Criticism of Wikipedia - "An Open Source Encyclopedia"

Wikipedia has been criticized as being bias and not reliable. I mostly see this cropping up in commentary on Facebook. But I feel that those people don't understand how it works and that while the Internet is the most extensive source of information ever devised, it must always be cross-referenced and sources checked, as well as the sources itself checked for reliability. 
Wikipedia's content is mostly comprised of professionals and experts of a given topic who volunteer to provide information and knowledge about a particular subject in the vast world of the Internet where "information overload" can occur. People who criticize it do not understand how it works and how those monitoring Wikipedia ensure that sources are in place, and if not insert "citation is needed" or inserts "cross-reference required" in the text. 


Wikipedia description comes from its own description:

 Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free encyclopedia that is based on a model of openly editable content. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, and is named as one of the most popular websites. It is owned and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization which operates on money it receives from its annual fund drives.

 Wikipedia is based upon the premise required by colleges and universities that require the source of the author's information. Indeed, proper research is so important to university students, it has been a required short class in freshman year so the student can perform proper research. 

The Wiki co-founder, Larry Sanger, has created a program to fight news media bias that is part of the effort to keep the non-profit organization respectable and reliable and fight against the major problem with corporate news outlets. 
In Brock Reed's Chronicle he wrote: 

But as the encyclopedia’s popularity continues to grow, some
professors are calling on scholars to contribute articles to
Wikipedia, or at least to hone less-than-inspiring entries in the
site’s vast and growing collection. Those scholars’ take is simple: If
you can’t beat the Wikipedians, join ’em.

 Often Wiki entries include a section entitled "Controversy" where that is addressed while delivering statements from both sides of an argument or concern. 
A leading Australian academic, Dr. Tim Anderson, wrote criticism about Wikipedia in the e-journal The National Forum. He wrote:

"Wikipedia has come to play an important role in informing and also shaping public debates. Yet as a Florida-based, US creation, it brings its own baggage to those debates."

Dr. Anderson also wrote that ...

...information attributed to US corporate media conglomerates such as Fox and Time Warner is potentially as biased as any of the previously mentioned sources.

But one questions his own bias when he claims that BBC is a "legitimate" source of information and does not include in his "previously mentioned sources" the obvious bias of American media like New York Times, Huffington Post and Washington Post as obvious non-objective sources of information. Washington Post was founded in 1877 and was prestigious and reliable up to recent history when it has been taken over by bias democrat-socialists editors and board members. 
As far as the criticisms of Wikipedia, the same problem can be said to be happening to the historical Encyclopedia Britannica that has been published since continuously since 1768 originating in Scotland its first edition released in 1771. National Geographic [founded in 1888] has also gotten involved in bias concerning politics and the questionable consensus concerning climate change.