Seperti Wikipedia (lihat Kritikan Wikipedia), Wikinews dikritik kerana dapat tidak bersifat neutral atau melampirkan maklumat yang disahkan dan benar. Robert McHenry, bekas ketua pengarang Encyclopædia Britannica mengkritik kredibiliti projek tersebut :

McHenry was skeptical about Wikinews' ability to provide a neutral point of view and its claim to be evenhanded. "The naivete is stunning," he said.

In a 2007 interview Sue Gardner, a special advisor to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation and former head of CBC.ca, dismissed McHenry's comment, stating "Journalism is not a profession ... at its heart, it's just a craft. And that means that it can be practiced by anyone who is sensible and intelligent and thoughtful and curious ... I go back to the morning of Virginia Tech - the morning I decided I wanted to work here [WMF]. The conversation on the talk page that day was extremely thoughtful. I remember thinking to myself that if my own newsroom had been having a conversation that intelligent (I was offsite that day) I would have been delighted. So yes, IMO you absolutely have proved Robert McHenry wrong. And you will continue to."