Comment by pibaker

If you look at the news in a democratic country vs an authoritarian one, you may easily walk away with the impression that the former is in a state of perpetual chaos, because of all the scandals, protests, resignations and snap elections. The authoritarian country will look like a paragon of stability in contrast. New infrastructure projects, record economic growth, seditious officials swiftly trialed and imprisoned. There is barely any conflict and the ones that do exist get solved quickly.

But unless you are a total mark, you should know that the stability is just a facade. That infrastructure project only went through because locals who opposed got beaten up by the cops, the economics data was cooked up by statisticians who fear the consequence of telling the truth and the seditious officials are only at the receiving end of justice because they lost the power struggle within the party. But of course you don’t know any of that, because why would the state let you?

Wikipedia, like democracies, run on transparency. This is why you get to read the editing history and talk page of any Wikipedia page and walk away with the impression that Wikipedia is uniquely full of drama. You never feel the same about the New York Times or the BBC because they run more like autocracies and keep everything inside. If we get a chance to read the internal emails of establishment media we will walk away with a very different impression.