (only a weak, implicit-in-context mention of the source); is it not better to do the "original research" of figuring out what primary source the secondary source got the data for the claim from, and then putting in a citation for the fact inside the quote, yourself, in exactly the way the secondary source's author likely would have if the format they were publishing in allowed true citation? "Repairing" the citation graph, so to speak, where the secondary source has left a gap in it.
(And this is important to the topic at hand: citing only secondary sources for "blunt facts", where those secondary sources are not themselves expected/required to provide citations to primary sources, is exactly how hoax citation graphs arise.)
>but if you're just quoting blunt facts, a primary source is preferable, no?
At least in theory, no it's not, per Wikipedia policy. Now, in practice, if you reference some government dataset for a non-controversial fact like the area of a state, only the most procedural whackjob admin is going to flag it. But, in general, you're not supposed to use primary sources.
Because "the media" is... the best source we have?
To be clear, Wikipedia doesn't require that you cite mainstream media sources only. You can cite anything that's a primary source as fact (whether that be a work of investigative journalism, a book, a letter, a blog post by someone involved, a study described in a journal paper, etc); and anything that's a secondary source as an attributed quote (whether that be a work of editorial journalism, a magazine article, a blog post by someone who isn't involved, a meta-analysis described in a journal paper, etc.)
That's actually a very low bar. For example, people who are discouraged from "original research" on Wikipedia, can simply stick said original research onto a website they own, and then edit Wikipedia to cite that, and that's 100% allowed. (It's disincentivized to promote your own investigative reporting or quote your own words on Wikipedia, but if you did it all "by the book", nobody's going to revert the edit.)
In all cases, the only real requirement is that everything Wikipedia says has to be be attributable via citation to something, somewhere, that exists in the public sphere of semi-permanent accessibility, such that a reader could reasonably be expected to be able to fact-check the citation qua citation by "chasing the pointer" to its referent. So you can't cite a person (as a person won't necessarily give you the same answer twice); but you can cite an interview with said person recorded at a specific time and put into some form of public record (e.g. a court proceeding.)