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Archive 1: Jan 2006–Jul 2007

WP:WEIGHT

RFC

"Edit-warring without discussion on talk-page over violation of WP:WEIGHT. Intervention needed by admin. 14:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)" Well, without participation in discussion by THF, anyway. But the actual "edit warriors" are talking. Andyvphil 15:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been talking about this on the talk-page for four days, and have not edit-warred. THF 15:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Good. Croctotheface says he won't edit war and if you don't either, now that you realize that your gutting the crit section of material isn't agreed to, then I guess there isn't an edit war. BTW, I think the text you included in the RFCpol, and attribution, should be immediately below the template, so please don't move this thread unless you leave a copy of that behind.Andyvphil 15:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Response to RfC: Stossel is, by his own choice, a controversialist. His two books have subtitles of "How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media" and "Why Everything You Know Is Wrong", and those phrases reflect the tenor of his work. This fact is relevant in assessing the issue of how much weight to give to discussion of criticisms of his views. Controversy deserves more attention in the article when the article subject himself has gone out of his way to invite it. If editors think there's an imbalance, let them add properly sourced material about the allegedly underrepresented noncontroversial aspects of Stossel's life. JamesMLane t c 10:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Original section

The "criticism" section violates WP:NPOV by its excessive length. This is Misplaced Pages, not the repository for a list of largely non-notable partisan attacks. If the issues can't be demonstrated to be sourced by neutral news organizations, they will be summarized in accordance with WP:WEIGHT. THF 14:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Possible solutions or responses:

1. This is not an issue, as enough of the significant content relating to Stossel is critical of him.
2. Break the criticism off into a separate article.
3. Beef up the other sections.
4. Trim the criticism sections.

I do not believe that any of the criticisms here are "non-notable partisan attacks." First of all, several of the criticisms were indeed reported on by "neutral news organizations", unless you are of the opinion that Salon and the New York Times are left-wing propaganda outfits. Second, ABC News apologized for several of these mistakes, indicating that they believe them to be notable enough to report on. Third, Stossel responded to several of the criticisms as well. I see plenty of acknowledgement from mainstream sources already in the text. I am, however, sympathetic to the possibility of creating a new article or trimming details from this one. Croctotheface 09:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say all of them were non-notable. But I will trim the criticism section to delete those not sourced to mainstream news organizations. That FAIR attacks you is a sign that you're breathing more than anything else. THF 11:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this anti-FAIR sentiment should affect your editing the way it has. For one, there was no harm in the footnote from the first paragraph of the section. Croctotheface 11:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It was redundant with the other FAIR link. FAIR gets one link per sentence. This isn't a page about FAIR's opinions about Stossel. I've kept three links, which is more than enough, given that there are also multiple links to EWG, Media Matters, and Media Transparency. I don't see newsbusters or the equivalent right-wing organizations cited that plentifully in articles about journalists and reporting organizations far less accurate than Stossel. THF 11:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Again with the opinion. I appreciate that despite your very clear pro-Stossel opinions, you're making some attempt to be fair, no pun intended. What we're dealing with is an article about John Stossel that has a section devoted to criticism of him. Personally, I think the readers would be better served by removing that passive voice sentence with a bunch of citations and have it say something like, "Several individuals and organizations, including X, Y, and Z, criticized Stossel..." Regarding other articles, it would be appropriate to take matters such as those up at those article pages, not here. If MRC or whoever have evidence that a pundit or newspaper or whatever got stuff wrong, I'd be in favor of mentioning it. Croctotheface 11:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I've made the change. As you can see at the RFC at Talk:Sicko, it is nearly impossible to get points of view criticizing left-wing figures into articles, but I appreciate your looking there. THF 12:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I am concerned about this article's excessive reliance on partisan organizations like Media Matters and FAIR for so many of the references. Media Matters and FAIR are very upfront about the fact that they advocate a particular political position. If there really is so much legitimate criticism of Stossel, why can't Misplaced Pages editors rely on respected news organizations like The New York Times and Salon.com for their references? I think there is obviously a problem with bias when editors consider thegreatboycott.net to be a reliable source. --JHP 03:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

(removing indent) The nature of criticism of people who take a position on political issues will tend to be political. I would argue that think tanks like MM, FAIR, MRC, and AEI are capable of doing noteworthy things, and we can use material that they publish themselves as reliable sources about what they do. The main questions we should ask are: (1) Is the criticism significant? If Stossel or ABC are prompted to reply to it, I would submit that the criticism becomes significant by definition. In fact, you then have a mainstream media organization, ABC, reporting on it. (2) Is the criticism valid/intellectually honest? If Stossel got something wrong and a partisan organiation pointed it out, that is totally noteworthy in my book. Croctotheface 03:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Quickly, as an addendum to the last point, if the partisan organization is trying to spin disagreement with Stossel as criticism of his professional practices, that would be an example of a criticism that is less valid and less strong and should be omitted. Croctotheface 03:51, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't get me started on conservative think tanks! They start with a conclusion, then pick and choose the facts based on whether they fit the conclusion. --JHP 12:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

OSIM petition

I really can't imagine not including, at the very least, the extremely low standards that OSIM set for signing this thing. We can leave aside the other criticisms that it was designed to mislead by using a layout designed to look like a work from the National Academy of Sciences, and those other criticisms. It seems painfully obvious that Stossel was criticized here, legitimately, for misleading his viewers by referring only to the number of signatures on this petition and omitting the obvious difference in credentials between the people who signed the OSIM petition versus the UCS petition. That detail is so essential to the section that it really has to be included if we have any intent of being intellectually honest. Croctotheface 12:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

As it turns out, the only people who discussed the Stossel story were FAIR -- everything else in that section is WP:OR or WP:SYN. FAIR has criticized dozens of Stossel stories, and this particular criticism isn't notable. There are two links to FAIR's hit page on Stossel, so interested readers can find this ammunition easily enough. THF 12:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope that we can find a happy solution here. Honestly, I don't think the level of detail is necessary. However, I do think that mentioning these criticisms, in briefer fashion, is entirely fair game. This isn't a difference of opinion about an issue: it's a matter of Stossel quoting a misleading petition in a misleading way and thereby misleading the public. Croctotheface 12:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Has someone other than FAIR made the criticisms? We already acknowledge that FAIR criticizes Stossel on every aspect of his reporting, and I don't see any indication that this criticism is an especially notable one, even it may be correct. Is there some way you would like to rephrase that sentence? THF 12:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the current version, if I may say myself, is much improved. I removed a lot of the chaff from the criticism section so that it no longer overwhelms the article. You seem to agree that FAIR is a notable critic of Stossel's. I would agree that we should not mention every criticism they make; however, if we are looking to find one to use as a representative example, this serves that purpose quite well. Croctotheface 13:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

== External link ==

http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1326/event_detail.asp is a webcast of Stossel talking about his "Myth, Lies, and Stupidity" book. I invite others to add it if they feel it useful. THF 11:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Woah, Andy, relax

Gutted content? I made no effort to gut content. Instead, I sought to distill the criticisms down to their essence. I really don't think we lose anything by reducing to a briefer level of detail. I'm not going to edit war, but I hope that you can self-revert. I really feel that my last version is the best one. Croctotheface 13:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Not just you. THF, too. I don't agree that "the briefer versions do not leave out anything important". The shorter version of the "pesticide" story, in particular, leaves out everything that was important. Andyvphil 13:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more. I think my edits to the pesticide business actually present a stronger criticism. Are you saying that what was important was Stossel's attempts to deflect the issue? I'm not totally opposed to including those, but I think the E. coli business dilutes a strong criticism by mixing it with a much weaker one. Croctotheface 13:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The "Criticism" section of this article is not a playpen for critics, and "presenting a stronger criticism" is not the criteria for how it should be written. From your version you don't know what Stossel said, you aren't given his explanation of why he said it, and you are misled as to why he was reprimanded by ABC. Not only do you not highlight the "stronger, more substantial parts of the criticism", you miss the strongest legitimate criticism ("arrogance"(true), not "he lied"(dubious)) entirely. And you are not given the evidence that FAIR, etc., overreached in their criticism. Andyvphil 14:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It's just too much detail. Obviously, a very long section would have a fulller treatment, but it's at too high an expense, as it causes the criticisms to overwhelm the rest of the article. My goal is not to present stronger criticisms for the sake of effectively criticizing Stossel; my goal is to present strong criticisms because only strong ones are worthy of inclusion. I expect that I don't agree with THF about many things, but he's correct that it is not appropriate to detail, in an encyclopedia article, each and every time a watchdog group criticizes Stossel. We can make the editorial judgment that certain aspects of the criticism are less worthy of inclusion because they are not strong. Regarding "what Stossel said", I'm not opposed to quoting him, but it's not necessary to quote him at great lengths, as the article did before. I'm not sure that "why he said it" matters, and I'm not sure that the other version actually explains that anyway. I'd be fine with saying that he was reprimanded for "arrogance", but the phrasing should be a lot more succinct. And who cares if FAIR overreached? It's irrelevant here; this isn't an article about them. Croctotheface 23:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The subject of the section is criticism of Stossel, and FAIR's tendentiosness is precisely on point. As is "why" Stossel said what he said -- he was criticized for lying, he claims he made an honest mistake. And he was reprimanded by ABC in connection with this incident -- it's worthwhile to get it right... I haven't even looked to see what you've done to the article proper,if anything. Gotta run. Andyvphil 23:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It says right at the top that FAIR criticizes Stossel. I don't thin any reader would leave with the impression that they don't because we omit a fairly weak and irrelevant criticism they make. Your argument, if I understand it correctly, would basically hold that it's inappropriate to remove any information that indicates that FAIR criticizes Stossel. The logical conclusion of that is that we should report on any and all criticism they make of him. The bottom line is that if your issues can be addressed in a succinct manner, we should do it. If they can't, the undue weight problem trumps. I don't disagree that the issue would get a more detailed treatment if it's dealt with in two medium-sized paragraphs rather than a single medium-to-small paragraph. However, it's not the job of an encyclopedia to be as detailed as possible. Croctotheface 01:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know where you got the idea that I think "that it's inappropriate to remove any information that indicates that FAIR criticizes Stossel." Nor did I complain that you "omit a fairly weak and irrelevant criticism they make." I complained that your version failed to include the minimum information necessary to understand what happened and, indeed, misled as to what happened. Andyvphil 14:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

You didn't say it was inappropriate, but the logic you used leads to that conclusion. You said that the E. coli business with FAIR should not be omitted because material that establishes FAIR's tendency to criticize him is relevant by definition. That argument, if we accept it, would open the door to the idea that it would be inappropriate to omit any criticism FAIR makes of Stossel. On your second quote, obviously you're not complaining because you want to include weak criticism as opposed to strong criticism. My argument is that we should omit the E. coli business because there's not a lot of meat there. If FAIR criticized Stossel for wearing ugly ties, I would hope we would make the correct judgment to exlude it.

More to the point: it is simply not necessary to include all of the detail you wish to include. I am not opposed to adding small details, in a concise manner, to the version I had. However, you did not choose to do that. You simply reverted me because I "gutted the section". I'm willing to meet halfway here, but if you are just going to stubbornly insist on the exact version you reverted to, then you're not making a good faith effort to collaborate. Croctotheface 15:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Where did I say "the E. coli business with FAIR should not be omitted because material that establishes FAIR's tendency to criticize him is relevant by definition"? I don't remember saying anything about the "E. coli business" specifically, but I will say now that it is necessary to mention the bacteria as well as pesticides in order to make sense of Stossel's error and explanation of his error. And, no, I'm not going to start over again from what I've already explained is a fatally flawed and misleading treatment of the subject. "From your version you don't know what Stossel said, you aren't given his explanation of why he said it, and you are misled as to why he was reprimanded by ABC." What part of that don't you understand? Andyvphil 15:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

How does mentioning bacteria relate at all to what he said about pesticides? They're separate criticisms. There is no advantage to quoting him at ridiculous length as opposed to paraphrasing him. If you feel that my version represents what he said inaccurately, then please explain how. If people want to read the quotes, they can use our handy footnotes to find them. Croctotheface 16:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

"lease explain how"? Ok, this is your version, before you, JHP and I modified it:

On the 20/20 report "The Food You Eat" on 4 February 2000, Stossel said that researchers found that organic and non-organic produce had roughly the same levels of pesticides. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) discovered that the researchers hired by ABC had not tested any produce for pesticides. On 31 July 2000, the New York Times picked up EWG's story and ABC suspended 20/20 producer David Fitzpatrick for one month and reprimanded Stossel. On August 11, Stossel apologized.

(a)One advantage of quoting over paraphrase is that it doesn't introduce gratuitous error. Where did you get that "roughly the same" business?

(b)One reason to mention the bacteria testing is to show that Stossel had results but misquoted them which is not the same as claiming to have research when you have none.

(c)Again, you version implies Stossel was reprimanded for false reporting. He was not. He was reprimanded for inattention to the substantiated claim that he had made an error, going so far as to defiantly repeat the error without checking it.

(d)There are apologies and then there are apologies. The reason the quote Stossel is to allow the reader to determine whether characterizations of what he said, such as FAIR saying he "lied" or your characterization of his apology as an "attempt to deflect the issue", are accurate. Andyvphil 01:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I did not insert any instance of "attempt to deflect the issue" into the text. Regarding (a), my paraphrase was less accurate than one that said "no residue" rather than "roughly the same". While I do not consider that "gratuitious error", I'll happily concede the point there. That does not speak to the advantage of quotation over paraphrasing, but to my making an error. I have no idea what (b) has to do with anything. I agree that my initial version should have been more specific with regards to (c), which is why I changed it. I don't see the need to quote Stossel in (d), but it's brief enough that I don't have a major objection. The current version is a bit longer than I consider ideal, but it's not so long that I have a problem with it. Croctotheface 05:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

What you did do was say on this page that Stossel attempted to deflect the issue. The question is, when faced with an assertion like that (or EWG's assertion that he "should be fired for violating the most basic ethical standards of journalism") can a reader of this article reach a reasonable conclusion as to whether the accusation is true. Your proposed text failed that basic test of adequacy. The prior version did not. Andyvphil 10:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I typed a response to this, but considering that you are responsible for the most recent version of the section and that I expressed that I had no objection to the current form, I don't see what there is to argue about anymore. I don't have any interest in "winning" an argument for the sake of winning it--that's not really in the spirit of a collaborative project like this one. Croctotheface 15:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)I like the idea of keeping the section short and tossing out unnecessary details. I have reworded it a little because I felt it was slightly unbalanced and a little misleading. One of the changes was to replace the phrase "pesticide contamination" with "pesticide residue". The word contamination is incorrect because contaminate means, "to make impure or unsuitable by contact or mixture with something unclean, bad, etc." However, as The New York Times wrote, "Most of reflected conventional wisdom among scientists.... also reported that pesticides are not a danger in either kind of produce, which is not controversial either. The Food and Drug Administration regularly tests produce and finds pesticide residues in both organic and regular produce that are well below dangerous levels." --JHP 16:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with yourTHF's statement that "The 'criticism' section violates WP:NPOV by its excessive length." Lengthy coverage of criticism, if NPOV, need not be detrimental to the reputation of the subject. It may in fact show that the critics have more to answer for than the criticized. And it is guaranteed that the criticisms will be reinserted time and time again, usually in unbalanced form, if an adequate NPOV treatment is not present. Andyvphil 01:28, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

He's right that a criticism section can, by virtue of length, overwhelm the article. Per WP:NPOV, an article whose content is unduly weighed toward one aspect of the subject (for instance, criticism) does pose a neutrality problem. The issue we as editors have to solve is what kind of weight is "undue". For my part, I think that we should take care to prune unnecessary detail and verbiage where we can. Croctotheface 05:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Andyvphil that the length of the criticism section doesn't violate WP:NPOV. However, I don't think the article should list all criticism that anyone has ever made against Stossel. Instead, we should use editorial judgment to determine which criticism is significant and which is not. Also, I think limiting each criticism sub-topic to one paragraph, as is now being done, is a good goal.

I'm not too fond of the Praise section. I understand it's an attempt at balancing out the criticism, but the existing quotes just don't seem that significant to me. It would be more significant if the Milton Friedman quote was moved to that section. In fact, I think I'm going to move the Friedman quote now. --JHP 09:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the current praise section is fine. I'm too lazy to check the prior section, so that could just be the result of your good work. I agree with the rest of your post, as well. I do not think that the current length of the section violates NPOV, but there is no question that it it possible for such a section, on length alone, to violate the policy. I would hope everyone here would agree that a criticism section that were ten million words long would unduly skew the article toward criticism. To that end, it's important to do what you say, exercise editorial judgment as to what criticisms actually merit inclusion and which do not. I'd only add to that what I've been saying the whole time: that we should phrase the criticism in the most concise way possible. Croctotheface 15:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Reformat criticism section?

Perhaps what we need here is a reorganization in formatting criticism. It seems to me that we're running into issues with NPOV Article structure, which reflects itself as a weight problem. I suggest we reorganize the "Praise and criticism" section and break it up by the inclusion of criticism and praise into the article's other sections. Add "awards" & "praise" content into the section under work or under a particular topic or issue. Remove the criticism header and break things down based on critical issues addressed by Stossel over the years. First discuss Stossel's position on the issue, and then discuss the criticism for that issue. I should not be able to look at the TOC and see a list of criticisms - I should see a list of issues Stossel has addressed over the years and I can then read about those issues, his position, and such criticism of that position. Under each issue, proper weight should be given to Stossel's position and the criticism of that position. Morphh 13:34, 05 September 2007 (UTC)

Most of the criticisms currently in the article are not about disagreeing with Stossel's position on an issue. They're mostly criticisms where a person or group alleges that Stossel lied, hid the truth, or violated journalistic ethics. Croctotheface 15:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it appears it is in regard to particular issues - Pesticides and organic food, Global Warming, Education, Televangelism, Other criticism. The article could outline the most prevalent topics he's discussed over the years (which I expect include these or else they would currently fail weight). Why couldn't these each be titles of critical topics, instead of topics defined as criticism? The section titled "Other criticism" could be rolled into the "Work" section along with the praise. Point is.. I'd like to see us get away from a defined criticism section in this article if possible - (see WP:criticism). I see this as being needed to allow the article to progress toward higher Misplaced Pages standards. Morphh 15:29, 05 September 2007 (UTC)

I certainly have no objetion to devoting more space to work Stossel has done on certain issues and the positions taken on them. However, it's really apples and oranges. It's one thing to say that Stossel has said that there's insufficient evidence to support the notion of global warming and then quote people who criticize him for saying that. It's something else entirely when Stossel trumpets a bogus letter and petition in support of his point of view. I understand that criticism sections are "discouraged" because they can be "troll magnets". However, I don't think that your solution really would integrate the criticism that is currently at this page in an appropriate way. Croctotheface 15:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

We need more opinions about the tweaks to the language

It might be the case that we need to restructure some of these sentences. However, using "indeed" the way that the article does can only add POV. Basically, "Group A said that Stossel is bad because of reason X. Indeed, Stossel..." clearly agrees with the idea that Stossel is bad, in the voice of the encyclopedia. I'm not sure what "mushification" is, except that my goal is to make the language neutral. I haven't removed actual content, except the the business about a bachelor's degree, which readers can go read about at Oregon Petition if they so desire. Croctotheface 00:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, what Stossel did in ignoring the complaint about his error was "bad". That's why he was rebuked by his employer and why he apologized. It's uncontroversial that his failure to reconsider his false statement, when EWG had proof it was false, was "bad" and Misplaced Pages is not obligated to treat this as if it were in doubt. Now, EWG and MediaMatters embedded the true bill of goods in a pile of manure, and it is understandable that Stossel didn't pick the nugget of truth out of the pile of shit, but you've made it clear that you consider this incident too trivial to justify context. Andyvphil 01:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I think that readers get the same information regardless of whether we say "indeed" or not. Therefore, given the choice between having the article express an opinion (which you concede it currently does) and therefore violate WP:NPOV, or having it not express an opinion, I would prefer to have it not express an opinion. Croctotheface 01:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Your preference for badly written mush isn't binding. And you've ignored the fact that I've pointed out that there is no WP:NPOV issue. There are not two "conflicting verifiable perspectives" on whether or not Stossel screwed up. He did, and we don't have to treat it as a controversial issue. Andyvphil 01:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The degree to which what Stossel did is "bad" is certainly a matter of opinion. Based on your comments, it seems that you believe that the article could say, "Stossel's conduct in this case was bad." I have a hard time seeing that as neutral writing, and the "indeed" that you insist must be included belongs in the same category as that kind of sentence. The article gains nothing from "indeed" and would lose only POV by removing it. Croctotheface 01:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, actually, I think somebody could hold the opinion that what Stossel did was not a big deal. I don't personally hold that opinion, but we need not hit readers over the head with the idea that he was BAD. Let's just explain what he did and seek nether to minimize nor maximize the severity. The readers can decide what's good or bad, important or unimportant. Croctotheface 02:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've already expressed the idea that what Stossel did was understandable -- he blew off criticism from a source that is usually, and in this case was simultaneously, full of crap. But he screwed up in this case, and got his ass in the wringer. I think this should be said with clarity and pungency, and I reject the idea that pungency is not NPOV. Andyvphil 02:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that your version is "pungent" in that it reeks of POV. If you mean "pungent" as in "to the point", I don't see how "indeed" is more to the point, unless the point you want to make is that Stossel is bad. Our personal views are irrelevant here, except that you previously said that the idea that Stossel was bad was not in doubt, and that it was unambiguously and universally clear that Stossel did something bad. Therefore, you said, the article could present an opinion to that effect without attribution. If there is indeed no doubt that Stossel did something bad, can the article say, "Stossel did something bad"? If it can't, why can it say "indeed" to substitute for that kind of statement? Croctotheface 02:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism section remains a Media Matters attack piece

I knew it would happen. As soon as John Stossel has a new TV special that conflicts with Media Matters' view of the world, Media Matters finds something to criticize (e.g. the fact that progressives' already well-publicized positions didn't get equal time), and then it becomes a new sub-section of this article's criticism section. Again I ask, why do Misplaced Pages editors have to rely on an openly partisan advocacy organization like Media Matters, rather than the mainstream news media, as a reference? Should a consistently critical partisan organization really count as a reliable source? Somewhere above, several editors had a discussion about when criticism becomes significant enough to become part of this article. I don't think the new Health Care subsection qualifies. The problem is that the criticism section is consistently being used as a mouthpiece for certain partisan organizations which always criticize Stossel (e.g. FAIR, Media Matters). This is making the entire article unbalanced. I propose that unless editors can get references from mainstream news organizations pointing out factual errors or unethical behavior in Stossel's reporting, the Health Care sub-section should be removed from the article. Can I please get input from other editors before I make such an edit? --JHP 21:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me add that I believe the editors who keep expanding the criticism section with the latest Media Matters attack on Stossel are in violation of Misplaced Pages policy. --JHP 21:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

They're a reliable source for what they do. We can certainly count on them to reliably supply their own opinion. We are not counting on them for facts so much as their interpretation or criticism of Stossel based in fact. If their criticisms are so far off the mark so as to abuse the sources they rely on for facts, then we can employ editorial judgment and remove that material. Croctotheface 21:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, just because an organization criticizes Stossel does not mean it deserves mention in the Misplaced Pages article about him. In fact, it is a violation of two of Misplaced Pages's official policies, WP:LIVING and WP:NPOV. --JHP 21:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not saying that we should reprint each and every criticism. You seemed to be saying that MM is not a reliable source because it was partisan. I replied that it is a reliable source for its own partisan information. If their criticism is legitimate enough to mention, then we can cite them making it. If it's not, then that's a different matter. Croctotheface 22:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I understand. Certainly they are reliable at stating their own opinion. Anybody is reliable at stating their own opinion. However, they are reliable primary sources regarding their own opinion, but WP:BLP requires that the views of critics come from reliable secondary sources.

What I meant when I asked whether a consistently critical partisan organization should count as a reliable source was, do they meet Misplaced Pages's guideline regarding reliable sources? According to WP:RS, "Reliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight.... In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.... Sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight should only be used in articles about the sources themselves." I really don't think Media Matters meets this test. --JHP 22:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that MMfA has substantial editorial oversight. If they say something that is factually incorrect, then obviously we don't include it. If their issue with Stossel is centered on disagreeing with him about an issue and not on his journalistic practice, then I say we omit it. If Stossel engages in questionable professional practice, and criticism is coming from partisan organizations, then we can talk about it. Again, we need not print information on each and every criticism, but that's not what's at issue here. Croctotheface 04:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, what about the Health Care sub-section? Is the criticism substantial enough to remain part of the Criticism section? The criticism section already makes up roughly one-third of the article, and WP:BLP says "Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics." WP:BLP is not a guideline; it is an official policy that we, as editors, are required to follow. --JHP 19:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I placed the Biography of Living Persons Violation tag at the top of the article because I feel that a disproportionate amount of space has been given to Stossel's critics, specifically Media Matters. Giving a disproportionate amount of space to criticism of living persons is a violation of Misplaced Pages policy. It was the addition of the Health Care subsection that prompted me to add the tag. Media Matters' primary complaint is that their side didn't get equal time in Stossel's special. However, Stossel never made any pretension of being impartial. He was proposing a different solution to America's health care problem. In fact, if you look at journalism as a whole, Media Matters' position gets far more than equal time while the subject of Health Savings Accounts has been largely ignored by the press. I don't think this "our side didn't get equal time" complaint is significant enough to be included in this article. Also, the letter on michaelmoore.com is a primary source, but WP:BLP requires reliable secondary sources.

I am going to remove the Health Care subsection and the Living Persons Violation tag unless I get objections. If you do object, please propose a remedy to the policy violation of a disproportionate amount of space being given to Stossel's critics. --JHP 03:11, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I object and I point to the obvious remedy, contained in the NPOV policy: We report all the notable opinions. If Media Matters got something wrong, I'm sure we can count on the corporate media to provide rebuttals. (The right wing hasn't exactly been shut out of the media -- quite the opposite.) For example, you refer to "progressives' already well-publicized positions". That's your opinion. My opinion is that, considering the widespread public support for a single-payer system (i.e., socialized medicine), it's quite telling that that position gets so little media attention. At any rate, my opinion, like yours, is completely irrelevant to this article. Find some notable commentator who says "Stossel did a great service by publicizing the horribly neglected defense of the status quo to counter all the socialist propaganda that bombards us daily." I'd consider that viewpoint ludicrous but I'd expect that some right-wing mouthpiece like George Will or Michelle Malkin would say it somewhere. That reference could then be added to the section. The same is true of material that disputes the MMfA criticism on any specific factual point. Don't try to achieve a spurious "balance" by depriving the reader of information. JamesMLane t c 15:25, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with JHP, there is just way to much in this article and much of it doesn't deserve the WP:WEIGHT. The health care section is ridiculous. This article needs a major rewrite. I made suggestions above on formating. Until we get some control on this - the section is just going to become a running list of every critical thing. Keeping the criticism section cleaned up is a half way point but we're not even achieving that. Morphh 11:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I created a sandbox of some major changes that I think would bring this article to some degree of proper weight and neutrality. It still contains much of the criticism or at least a reference to all criticism - just reorganized and greatly summarized. It could still use a bit of work and copyediting but it is an example of what I think this article needs. Please take a look and discuss. Morphh 14:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The current format, in which specific topics are assigned to subheadings, is more useful to the reader. Some readers will be primarily interested in only one or two subjects, and I'd rather they be able to find specific points in the table of contents. Beyond that, you're proposing deletion of substantial information.

I've seen other instances in which criticism from Media Matters for America meets with this type of response: "They're partisan! They're unreliable! Quoting Media Matters is POV or undue weight!" There often seems to be more effort devoted to trashing Media Matters than to addressing the substantive points at issue. In the specific case of Stossel, Media Matters makes some assertions as to matters of fact and expresses some opinions. If any of the MMfA assertions are false or even disputed, it should be fairly easy to find sources controverting them. As to opinions, I suggested above that pro-Stossel opinions would be an appropriate addition to the article. (A side note: Nobody ever seems to question the White House or The New York Times as reliable sources. Well, the White House has lied to me. The New York Times has lied to me. AFAIK, Media Matters has not lied to me. So, which source should I consider reliable?)

There are passages in the current discussion of criticisms in which the text drifts too much toward adopting a criticism as opposed to merely reporting it. Some cleanup along those lines would be appropriate, but not a whitewash that loses a significant amount of information. JamesMLane t c 19:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

We have to keep in mind that this is a Encyclopedia Biography and not some blanket website about Stossel. If someone is looking for a particular controversial point, I think they can find it in the summary format and use the reference to find more information or they can just use Google - that's what the Internet is for. There should not be a list of controversial topics in the TOC - this goes against many points of policy (see NPOV article structure, weight, BLP, criticism, etc.). Yes, the change would cut out a significant amount of information, but the main question here is does the article merit the inclusion of all this material. It is too much and overwhelms the article with criticism. I don't have a problem with Media Matters and including such information, but we can do it in a way that is not overwhelming and bias in structure and presentation. Including the lead, we have approx 18k of prose with almost 2k of praise / awards and 9k of criticism. That's half the article devoted to criticism with an article structure and TOC that violates NPOV article structure. Morphh 20:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I emphatically reject the mechanistic approach to NPOV that counts the number of characters or paragraphs in each section and implies that they must be equal (or comparable). The undeniable fact is that Stossel is a controversialist. Accordingly, he attracts more criticism than other TV personalities, more than other Emmy winners for that matter (compare Rachael Ray). Covering the criticisms is a significant and important part of his bio. If, after you scour the Internet and your local library, you can't find any well-sourced favorable information to augment what you currently count as 2k of praise, then that's the just way it will have to be. You'd be justified in complaining about bias in the article only if editors were removing well-sourced passages that praised Stossel or disputed his critics' assertions. If you think there've been instances of that, please identify them. JamesMLane t c 21:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you there and I didn't mean to imply that POV was just a matter of equally presenting praise and criticism. However, the amount of content for criticism weighed in relation to Stossel's biography is unbalanced. I also don't think we should remove any points of criticism. I think we need to summarize the criticism and better integrate it into the article per some of the policy concerns stated above. There is no need to drum on for a entire paragraph on this or that criticism. State the criticism and move on to the next criticism or integrate the criticism with the point being discussed broadly elsewhere in the article. As it is now, it looks like a list of attacks, which presents bias and offers extended context that amounts to undue weight in the biography of Stossel. Morphh 21:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no problems with the criticisms that have been in the article for most of the past year. My particular complaint is the Health Care section that was added in the last week. The section is counting the number of minutes Stossel gave to people on different sides of the issue. Does the Michael Moore article count the number of minutes he devoted to Health Savings Accounts in his movie? (If it does, it shouldn't.) Good editing requires making judgments about what criticism is significant and what is just nitpicking. Also, the section uses a primary source in violation of WP:BLP, which requires reliable secondary sources. For what it's worth, John Stossel was not endorsing America's current health care system. Quite the opposite, he enumerated its flaws and suggested a solution that is based on the economic theory of supply and demand. --JHP 00:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I see two passages in the article that have a similar problem, namely, stating a fact but in a context that implies a criticism, without attributing the criticism.

• One of them is the one you mention about the allocation of time in the health-care show. I suggest rewriting it along these lines: "MMfA criticized Stossel on the ground that he gave nearly four times as much air time to free-market advocates as to supporters of a single-payer system. "
• The other is in the "Awards" section. After noting his collection of Emmys, our article states: "However, since his economic views have swung towards libertarianism, the stream of awards has dried up." As an objective fact, that may well be true, but the selection of that fact clearly implies an opinion. Maybe the stream dried up since he got married and it's his wife's fault? We can retain that passage, with proper attribution and citation, if some notable source, similar to MMfA, has said something like, "The industry is biased against libertarianism, and Stossel's adoption of that POV has caused the industry to shaft him when it comes to awards." If we don't have a notable source expressing that opinion, then the statement should be deleted.

Overall, I don't know what you mean about "context". The context is that Stossel continues to generate controversy. If he stays on the air, we can be confident that, sometime in 2008, he'll air a show that draws a significant amount of flak. Any such notable controversies that he's involved in belong in the article. There's no artificial maximum number. Let's give the readers the information, including the pro-Stossel information that I keep suggesting (fruitlessly, it seems) be developed and added. JamesMLane t c 01:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps there is a need for a John Stossel controversies article. Not sure if that would fall into the POV fork category though. I've seen it done on other articles but that does not mean it is the best way to go. Just a thought. Such may allow for a more balanced article structure and content, without losing the detailed information. Summary style in this article with a main link to a full article discussing controversies. There is enough content to do it. Morphh 2:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

JamesMLane, if you want to add pro-Stossel content as you are suggesting, then go ahead. My role on Misplaced Pages has primarily been as an editor, not an author. You're not making a proposal, but expecting other people to do all the work are you? Let me point out that notable sources are not the requirement for WP:BLP. Reliable secondary sources are the requirement. You are correct that there are no artificial maximum number of controversies set for an article, but you are incorrect when you say that any such notable controversies that he's involved in belong in the article. Good editing requires making judgment calls about what criticism is significant enough for the article and what is not. Furthermore, we are required to abide by WP:BLP. Misplaced Pages has much stricter standards for biographies of living people than it does for other articles. --JHP 02:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

It would seem to me and I expect the average person that within Stossel's biography, the specials themselves would have much more weight and topic. We do little to discuss the special, we just jump right to the criticism of it. Perhaps it is just easier to find criticism and more difficult to expand the rest but it really unbalances the article. I agree with JHP that we should find secondary sources for this... if there are none, this really goes toward undue weight and should be removed. Morphh 2:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

That just goes back to James's point about why Media Matters should be considered unreliable. As he says, it's odd that nobody would argue that the New York Times (or Washington Times, Washington Post, New York Post) are reliable sources, and yet they get things wrong all the time. More in the overall picture here, I would agree that criticism sections can pose a weight problem, though I don't think that this one does in its current form. Our responsibilities are to only devote attention to criticism that has merit and to be as succinct as possible in describing it. If, for instance, Media Matters had done 300 separate items, reporting on all of them in some detail would pose a weight problem. That is not what's at issue here. I'm a bit confused by the direction of this discussion: on the one hand, I'm getting a vibe that editors have fundamental problems with the nature of the section. On the other, JHP asserts that he does not object to an otherwise identical version of the section with the health care item deleted. I suppose that what I'm asking, then, is, "What question are we trying to answer?" Is this about a way to undertake a major reorganization of the article? Or is there consensus that the section and article are basically fine, but this one, particular item may have to go? Croctotheface 03:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not expecting other people to do work that I recommend. It's a volunteer project and volunteers work on what they think is important. All I'm saying is that, if some editors think it important that action be taken to remedy the allegedly improper ratio of criticism to praise, they should take the action of adding information, not removing it.

I'm also against shunting the information off to a POV fork, which is what a John Stossel controversies article would be. (See Misplaced Pages:Content forking.) The approach of creating a daughter article to address part of the subject in detail, leaving a summary in the main article, is appropriate when the main article is getting too long and needs to be shortened. That's not the case here. There's an instructive example in the handling of the Hillary Rodham Clinton article, which is much longer (currently 108kb while Stossel's is < 32kb). Nevertheless, the editors there decided to dismantle the separate Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies article and re-integrate as much of the material as was properly sourced. See Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies#Proposal to dismantle this article for a discussion.

JHP comments: "Let me point out that notable sources are not the requirement for WP:BLP. Reliable secondary sources are the requirement." Your second sentence is true as far as it goes, but you're overlooking the role of notability. There are actually two different standards:

• For assertions as to matters of fact concerning a living person, reliable sources are required.
• For determining whether a particular opinion should be reported in Misplaced Pages, however, the notability of the spokesperson is relevant. The basic standard is: "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." (From Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view#A simple formulation, emphasis in original.) An important qualifier is that we don't try to report every opinion that anyone has ever expressed about an article subject. The same section of the NPOV policy states, "It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view." Whether an opinion can be attributed to a "prominent" adherent is the test for determining whether it should be reported, under the "Undue weight" section of the NPOV policy. That's why criticism by Media Matters is on a different footing from the exact same statements if made by some pseudonymous contributor to Democratic Underground.

It's in this context that I respond to your statement, "Misplaced Pages has much stricter standards for biographies of living people than it does for other articles." When it comes to reporting criticisms, we need reliable sources to establish that the criticism was actually made, and even then we don't include it if made by someone nonnotable, but we don't need a reliable source establishing that the criticism is well-founded. Such a source usually couldn't be found. For example, because I happen to have the Clinton article open, I note that, among many other examples, it says this about her position concerning the Iraq War: "This centrist and somewhat vague stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic party who favor immediate withdrawal." You can certainly find a reliable source to report the frustration, but it's not conceivable that you could find a reliable source to say that Clinton's antiwar critics are right (or that they're wrong). All you can do is report the notable POV's and do so neutrally. (I think that particular example isn't quite so NPOV as it could be, but I'm not going to get involved in editing the Clinton article right now.) JamesMLane t c 08:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not this is addressed to me, I'll fire off a quick reply. We certainly can and should use editorial judgment to omit criticisms that are not particularly strong or well-founded. Hillary Clinton and other public figures like her are criticized every day by notable people. We can't and shouldn't indiscriminately report on every such criticism. I'm not saying that we as editors are responsible for agreeing or disagreeing with the point of view of people who criticize her, just that we need to ascertain that there is some foundation to the criticism. Croctotheface 08:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Empowering Misplaced Pages editors to decide which criticisms are well-founded, in an area of controversy, would be an invitation to endless POV warring. As an example, my personal opinion is that the criticisms of John Kerry's Vietnam record were not particularly strong, were not well-founded, and in fact had no basis or foundation. His accusers contradicted their own previous statements and contradicted official Navy records. Should Misplaced Pages therefore refuse to mention their criticisms? Does the current state of Misplaced Pages, which does mention those criticisms, constitute a judgment by this project that the criticisms were well-founded? No, and no. The criticisms were notable. Therefore we report them, politically motivated garbage though they were. JamesMLane t c 03:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I came to this article because of BLP concerns and many of the edits were a result of that call; though some may agree while others may disagree, the edits were for the overall betterment of the article. Could some things have remained...possibly. Now, the analogy with John Kerry is not a good one. The issue with Kerry was national issue and was covered by all media outlets worldwide. That one issue touched on his credibility (not knocking him, just pointing out the realities of what happened), his ability to potentially lead, his character, and many other aspects of his run for president. However, the individual issues pointed out in this article are not carrying that wide a scope on/for Stossel. Misplaced Pages points out, and I will look for it and bring back later, that not everything that is mentioned about a person is "encyclopedic" or deserves being mentioned (possibly notability). A good example of this is the Cindy Sheehan article. The editors quickly remove and have cited why, both pro and con entries. They continually say that not everything she does deserves mentioning. Just like in this article, not everything is newsworthy. Again, a controversy is not a controversy unless it is a controversy. Meaning, if I see a person with bad hair and say so...it is not a controversy of the town just because I say so. But...if the whole town starts talking about the hair, and people respond and react to the gossip, then it is a controversy. Just because one organization complains or criticizes a person does not make it a controversy. The community is somewhat justified in determining whether something is a true controversy or even if it is encyclopedic. It happens everyday in wikipedia in various articles. Just my $0.02! --Maniwar (talk) 06:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Croctotheface. JamesMLane is essentially arguing against editorial decision-making. With the Kerry example, the Swift Boat issue got widespread news coverage and probably cost him the election. After all, he was ahead of Bush before the Swift Boat issue caught on. That alone makes it notable. On the other hand, if the National Review says John Kerry has bad breath, it shouldn't be added to the John Kerry article even if it is true and even though it comes from a reliable source. By JamesMLane's standard, if any author added the bad breath claim to the John Kerry article and has a reliable reference, no editor should ever be allowed to remove it. I think Misplaced Pages editors should occasionally ask themselves, "Would Encyclopædia Britannica or World Book Encyclopedia include this fact?" Editing requires making decisions about what should be included and what should not. Unfortunately, some Wikipedians see editing and think it's censorship. That's a very childish attitude. These long lists of criticisms and controversies that are in many Misplaced Pages biographies would never be allowed in a real encyclopedia. It just shows you how many POV-pushers are on Misplaced Pages. --JHP 06:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Maniwar's response concerning the Swift Boat smears confirms my point. Maniwar doesn't try to defend the proposed standard that we should "omit criticisms that are not particularly strong or well-founded"; instead, s/he points, correctly, to the notability of this particular criticism. Stossel is much less notable than Kerry, so nothing said about Stossel will get as much coverage as the attacks on Kerry, but the principle is the same: We don't exclude a criticism on the basis that we personally disagree with it. There's no policy that requires a criticism to have been voiced by more than one source or to have been covered by the corporate media as thoroughly as the attacks on Kerry were.

As for JHP's response, I'm certainly not contending that all criticisms must be included. My opinions are: (1) the allegation that a prominent politician has bad breath isn't worth including; (2) the allegation that a prominent journalist is distorting facts in support of a preconceived bias is worth including. If you can't see any principled distinction between those two examples, then I probably can't explain it to you.

I also don't accept the proposal that we restrict our coverage to what an old-line print encyclopedia would include. That is definitely not Misplaced Pages policy. No "real encyclopedia" has two million articles or anywhere close to it. In the unlikely event that that suggestion were ever to become policy, we'd have to begin by deleting something like 90% of our articles entirely, before we even moved on to heavily pruning the remainder. We are far more comprehensive than the encyclopedias you mention. If you think there's a problem with POV-pushing in a specific article, the solution isn't to try to expunge anything controversial; it's to make sure that all significant POV's are presented accurately and fairly.

Finally, I think we have to consider this question in context. Stossel is a controversialist. Given the nature of his work and his entire public persona, the controversies are more important to his bio than they would be to that of, say, Peter Jennings -- another prominent ABC News on-air personality whose work was of a substantially different nature. Stossel has been churning out controversial reportage for more than ten years. I assure you that this article doesn't come close to listing all the things he's been criticized for. JamesMLane t c 08:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Coatrack

It seems to me that too much of the article is about his opinions. I think the whole article should be greatly cut down so that it gives the basic information about him. For instance near the start there is discussion of school choice which seems to be mainly people pro and con on the issue using the article to argue back and forth. It would be enough to just have a section mentioning his views on various issues without going into details on the arguements pro and con. This goes for his supporters as well as his critics. Thanks. Steve Dufour 06:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Stossel is notable primarily because of his opinions and the controversies they engender. Reporting such matters is more important in his bio than it would be in others.

More to the point, if you look at the rest of this page you'll see an extensive ongoing discussion about this whole subject. In the course of that discussion, everyone has been proceeding through trying to reach consensus, in accordance with Misplaced Pages policies, and not through edit warring. In the middle of that, you've jumped in with wholesale deletions of some of the sections under consideration. This would be a good place not to apply the rule of "be bold".

The school choice passages could use some editing to remove duplication. Nevertheless, the reader is best informed when Stossel's views are presented in his own words, or in reasonable paraphrase, and not just palmed off with a link to the article on Libertarianism. The criticism section isn't a generalized defense of the government's role in education, but a particularized critique of Stossel as a journalist, alleging that he misused sources and demonstrated bias in his allocation of time to each side. Stossel's rebuttal is also included. All this information is quite relevant to an article about a journalist.

I agree with some of your edits, but I'm reverting the wholesale deletions. JamesMLane t c 08:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too upset. :-) However, I do think the article has way too much discussion of issues -- from both points of view. The article is supposed to be about him, not a place to debate his views. Steve Dufour 14:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that the article shouldn't include generalized debate about whether Stossel is right or wrong on a particular point. For example, by this edit to another article, I removed such "Criticisms" that were constantly being inserted by a now-banned user. His general pro-libertarian screed didn't belong in an article about a left-wing politician; similarly general anti-libertarian screeds wouldn't belong in this one.

The actual text isn't open to that objection, though. Stossel is quoted in his own words. The criticisms aren't focused on disagreeing with his views, but on analyzing his presentation of them. There's obviously quite a bit that could be written pro or con on the proper role of the free market in health care, for example. That's what I'd consider to be excluded by your point that the article isn't "a place to debate his views". JamesMLane t c 16:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Clean-up

Following a WP:BLP notice at Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#John Stossel I adjusted the balance of the criticism section. I noticed that the whole article needed help so I ended up cleaning it up. There is a lot of good stuff here but it's just gotten messy. Overall I tried to make it a better article without removing any significant points or any references. Please see that discussion for further explanation. Misplaced Pages can be proud of this article now, IMO. Feel free to further improve! Wikidemo 20:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I see User:Andyvphil is making some revisions to the newly shortened controversy list items. All for the better, IMO. Thanks. Wikidemo 22:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I like many of the changes and they satisfy my concerns of article structure and a desire for a more direct and summarized criticism. They may need a few touch-ups for accuracy. The only thing I don't care for is the bullet format - I'd prefer they be in paragraph form. I actually agree with much of what James stated, which I think the problem comes down to lack of other content to balance the article. The best fix would be to expand the article to include more about the biography of John Stossel. I do think the article structure needs to be changed regardless and that we could create more direct and summarize prose that would help balance the article until it can become a higher quality article with sufficient content. As it was, I do think there was a NPOV issue for weight, article structure, and balance. It is not that the other content doesn't exist, we have just failed to supply it. So while most of the article is probably a start or B class, the criticism is much more flushed out - which creates a very unbalanced article with a lot of weight on criticism, since the other content is so minimal. Odd problem... Morphh 0:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow! This article has gone through more change in the past 12 hours than in the entire previous year. I haven't read through the text yet, but glancing at the section headings I'd say it looks much better. --JHP 00:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I second I second Morphh that the article definitely needs building and improving, but it's on the right track at the moment. Wikidemo did a good job at getting it that way. --Maniwar (talk) 01:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I see some good work. Sometimes an article just needs a catalyst. I shortened the lead by removing the new mention there of factual errors. There is some talk in WP:LEAD about whether or not there should be citations in the lead, and the feeling seems to be you should give a strong reliable source for any contentious/derogatory material even if true so it doesn't look like a POV piece. That leaves us with the option of either citing and justifying the claim in the lead or just saving it for the body. I thought it's just simpler to keep it to the body - nobody can lead without realizing he's a controversial figure. I think the lead does a great job at giving a quick take for someone who doesn't know who he is. No attempt to slant things here, I actually have zero personal opinion on his merits as a journalist. Wikidemo 02:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

No problem, that was something I added in as it only said he had attracted criticism for his political views, which I thought was an inaccurate statement. You have removed that particular statement so it now sounds correct and has less POV. Morphh 3:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Worked on formating the references - got through half of them. Once we get these cleaned up, we should really look at cutting back the external links. I think we have way to many. Some should be cleaned up if they are being used as footnotes, others could be added to "Further reading", others we could just delete if they don't add any real value. Morphh 3:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

My overall reaction to Wikidemo's pruning is that it hasn't been done in a biased manner, but that some useful information has been lost. I prefer the more expansive version. The pruned version eliminates the dates of the incidents, specifics about who complained and on what basis, etc. The expansive version had subjects grouped by subheadings, so that a reader who wasn't all that interested in, say, pesticides could readily skp that section and not be worried about missing anything else.

After I wrote the above, I encountered Maniwar's complete deletion of three of the topics. I find it telling that, in reaction to his edit, my first impulse was to go back to the full versions of these three paragraphs. I believe that the full versions will make it much easier for me to assess whether the subject belongs in the article. I report that reaction as evidence that restoring much or all of the excised detail would be advisable. JamesMLane t c 03:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Even though I somewhat address this in my other post here I want to respond. This was removed much earlier but then restored by Andyvphil (granted he did break the 3RR) and I had to remove it again. It is currently being discussed below. I do not see that these three have caused controversy with or for Stossel. If so, then it needs to be supported by mainstream media. There is some concern that MediaMatters may not be a valid source as they have, more than most, distorted the news or the issue to paint their point. If each truly was an issue, other media outlets would have carried it and would have pointed out how it was a controversy. Too many times editors insert information and interpret, thus leading the reader in how to think. The issues are saved below and a discussion is taking place about them...though, they must be looked at individually and not as a whole. Again, my other post (here) touches a little on this as well. But they should not be replaced unless the general consensus is to do so and they are credible controversies with sources other then Salon or MediaMatters. --Maniwar (talk) 06:41, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with Salon.com being used as a source. Nor would I have problems with The Nation or The American Prospect, which are both left-wing publications. (I lean Democratic, after all.) You can have a political point of view while still being a reliable source. Media Matters seems to be an entirely different animal. It's entire raison d'etre seems to be to destroy the reputations of journalists it disagrees with. I believe the same is true for Accuracy in Media and Media Research Center which are conservative "media watchdogs". The viciousness of these three organizations suggests that they are motivated more by contempt for those journalists they disagree with, than by a fair and honest discussion of ideas. --JHP 02:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

We have to use some judgment about each source in the context of the particular point being supported. What's notable to me, here and in other contexts in which I've seen Media Matters disparaged, is that Media Matters isn't being cited because it's allegedly independent and nonpartisan. Media Matters isn't so much being cited ("we wouldn't believe this except that Media Matters said it") as it is being credited ("it was Media Matters that developed this particular information"). If a well-known organization like Media Matters makes a statement about something like a DoE report or screentime allocation -- i.e., something that's readily falsifiable if it happens to be false -- then it's highly likely that Stossel or someone partial to him would point out the mistake. It's not as if we're citing a Media Matters report that Stossel was overheard in a men's room complaining that his quarterly payola check was late. In the latter case, the alleged bias of the organization conveying the report would be relevant.

Maniwar writes that the passages about health care, etc. "should not be replaced unless the general consensus is to do so and they are credible controversies with sources other then Salon or MediaMatters." I've already explained why I disagree with the second condition. As to the first, is it your position that when one editor deletes something, it can't be restored unless there's a consensus to do so? It would be just as logical to say that when one editor adds something, it can't be deleted unless there's consensus to do so. In general, consensus decisionmaking is notoriously weak about how to resolve the no-consensus situation. We have RfC's, etc., but there's certainly no overriding principle that establishes deletion as the default. The much-overused BLP policy doesn't enact that rule where the issue is importance and undue weight, as opposed to determining whether a negative statement is backed by a citation. JamesMLane t c 03:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that it is very easy to present objective facts in a way that misleads readers. That's what Media Matters does. For example, Media Matters complained that "During the program, Moore was interviewed on air for a total of 1:40, while the five free-market advocates were interviewed on air for a total of 6:24." What Media Matters conveniently omits is that Stossel spent a very large part of the program describing the problems of sick Americans who can't get insurance. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards would have loved that part of the show, because it showed how screwed up America's health care system can be. Media Matters also omits that Stossel did a report on Sicko one week earlier and interviewed Michael Moore then, too. (He probably did one interview with Moore but split it over two weeks.) In addition, since John Stossel is an advocacy journalist and he was advocating Health Savings Accounts as a potential fix for America's high health care costs during this particular episode, it's not unreasonable for him to have given more air time to experts who can explain the benefits of Health Savings Accounts. --JHP 04:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's another example of Media Matters' distortions. Media Matters says, "Stossel failed to report that the World Health Organization ranks both countries ahead of the United States in its ranking of world health systems." Media Matters is talking specifically about his Good Morning America appearance, but Stossel explained on 20/20 why the World Health Organization report is misleading. In addition, three weeks prior to Media Matters' criticism, Stossel had also discussed the World Health Organization report here. Stossel wrote, "The WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But that's a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That's not a health-care problem. Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada. When you adjust for these 'fatal injury' rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation. Diet and lack of exercise also bring down average life expectancy. Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how 'fairly' health care of any quality is 'distributed.' The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but 'unequal distribution' would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution."

Media Matters is being blatantly dishonest. After Stossel has already stated that the U.S. ranked low on WHO's health care study and explained why their health care study is flawed, Media Matters comes back and accuses Stossel of not telling people that the U.S. is ranked low on the WHO health care study. So here's the question, does Stossel get lots of criticism because he's a bad reporter, or does he get lots of criticism because there is ONE very outspoken organization that is not being honest in its characterization of him? Here's another question I have asked several times in the past, why do Wikipedians keep going back to Media Matters as their "reliable source" whose claims are very often unsubstantiated by any other organization? --JHP 07:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Good points Morphh 18:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

"Misleadingly named" Union of Concerned Scientists

I noticed that the recent changes to the criticism section (generally well done, by the way, as I'm all for conciseness) had a parenthetical remark calling the Union of Concerned Scientists "misleadingly named". I would hope that we would all agree that this is opinion and is not appropriate per WP:NPOV. Croctotheface 08:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think we discuss this quite a while back. I believe Andyvphil wanted it in there but I think everyone else disagreed. Would have to look through the talk history. Morphh 11:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly who is it that thinks UCS is not misleadingly named? Andyvphil 19:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a citation to a reliable source? It's been challenged so at a minimum you would need that to include it. But even with a citation it's inherently POV to call an organization "misleadingly named." By that standard the Republican Party is too, and the Democrats. Wikidemo 20:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Croctotheface tends to challenge as "opinion" anything that looks to him like opinion even if it is uncontroverted fact. If a fact is unpalatable he seems to think Misplaced Pages ought not state it too clearly. But, again: "Exactly who is it that thinks UCS is not misleadingly named?" And, no, claiming that you are a "republican" or a "democrat" is not falsifiable in the way that claiming you are a "scientist" is. Besides which the UCS admits its members include non-scientists (see its website). Statements of uncontroversial fact ("The earth is not flat.") do NOT require citation, but if you want citation of the observation that UCS' name is misleading see the Misplaced Pages UCS article which, last I looked, had a section which included that complaint. Andyvphil 21:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You are making this personal by calling me out by name, but near as I can tell, every other editor who has commented on this issue has agreed with me. You are alone in your opinion. Croctotheface 21:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Why are we still talking about this? Please don't insert that statement again until you have some sort of consensus that it belongs. Thus far the consensus has been against it. Gamaliel (Angry Mastodon! Run!) 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with Croctotheface. Furthermore, even in the case of an organization that I believe has a misleading name (e.g., Free Republic), I would not support this kind of comment in an article (i.e., a comment by which Misplaced Pages adopts an opinion instead of merely reporting it). The opinion could be reported where appropriate -- i.e., in the article about UCS, not in every article that mentions UCS -- provided it meets the other standards for inclusion in the encyclopedia. JamesMLane t c 21:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly who is it that thinks UCS is not misleadingly named? Andyvphil 21:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want it exactly, one such person is named James M. Lane. He's a lawyer living in New York City.

Now, exactly who is it besides you who thinks this subject is worth any further discussion? JamesMLane t c 21:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

So James M. Lane believes (a) the UCS is a group of scientists? Or, (b) that its name does not claim it to be a group of scientists? Or (c) that it is not sometimes mistakenly thought to be a group of scientists, because of its name? Andyvphil 23:04, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Aside from Democrats and Republicans, we would have to flag as "misleadingly named" the AARP (members are mostly not retired), any organization named "Citizens for..." (don't require citizenship, mostly started by advocacy groups), most high school members (Spartans? Trojans? Vikins? -- NOT), Mothers Against Drunk Driving (many non-mother members), FAIR (they're not after fairness, they're after balance issues), so-called "Right to Life "organizations, Freemasons (not masons), etc. Frankly, I don't see any value here in making a claim about the name of the organization other than to discredit them. To the extent any such claim about a membership organization is true and relevant it should be addressed in the article about the organization because it would apply to every mention of them, not just here. That's why it's best in general just to wikilink to the organization and not try to have a description of hit here other than the bare minimum to identify it if it's not famous. Wikidemo 23:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You're playing on my weakness. More than most people, I tend to continue pointless conversations like this one, thinking that with enough sweet reason even the most obdurate person will see the light. Because of this overoptimism, I've wasted huge amounts of time online, on Misplaced Pages and elsewhere.

The name does not imply that every single member is a scientist. No reasonable person would take it that way.

Now, as to the points you're dodging: (1) It's clear from the silence here, by you and others, that no one besides you thinks this cause is worth pursuing. (2) It's absolutely positively undeniable, at a level that your "misleadingly named" charge could never be, that George Bush received fewer votes than Al Gore in the 2000 election. Does that mean that every article referring to Bush as President should also note that he attained that office despite losing the popular vote? No, of course not. (Those other articles shouldn't note the widespread opinion that the election was stolen, which is more analogous to your opinion here, but even the undisputed fact doesn't merit being mentioned in all those other references.)

The article about Bush should note that Gore won more votes. The article about UCS should note that membership is open to anyone. The article about Bush should report the opinion that the 2000 election was stolen. The article about UCS should report the opinion that its name is misleading, if (as is clearly the case with the theft of the 2000 election) the opinion is notable. Here's a hint: Your opinion to that effect doesn't count. JamesMLane t c 23:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't really know anything about the Union of Concerned Scientists except that they keep sending me mail asking for a donation. (I am not a scientist.) Even if "misleadingly named" is correct, it has the bad smell of POV-pushing. I say remove the phrase. --JHP 02:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me also add that this is not an article about the Union of Concerned Scientists. Even if the phrase "misleadingly named" belonged in Misplaced Pages—which I believe it does not—it should be in the Union of Concerned Scientists article, not the John Stossel article. --JHP 03:08, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Lane writes: "The name does not imply that every single member is a scientist. No reasonable person would take it that way." The first sentence is simply and obviously false, and the last time I looked into this (circa July) I Googled "Concerned Scientists" and "misleading" and I found, in passing, several exchanges where misguided but apparently not unusually unreasonable people were asserting that some emanation of the UCS on the subject under discussion was dispositive inasmuch as the other side had quoted a lay source wheras the UCS position was the opinion of scientists. The links were not useful for my purpose at the time and I did not save them... but is anyone doubting me on this? James M. Lane?

Wikidemo comments "name is no more misleading than most ; issue not relevant here" and wites "Aside from Democrats and Republicans, we would have to flag as 'misleadingly named' the AARP (members are mostly not retired), any organization named 'Citizens for...' (don't require citizenship, mostly started by advocacy groups), most high school members (Spartans? Trojans? Vikins? -- NOT), Mothers Against Drunk Driving (many non-mother members), FAIR (they're not after fairness, they're after balance issues), so-called 'Right to Life' organizations, Freemasons (not masons), etc." Both halves of his comment are, I think, wrong, and the rest is strawman argument. UCS' name is on the cusp of two maximums -- it is unusually misleading and the misleading claim is unusually relevant. Indeed, MADD and AARP are equally misleading, but being a mother, or retired, does not make a claim to expertise the way that being a scientist asserts a claim to expertise on issues of science. I've already pointed out that "Republican" and "Domocrat", never mind "FAIR" and "Right to Life", do not make falsifiable claims, and sports mascots make no claim at all. My claim is that UCS is virtually unique (though if it turns out that "Citizens for X" are largely aliens I would there, too, support a "misleadingly named" tag on passing references), and failing to address my point seriously will not convince me not to add this information to articles when it is convenient to do so. Andyvphil 23:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Nothing wrong or straw man at all, it's to the point. In fact, it's exactly the same thing. Lots of membership organizations make claims in their name as to who their members are. Many of these claims are demonstrably untrue. But that does not mean they are misleading. Misleading and falsifiable are very different issues. The truth of that statement has absolutely nothing to do with this article, anyway. It's merely an attempt to discredit the actions of an organization indirectly by disparaging their membership standards. Look, I can't see Misplaced Pages ever permitting pejorative adjectives like "misleadingly named" in front of large extant organizations. It's not going to happen. We're way into marginal issues here. Wikidemo 00:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

If not "misleadingly named" before, how about "(not a union of scientists)" afterwards? ... You may be right that it cannot be done but that is not an answer to the assertion that it ought to be done. Your argument of extrapolated consistency was not a strawman argument until I explained why I thought UCS was an exceptional case. To repeat it without fully addressing my response is classical strawman behavior. The misleading effect of naming UCS without properly identifying it is an established political controversy (eg, ). In two rounds of discussion no one has seriously questioned the fact ("By 'fact' we mean 'a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute'."-WP:NPOV) that UCS' name misleads.(Mr. Lane has retreated into the ambiguity of the language -- he asserts that the name is not misleading not because it does not lie but because it does not do so convincingly. This is akin to saying that cigarette commercials that employed individuals wearing white coats were not misleading because no reasonable person would think they were actually doctors. Until he responds to my observation that misled "reasonable person" are easy to find I don't see any reason to characterize what he's said as "serious dispute".) Misplaced Pages's text ought not mislead. Andyvphil 19:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem to believe that it's necessary to mention any "established political controversy" whenever you mention someone involved in that controversy. In other words, Bush's election in 2000 was controversial, so every time we call Bush the president, we need to mention that some people think he wasn't elected legitimately. As others have said, the correct place to discuss a controversy regarding the UCS name or membership is at the UCS article, not the John Stossel article. By your standards, the AARP is "not an association of retired people". I don't see how UCS makes a "claim" that can be "falsified" by calling themselves a union of scientists, and AARP does not make a similar claim regarding their membership. Croctotheface 21:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem to believe that it's necessary to mention any "established political controversy" whenever you mention someone involved in that controversy." I've already said that AARP's name is "equally misleading", but added that it generally need not be tagged because no false claim to authority is being made. And, never mind the fact that asserting that Bush wasn't legitimately elected is looney, referring to him as "President" desn't require a helpful note because he is President ("a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute") irrespective of what happened in Florida. Andyvphil 22:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

UCS advocates for science-related issues. AARP advocates for retired person-related issues. I can't help but think that when an "association of retired people" speaks out on a number of issues relevant to retired people--pensions, Medicare, Social Security--they claim a degree of authority, both in terms of subject matter expertise and in terms of speaking for their membership of ALLEGEDLY retired people. I don't see how you can take the position that AARP does not present itself as an authority on the issues it's concerned with. Croctotheface 10:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Are we still discussing this...? The consensus is to leave it out. The further beating of this horse only serves to increase wikistress. Let it go Andyvphil, you fought a good fight but it's done. Morphh 12:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Consensus Discussion

The result was remove--Maniwar (talk) 20:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed some of the controversies from the article for discussion and consensus. I would like to question whether they are true "controversies". Did they create a controversy or was it just one organization making these charges? Can we find mainstream media sources (NY Times, Washinton Post, USAToday, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc) to support this "controversy"? Anyway, lets look at them individually rather than cooperatively.

1. Stossel claimed in a 20/20 special that charter schools are better than public schools, and argued for a school voucher system. Media Matters for America criticized Stossel for omitting Department of Education findings to the contrary. Stossel defended his conclusions.
   1. Is only one organization criticizing? If so, it's not a controversy.
   2. Can/Do any main media outlets show/support this supposed "controversy"?
   3. Was this a national controversy?
   4. Is it significant enough to be included in an encyclopedia?
2. Critics claim a conflict of interest for Stossel donating profits from his public speaking engagements (as per by his ABC contract) to among others a charity that produces a program that features him.
   1. Is only one organization criticizing? If so, it's not a controversy.
   2. Can/Do any main media outlets show/support this supposed "controversy"?
   3. Is this a national controversy?
   4. Is it significant enough to be included in an encyclopedia?
   5. And are these sources credible, reputable, and such?
3. Stossel was criticized over a 2007 20/20 segment on health care for giving disproportionate weight to interviewees supporting increased privatization, and for misidentifying increased government spending.
   1. Is only one organization criticizing? If so, it's not a controversy.
   2. Can/Do any main media outlets show/support this supposed "controversy"?
   3. Was this a national controversy?
   4. Is it significant enough to be included in an encyclopedia?

oops, forgot to sign. Let's discuss below this point...individually. --Maniwar (talk) 13:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

I have no opinion except to wonder whether these are long standing encyclopedia material.

• I would venture to guess no, that it does not warrant that it is significant enough or encyclopedic enough. I would also question if they are truly controversies outside of one organizations criticism. --Maniwar (talk) 13:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
• I tend to agree that these three are not particularly useful illustrations of "controversies" or for illustrating (an apt thing to do, in my opinion) that Stossel is a controversial figure. Keep in mind that I recently reworded each and put them under the "controversy" header - the header used to be "criticism" for what that's worth. Perhaps something is there and I missed the gist of things when editing them. More likely, there really isn't anything there and when you remove all the impressive sounding fluff there's nothing inside, like shaving a skinny cat. For me the question isn't the number or even the credibility of the critic, but rather the verifiability of the claim and the seriousness and relevance of the alleged lapse of journalistic standards. These three examples fail by that standard. To take the health care example, who cares if an advocacy journalist gives undue weight to one side's views over another's? That's what they're supposed to do. Misquoting a televangelist and getting sued for it (an example still in the article) is a more substantial issue.Wikidemo 16:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, "misidentifing" data, in the health care example, is pretty substantial. If he was playing fast and loose with facts to better support his opinion, that's a substantial issue in my mind. The conflict of interest business, based on the wide swath of people criticizing Stossel for it, definitely merits inclusion in my mind. That's clearly something controversial. I agree that this should not be a numbers game, though, and that we should look not to the person or organization making the criticism but the degree to which there is foundation and relevance to the criticsm. Croctotheface 18:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding item number 3, the answers are Yes, No, Maybe (in the sense that ABC News broadcasts nationally, otherwise no), and No. Since John Stossel practices advocacy journalism, it actually should be expected that he gives disproportionate weight to the position he is arguing for. --JHP 20:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that "misidentifying increased government spending" statement is a result of a bad edit. It is not backed up by the references and it did not appear in the September 23 version of this article. --JHP 20:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the charter school bit because even if it didn't qualify before, Stossel made it a notable controversy by responding to it. It seems to me that omitting pertinent government measurements from a report is a much bigger deal than not providing equal time, or giving money to an organization that you also work for. ←Ben 07:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I think part of Stossel's responce was that he did not omit pertinent government measurements in his ananlysis - he just found it to be invalid and didn't include it in the report. He replied as to why the studies were not valid as they were adjusted for demographics and per the report's own statement "to ascertain the difference between the two types of schools, an experiment would be conducted in which students are assigned to either public or private schools". So this is more just a matter of opinion on how pertinent the study is and if it meritted inclusion in his reporting. Again this goes toward the advocacy journalism. Stossel didn't think it was worth including but MM did. Morphh 11:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced, but I will admit that there are more serious controversies which we are missing. ←Ben 13:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Come on what is so hard about explaining why you think they deserve staying in the article? Do not re-insert these controversies without first discussing them, individually, here and then getting a consensus feel of the editors. To respond something does not make it notable. If you can't answer the simple questions posed above, then it makes me wonder whether they belong. Here is an excerpt from Notability for those of you unfamiliar with it:

I think these above may fail based on that. I advise that we all go back and read WP:Notability. --Maniwar (talk) 14:08, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Not commenting on notability but just looking at the points, I think 1 & 3 could be summed up by just saying that he has been criticized for lack of balance in reporting, using education and health care stories as the source. 2 could be integrated into "Publications", where they discuss "Stossel in the Classroom". Morphh 15:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Notability, as a rule, applies to articles, not content within them. In other words, John Stossel needs to be notable for us to have a John Stossel article. For content within articles, the standard is verifiability]. Croctotheface 23:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Croctotheface is correct. We should be careful not to confuse the Misplaced Pages policy with the English word. The policy only governs whether an article should be created or not. If John Stossel picks his nose, the fact should probably be left out because it's not notable. But, there's no policy governing it. --JHP 01:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, notability is not the standard. And also right, there is no clear standard ad verifiability doesn't really tell you. There is a hole in policy space about what you should actually put in an article and what to exclude. There have been some proposals that got nowhere, one of the latest being relevance, another proposal over at WP:RS having to do with the credibility and relevance of sources as they relate to the statement being sourced. But it's a rather subtle issue and some people think there shouldn't be a standard because leaving it up in the air for editors to figure out, debate if necessary as in this discussion, promotes a healthiert environment for article-building than a cookbook approach of what you put in an article. So we're left with a lot of policies and guidelines we can extrapolate from, and appeals to common sense and the real world and what is the best for giving people what they want and need when they read an article on Misplaced Pages. We'll all agree that JS picked his nose is too trivial to mention. But should we say (in less partisan language) "JS is the subject of a biased agenda-driven smear campaign?" or "JS is a tool who stirs up controversy without serious attention to the facts?" or should we only allow things that are drier and more neutral, even at the risk of failing to call an elephant an elephant? Good stuff. I think there are 10-15 different criteria that are worth looking at but after filtering out for verifiability and reliability of the claims, it all boils down to does a serious lay-reader really need to know this, and does the reader want to know. Wikidemo 01:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the other comments that the quoted policy doesn't apply to these issues. The key is this paragraph:

A topic for which this criterion is deemed to have been met by consensus, is usually worthy of notice, and satisfies one of the criteria for a stand-alone article in the encyclopedia. Verifiable facts and content not supported by multiple independent sources may be appropriate for inclusion within another article. (from Misplaced Pages:Notability#General notability guideline)

Inclusion within another article is what we're discussing. As for Wikidemo's examples, I would include fair representations of both points of view -- the major facts that are cited in support of the charge that Stossel's critics are mounting an agenda-driven smear campaign, the major facts that are cited in support of the attacks on his journalistic integrity (or lack thereof), and reports of (properly attributed) opinion(s) each way, so that the reader gets at least some idea of who's expressing each opinion as well as the asserted grounds for it. JamesMLane t c 04:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

hmmm, we are all over the place and I want to refocus us and actually get something accomplished with this discussion. I'm asking for a consensus since one editor "seems" to be trying to control the article. Based on this consensus I will remove or leave the above non-controversies from the article.

• Remove - per (possibly) BLP concerns, per NPOV and/or notability. Additionally, there is no credible mainstream media coverage "showing" that it was, in fact, a controversy outside of one organizations criticism. Criticism doesn't mean it's a controversy. --Maniwar (talk) 14:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Remove - Add sources for 1 & 3 to the lead paragraph in that section that comments on "alleged distortion of facts, balance of coverage of fact". We could use the sources for 2 after "claimed conflict of interests". I would say that 2 is probably the strongest of the three if you choose to keep one. Morphh 19:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I like those suggestions and will definitely adopt. --Maniwar (talk) 19:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Remove item number 1. See my comments on Media Matters as a reliable source below. --JHP 00:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep item number 2. It has multiple references from reliable sources. --JHP 00:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Remove item number 3. It has one reference from a partisan, misleading, unreliable source. No other organizations have made this criticism. Media Matters' CEO, David Brock, has admitted to intentionally lying and intentionally defaming people—such as Anita Hill—in the past. To quote Amazon.com's review of one of his books, "David Brock made his name (and big money) by trashing Anita Hill as 'a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.' But it was Brock's reporting that was nutty and slutty, he confesses in the riveting memoir Blinded by the Right. He absolves Hill; claims he helped Clarence Thomas threaten another witness into backing down..." While Media Matters CEO David Brock has changed his politics, there is no reason to believe he has changed his dishonest methods. --JHP 00:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Are there any subjects from MediaMatters which can not be found in a different source, such as the Brill's Content article? Acct4 04:23, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Next step will be:

1. Remove 1 and 3 per discussion
2. Although consensus is to remove, the suggestion to move # two into paragraph format and verify that main media organizations carried showing that it was a controversy will be adopted in liu...if this is not satisfactory, it will be deleted, again per discussion.

External links

I think we need to greatly clean up the external link-farm we have. Please read through external links guidelines. Here are the links that I think should stay.

• ABC News Biography
• John Stossel's 20/20 Web Page
• John Stossel's Newspaper Columns

Here are some that I think could stay but they are listed in the references and I'm not sure what additional value they have in the External links.

• Support John Stossel by Competitive Enterprise Institute
• John Stossel profiled by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
• John Stossel profiled by Media Matters for America

I'd get rid of everything else. If it has good info not stated in the article, consider including the material and using the link as a reference. Please review - Morphh 15:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no preference. I'm happy with the external links as they are now, but your proposal is also acceptable. --JHP 01:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I would keep most of the current links, although I'd re-order them so that his "official" bio preceded the IMDb-type listings. That's not to say that I'd keep all of them. NNDB pages are generally worthless, and this one should go. The "Support John Stossel" page is dubious because it doesn't seem to have been updated since 2004. Still, I don't see any reason to delete, for example, the TV.com listing. It has a compilation of Stossel's guest appearances on other shows (). That's a level of detail we don't need in the article but we can make it available to the reader -- a perfect setup for an ext link. JamesMLane t c 06:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Other controversies

From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting I see some controversies which look to be considerably more disturbing than the ones in the article:

• According to the parents involved, he coached a bunch of kids to stage answers to questions he asked during a 6/29/01 ABC News special. "He also went on the attack against the parents, saying that they had been 'brainwashed' by environmental activists, whom he characterized as 'the totalitarian left' (O'Reilly Factor, 6/27/01)."

• According to James Galbraith, he misrepresented Galbraith's views. Stossel denied he did so, but fixed the misrepresentation in a later broadcast.

• According to people he interviewed, his staff was cherry-picking interviewees for a broadcast on biological explanations for gender traits and roles. Although his staff spoke to people with opposing views on the subject, he only included the views with which he agreed.

• He blamed a Brown campus rape on political correctness. In his report he said, "If nobody had sex except when they were totally sober, I bet there would be a lot less sex on this campus." What he left out of the broadcast was even funnier:

Stossel reportedly "responded with an obscenity" when a student questioned his journalistic integrity, mocked a student who quoted Brown's discipline code--"I'm glad for $30,000 you learned to read"--and tried to provoke one woman by asking her, "If I were dating you, and put my arm around you and put my hand on your breast…."

• His own quote should be included in the free markets section: "I have come to believe that markets are magical and the best protectors of the consumer," he once declared. "It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market" (Oregonian, 10/26/94)

• "In a 20/20 report on the allocation of medical research dollars by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 'Lobbying for Lives' (10/11/99), Stossel claims that Parkinson's disease kills more people than AIDS." -- not even close.

• Stossel claims that labor's complaints about rising CEO salaries are unreasonable since "factory wages were up, too-- up 70 percent" in the last 15 years, when they fell 6% in real terms; 55% without the inflation adjustment.

Now I only looked at two articles about him on the FAIR web site, but this makes me ask: Are we including the most important controversies? ←Ben 15:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this comes back to the Notability question posed by Maniwar above. While we have editorial judgement on what to include and how to include it, I'm not sure it is really up to us to decide what is "important". If it is important then it should be notable as discussed above and we should decide the best way to include it. If it is not notable, then we really need to think about if it is proper to include it... even if someone deems it important. We should then consider all these in relation to weight in the article. Morphh 16:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The first two used to be in the article. I don't know when they were removed. Some of these look like intentional mischaracterizations of what he meant. For example, with the "markets are magical" quote, are you also going to criticize Adam Smith for his analogy of an invisible hand? Stossel's view of the market is actually backed up by economic theory, but the phrase "markets are magical" makes him look like a nut if you take it literally. If someone says enough things on record throughout their career, it will often be easy to make someone look bad by taking quotes out of context. Regarding the last item, the press judges things using nominal dollars all the time. That's why every few years a new movie sets a new box office record. (If you adjust for inflation, no movie—not even Star Wars—has beaten Gone with the Wind.) That's why the press has been reporting that gas prices have been "setting new records" for years. Only a few months ago did gas prices actually surpass their previous inflation-adjusted peak. Stossel has actually done stories recently telling people that the press often fails to adjust for inflation, but he has made the same mistake himself. --JHP 21:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I was going to say this, but the below edit conflicted with mine and made the same point. However, it's a long post, so I'll just just reiterate here that we need verifiability, not notability, to include content at this article. Notability is for articles, and verifiability is for content. John Stossel passes notability guidelines, so the notability question is answered. If another topic here passes notability guidelines, then we can make it the SUBJECT of ITS OWN article. If the topic passes verifiability guidelines and whatever other rules we set up as far as what we should include here, then we could discuss it in this article. Croctotheface 23:33, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Controversies in general and which to include

What people should look at in my opinion is how significant the controversy is to Stossel's career, and how relevant and useful it is to explaining who he is and what he does. Not how important the issue is in the wider world because truly, these are all tiny controversies compared to the big issues he's covering like health care, global warming, education, etc. None of these are important enough for even two words in the master articles about these subjects, so I don't think they can be justified here on this basis. Again, what they are useful for is to shed light on his biography and his career. That's one of the reasons I removed the headings and the detailed blow-by-blow details that tended to argue what's true or not on the substantive issues. The other reason is balance. In an article about a regular journalist, somewhere between zero and ten percent (made up numbers here, just for illustration) could reasonably be devoted to controversy. For an advocacy journalist like Stossel, what's reasonable? 20-30%? We can't let the controversy section outweigh the positive section describing his career trajectory and current work. The weight of the controversy section goes to word count, strength of the statements made, and also just plain screen space. A headline calls attention to itself and makes a lot of white space, making the section seem bigger than it is. It's a better use of the limited space devoted to this to cut through things and get straight to the facts.

That all implies we have to cherry pick from the controversies. There are probably dozens if we listed them out. What three, or five, or six, are the best? If you're trying to illustrate something a few well chosen examples is a lot more effective than a laundry list. "Best" is probably a mixture of how important the issue is to the world (a minor but not predominant factor), how controversial Stossel's actions truly are, how scandalous / negative his action are if the accusations are true, the strength of the accusations and the number and substantiality of the poeple making them, and finally, how good the whole controversy is at adding context and depth to the overall article. Some of these overlap the concept of notability from WP:N and that can be a reference point, but notability is not the applicable standard. That's for whether the article belongs in Misplaced Pages or not in the first place, not whether a particular factoid belongs in an article. -- Wikidemo 23:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that we need to discriminate and that we should not include every controversy or criticism. However, balance is not good for its own sake. If a number of criticisms are similar, but we judge that they are verifiable and important enough to talk about, then we should not include them based on the idea that more of the article should be "positive" than "negative". If his disputes with people are why he is well-known and are the basis of most of the independent coverage of him, then they should consist of most of our coverage as well. If, say, five or six criticisms differ on the specific facts but are essentially the same, for instance that Stossel ignores or spins facts that go against his conclusion, then we can group them together under that larger umbrella. Rather than five different bullets for five different cases where Stossel ignored facts, we have one bullet describing that issue of factual accuracy and poining to a couple of examples. Regarding your specific standards for comparing controversies or deciding how important a given controversy is, I think they're a fine way to look at the issue. Croctotheface 23:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Saying he ignored facts can be problematic. Did he ignore the facts because he wanted to mislead his viewers? Or did he ignore the facts because he justifiably felt they were overwhelmed by contradictory facts? Or did he ignore facts to simplify the subject? Or did he ignore facts because of time constraints? Or did he ignore the facts because he didn't know they even existed? Saying someone ignored facts implies malfeasance, and will likely be interpreted by readers as such, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for leaving stuff out. --JHP 00:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point. A lot of techniques used in debating and politics, like accusing someone of ignoring facts, just don't apply to biographical overviews of a person and their career. I do like the suggestion of grouping multiple events and instances of criticism not by the policy issue but by the specific type of claimed journalistic lapse. That's much more helpful in evaluating who he is and what he does. To use a kind of silly example, if I want to know what's so outrageous about the Jerry Springer, it's most relevant to group things under topics like audience chants, fake fights, and secret lovers revealed, not the actual subject of the show - midget love affairs, hot for teacher, etc. Same here, the relevant topics are misidentifying interviewees, citing bad data, etc., not the environment, education, and so on. Wikidemo 01:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I never suggested that Stossel be required to mention each and every fact that may come to bear on his reporting. But omitting facts necessary to understand the issue is certainly a problem. Not properly explaining the difference between the UCS petition and the Oregon Petition, for example, is certainly a case where criticism was justified. Croctotheface 05:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Although I agree that, in that instance (and several others), the criticism was justified, I don't think our article should say that. We can lay out the facts about what he included and what he omitted, along with any attributed evaluations of his choices (he's a corporate shill! he's making complex issues understandable!). We can leave it to each reader to draw his or her own conclusion. JamesMLane t c 06:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear: I'm not advocating saying that the criticism is justified. I think the current text is fine. JHP said that ignoring facts does not make the criticism important by definition. I responded with that example to illustrate a case where omitting facts was certainly an important issue. Croctotheface 07:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hm, they may be small in the grand scheme of things, but any one of several of them could sink a typical journalist's career. ←Ben 07:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You know, there's no strict definition of what is "a controversy" or "a criticism." Some of those listed are just "some guy disagrees with Stossel."

The guide somewhere says in bios of living persons to err on the side of presenting them in a good light. In that light, is it really "good" to list all the various official sounding claims being made by some group? I changed most of them to just "x has criticised the report". I figure we aren't the mouthpiece of every fringe group -- they have websites, if you want to read all about why the scientists at "FAIR" say Stossel is wrong, they have a website.

In fact it's particularly unfair to Stossel becuase he hss his own website and he permits criticism on there. He says it's "freedom of speech" even if someone says "you suck!" He said that on the air once.

We don't need to repeat or make judgements on the various people who criticice. The article is useful, the references are good. The impression I get from from the complete list of controversies is that he's some kind of target -- some of these groups "just hate him!" That comes through loud and clear, there's no need to keep adding "details" about what the guy at this place says and what the guy from this other place says.

I thought about that removal of the "Concerned Parents in California" yes, it's "in" not "of" my mistake there. That's fine, I don't go for the reason too much though, they did call themselves that, they signed the letter with that name. But that's fine, it's not important. Someone else improved paragraph adding the part about how the "revocation" was timed to just before the broadcast so they couldn't fix it and had to remove it. good job.

There's that other thing where "FAIR" says some report is discredited... I'll take a look at those references. I have a feeling there's a little more to this story. I'll remove or add edits if needed.

The point I think is that this is the encyclopedia article of a living person, it's not the place to air out every complaint anyone has ever made. I know some people hate him and are on a mission to put in little digs but believe me there's plenty out there to read on those other websites that are referenced here, so there's no need to go overboard. SecretaryNotSure 12:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want to know more about the "discredited" report just take a look at this article circa a couple months ago. The information used to be here. But on other issues you're going in precisely the other direction. "I changed most of them to just 'x has criticised the report'."??? It does not fulfill the purpose of this article to set its readers the task of constructing their own NPOV treatments of available material. Andyvphil 21:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Maniwar misunderstanding 3RR

The following showed up on my talk page:

this is an "unofficial" cautioning. Please watch the 3RR on this article and discuss before continually reverting. You have officially broken the 3RR and if reported could be banned. I just want to give a friendly caution to watch it and discuss on the talk page. Some of the issues you keep re-inserting, the consensus is to leave out, so watch that as well. Happy editing. Cheers! --Maniwar (talk) 02:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Maniwar also commented "now now Andyvphil, watch the 3RR. Removing non notable non-controversies and will further discuss on talk page" on this edit, undong my edit undoing his previous deletion ("Undid revision 160244213 by Maniwar. Consensus first, deletion afterwards.") of the stubs left by Wikidemo of previous material. Apparently Maniwar believes that if he deletes 4 things I can only restore 3 of them without violating 3RR. This is an error. Andyvphil 22:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Consensus is about what should be in the article. If someone challenges what's in an article and can show there's no consensus for it to be there, it's fair to remove it until the consensus can be developed. One doesn't need consensus for making the challenge or for every act of editing it takes to handle the matter. Regarding edit wars, it takes two to fight as they say. Andyvphil, you've done a lot of good work on this article, and most of your edits have been accepted. It would help if you can take a step back and realize that there's nothing that urgent here time-wise. If your position is the better one it will prevail.Wikidemo 22:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

If both I and BenB4 restore a section I think Maniwar has been put on notice that he does not have consensus for removing it. And this is in the context of your having just stubbed the material in a manner which sometimes obscured its significance. And (partially because I've been on Wikibreak) I don't think the issues have been adequately framed or aired. Examining the "controversies" for their individual significance may be an error -- perhaps what we really need is a section (or subarticle) titled "The Media Matters Campaign to Discredit Stossel" "Stossel and his Critics". If criticisms of him are unfair (the underlying facts not significant) that may be exactly what the article should show. Andyvphil

Although I disagree and have checked with several that on a BLP, the onus is on you to prove why it should stay in the article, but I see that an edit war will ensue. So, to be civil, and to AGF, I'm going to pursue consensus. Having said that, you make a good suggestion about "The Media Matters Campaign to Discredit Stossel" being a section. Although I'm not versed on this particular subject or Bio, this does seem to be the case with many other articles and has been suggested that MM main campaign is to discredit media figures they do not agree with or like. I think that would do better service to the article with mention, briefly, of each campaign against Stossel in it. --Maniwar (talk) 19:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

As I have pointed out before, the "misidentifying increased government spending" claim is not backed up by the sources. According to WP:BLP, something like that should be removed immediately and WP:3RR would not apply to those who remove it. WP:BLP also says, "The burden of evidence for any edit on Misplaced Pages, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material." This is not specific to the John Stossel article, but to Misplaced Pages in general: I have often found that authors take the opposite approach; they insist that the burden of evidence is on the shoulders of those who remove existing content. It tends to make editing Misplaced Pages very difficult. --JHP 00:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The focus of an article on John Stossel is rightly John Stossel, not the rightness of his beliefs or the integrity of his opponents. JHP makes a good point. Contentious poorly sourced material about living people is deleted on sight without discussion. We're all working to better the article. The most sensible approach I think is to sit down and consider which among the many controversies are the most germane to include. If you really wanted to show that he's been sloppy or manipulative with the facts on major issues, there are some stronger examples in the wings than these. Wikidemo 01:04, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

If there's a particular four-word phrase, like "misidentifying increased government spending", that you believe in good faith isn't supported by the cited source, you can remove that phrase. You aren't given a license to remove the whole paragraph if the rest of it is properly sourced, though. In any event, such BLP considerations aren't generally at issue here. Well-sourced passages are being removed on the stated bases that the information isn't important enough or that the article doesn't have enough counterbalancing praise for the subject. Those are not BLP issues. JamesMLane t c 07:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

My restoration of the three deleted topics was not a vote of confidence in the newly minted stubbed text (E.g., I had no knowledge of whether "Stossel was criticized...for misidentifying increased government spending."). My observation was that Wikidemo, and Croc before him, had attempted to summarize material they did not fully command, with the result that they not only got some things wrong, but (pace Mr. Lane) they had deleted material that might serve to indicate why someone had been justified in inserting the topic in the first place, and it seemed Maniwar had arrived just in time to make decisions to delete multiple topics, based on the depleted text. Andyvphil 08:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you try being civil, for once, please? And not making it personal? Croctotheface 11:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, I don't recall any problem with my trimming. I left out details you thought were important. That is quite different from saying something incorrect. Croctotheface 11:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Not incorrect? Again you're having a problem with the bald statement of inconveniant fact. And apparently a memory issue. See this edit. Do I have to remind you what's wrong about the "Pesticides and organic food" section? Andyvphil 18:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I said "roughly the same" when in fact the correct phrasing was "zero". I hardly think that distorts the issue. It's obviously better to be exactly right, but the fact that somebody can make a minor error does not, as you seem to think, disqualify them from editing Misplaced Pages. Croctotheface 21:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo made minor errors and I would not be tempted to disqualify him from editing the encyclopedia. But it's just incredible that at this late date you still don't understand that the major problem with your edit was not that you misquoted Stossel but that you indeed "distorted the issue" and left out the important thing he actually did wrong what he apologized for. Andyvphil 10:54, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Why can't we order the controversies chronologically?

I would like to know why Wikidemo objects to putting the controversies in chronological order. The only "changed content" other than adding dates concerned some serious questions about Wikidemo's edits that I raised on their talk page. Acct4 04:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of some compelling reason not to order them chronologically, in date order makes the most sense. I agree with you Acct4. Ossified 04:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith and don't put words in my mouth. Where did I ever say I objected to putting things in chronological order? Here's the reversion I made, and if you read the edit summary it's because your "last edit changed content extensively" and did not just "add dates and order chron." I don't know whether you were having an edit conflict or you were deliberately trying to revert things but the edit I reverted restored at least three sections to an earlier version, including a BLP violation, and because it came with a reordering that turned nearly the entire section red in the difference comparison, it would be very difficult to actually see what else it changes. If you want to put things in chron order I have no objection but please don't mix that with a content edit. Wikidemo 04:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It was an edit conflict, but I immediately discussed the issue on your talk page, if that makes any difference. I do not think there is any BLP violation -- if that is true then by that standard the criticism section is nothing but BLP violations. I do not believe that there is any kind of a policy or guideline against mixing reorderings with content edits. If you had no objection, then why didn't you make the changes you wanted starting from the chronologically ordered section instead of reverting everything? Acct4 05:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said, the entire section showed up as changed. I would have no idea what to change back. If you get an edit conflict when saving it's really up to you to resolve it. Presumably you can reorder chronologically a lot easier than I can go through the entire section word for word to figure out just what changed. There's no policy on these kind of editing issues, just practicality. Wikidemo 05:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I would, but I think if I do that it could be a WP:3RR violation, I'm not sure. I think it should be reverted back and we should discuss your deletion and changes. Acct4 06:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that the controversies should be either in order of significance (which would put the organic food one first) or in reverse chronological order (because people place a higher importance on recent events than on much older events). Either way, the things readers are most likely to care about should come first because the stuff that appears first is most likely to get read. --JHP 08:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Why is the pesticide thing more important than showing Galbraith saying the opposite of what he had said? If we can't even agree on what to include, I hardly think we're going to agree on a full ordering. Chronological presentation is completely unbiased. Acct4 09:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

(indent) I don't really care for the chronological presentation as I think it will continue to keep this bullet format and attrack trolling inserts. I'd like to see this section turned into some form of paragraph stucture based on similar types of criticism as stated in the lead sentence of that section. So discuss how Stossel does not provide balance in his reporting using health care and education as examples with rebuttal from Stossel on the points. Include another paragraph on how he has been criticised for misrepresenting facts and include the pestisides, healthcare, etc, along with any rebuttal or appologies. While we've done well improving WP:MOS and WP:NPOV, I don't believe this chronological bullet presentation is the best way to move forward. Morphh 13:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Separate sections is better than a run-on paragraph because it helps the reader who wants to focus on only one or a few specific issues. To that extent I'm in agreement with JHP, who had the reader in mind in urging that "the things readers are most likely to care about should come first because the stuff that appears first is most likely to get read." The trouble comes when we try to guess what the readers "are most likely to care about". That's why we should go back to topical subheadings. Instead of our guessing, and inevitably getting it wrong for some readers (because not all of them will care about the same things), we can make it easy for each individual reader to select the portions that interest him or her. Chrono order (not reverse chrono) is the normal default for recounting past events and should be used here. JamesMLane t c 13:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about "run-on" paragraphs. I think we can write sufficently tight and good prose to present each argument in well written paragraph. Sections introduce issues of article structure again with focus on topic, which creates the problem we started with. Each section would need sufficient content to justify a section so each gets unnecessarily expanded to a good size paragraph, resulting in many of the issues that we are trying to address. This is an encyclopedia and shouldn't be written as if someone is looking for one particular criticism of Stossel. While we want it to be included in the article, it needs to integrated into the context of the article and not stand out like a section saying look at me.. I'm the criticism about Global Warming. A reader could search for Global Warming or review the controversy and find the content discussing it. The web would be the first place to search for something specific, which would bring up articles on the searched criticism. Morphh 14:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

The software has an automatic TOC function because of a general opinion that readers are served by having specific sections or subsections of the article marked out by headings and readily accessible through the TOC. This simple organizing device doesn't give undue weight to any part of the article.

I simply don't understand the statement, "This is an encyclopedia and shouldn't be written as if someone is looking for one particular criticism of Stossel." I would say: This is an online encyclopedia and shouldn't be written as if everyone is looking for the same thing. Instead, it should try to accommodate a variety of preferences, including the readers who want a quick overview, the readers who want a detailed and comprehensive treatment, and the readers who want a detailed treatment but only of one or more specific subtopics. JamesMLane t c 08:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Be serious - I'm not arguing against a TOC or having sections. Obviously having sections is important for a reader but would you expect to see sections like you describe or chronological bullets for criticism in a paper encyclopedia? It is not automatic in the sense that the editors have to use judgement to define what is and what is not a section, which will give weight to whatever the editor decides to give weight to. Consider the WP:NPOV policy on article structure and the WP:MOS. We should not have a header for each and every issue in Stossell's life. The headers are meant to organize the major content. Sections for each criticism is the problem that we started with by having large sections giving undue weight in context and structure in the biography of John Stossel. The readers can get a quick overview from the lead or the section lead, can read more detail in the section and even more detail in the references. We should not break each criticism down into sections based on the POV of the content or arrange the headers to unduly favor lists of criticism. See the NPOV policy that states: 'Sometimes the internal structure of an article may require additional attention to protect neutrality and avoid problems like POV forks and undue weight. "Segregation" of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself; ref Article sections devoted solely to criticism, or "pro and con" sections within articles are two commonly cited examples. There are varying views on whether and to what extent such kinds of article structure are appropriate. (See e.g., Misplaced Pages:Words_to_avoid#Article_structure, Misplaced Pages:Pro_&_con_lists, Wikipedia_talk:Pro_&_con_lists, Template:Criticism-section). /ref Arrangements of formatting, headers, footnotes or other elements that appear to unduly favor a particular "side" of an issue; ref For example, some contributors advise against article sections devoted entirely to "criticism," although some assert that such sections are not always inappropriate. For more on this issue, see Formatting criticism. ref Morphh 12:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

If we were to follow the advice in the authorities you refer to, the three paragraphs in the sections describing his reporting career would be overwhelmed, and I don't think anyone thinks that would be better. I would prefer that we refrain from removing legitimate criticism because "the section has become to long" or the like. If there are many criticisms that means that they have come about through error, neglect, or bad luck, and if they are supported by reliable sources, then they should appear in the article. The proper way to address the problem of too much reliably-sourced negative information is to add reliably-sourced positive information, not to delete the former. Acct4 07:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No, the three paragraphs in the sections describing his reporting career do not conflict with weight or represent a POV article structure. I don't disagree that we should not remove legitimate criticism from reliable sources. We're describing the structure here, not the content. However, as to the content, the arguments in sections above are in regard to what is "legitimate", if MM or FACT alone are reliable sources for criticism, and how much should we summarize or expand the criticism with regard to NPOV weight policy. Morphh 11:53, 01 October 2007 (UTC)

One section per paragraph is too many sections and would make a mess of the page layout and the TOC. One section for all of the assorted criticisms is reasonable, and if it gets longer than one section can handle that's a good sign there are too many criticisms represented. No, we do not repeat all legitimate criticism of a person, just as we don't include all legitimate positive facts about their life. This is a short article that hits the main relevant points, not a book length biography or a collection of indiscriminate details. The total number of words and screen space is indeed a concern with NPOV. You can't let the derogatory information in an article grow out of proportion to the primary information about a person. It's apparent that some people's contributions on this page serve mainly to discredit Stossel rather than to create a better and more informative encyclopedia; we can't let that overwhelm the article. Wikidemo 15:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The "Controversies" section (better renamed "Stossel and his Critics") need NOT be "derogatory information". And, why should this be a "short article"? Misplaced Pages is not a paper encyclopedia. If the content is useful (e.g., as a comprehensive corrective NPOV treatment of the material that turns up when you Google Stossel) there is room to include it. Andyvphil 21:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Undiscussed deletions

That's ridiculous. Name a single issue from one of the six you just deleted which does not go to credibility as a journalist. The BLP policy only says to remove unsourced or poorly sourced information, and the reliability of the sources is not in dispute as far as I know. There is nothing in WP:BLP which says to delete properly sourced information. If you have a problem with the balance, you add a NPOV notice, right? You don't just go deleting accurate information, right? Rtp4 20:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The person who left this recent edit summary needs to take his or her own advice:

This is getting insane with this nit-pick criticism from FAIR and MM - undue weight... discuss this further on the talk before this edit war turns into a article lock.

I did discuss it, just above. Why didn't you? There are plenty of "nit-picks" in FAIR and MM articles, but these are not those. Every single one of them is a very serious mistake that journalists are expected to avoid. Rtp4 20:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I have removed again. If the editors who insist on piling up all of this derogatory material cannot exercise some restraint on their own, this is indeed going to have to be resolved by administrators by locking the article, and ultimately, mediation or arbitration. I am here as one who is neutral to him and his claimed faults as a journalist, trying to work with this article on its own merits. The five or six "criticisms" removed, mostly recent additions, are non-issues. They are for the most part partisan organizations disagreeing with statements or conclusions in his pieces, simple pundit fodder. Whether right or wrong, this kind of derogatory information cannot be allowed to overwhelm an article about a living person. I don't think the administrators who write and enforce BLP are going to be any more sympathetic than I am to efforts to chronicle every criticism that can be sourced. I cannot foresee any result other than some reasonable limit on the extent and nature of material critical on Stossel. It would be a lot more dignified if his detractors on this page could make some attempt to find these limits using their good sense instead of having them imposed on them.Wikidemo 22:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Again, I ask: Name one of the events you deleted that would not call the integrity of any journalist into serious question. I believe that you have ignored this request because you are utterly unable to do so. And you have not identified any section of the BLP policy which allows you to remove properly sourced statements, as these all are. Serious errors of fact are not "pundit fodder." Serious systematic bias is not "pundit fodder." Both are career-wrecking moves for any non-celebrity journalist. If you are as sure of your convictions as you say then I think you had better file for mediation because I know your deletions are blatantly against policy and I will continue to revert them. For the third time, if you are truly concerned about article balance, then why are you not looking for properly sourced material to add to the other sections? Rtp4 00:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I have said this all here before in one way or another, but the specific sections I removed are:

• 20/20 segment on "stupid" public schools. Only action complained about is that he says charter schools are better and argues for a voucher system, a mainstream position. Only party cited as complaining is Media Matters, a partisan pundit media outlet. That is not a controversy.
• Health care. Only action complained about is that he interviewed more people who support his position than oppose it. Only party cited complaining is Media Matters. Not a controversy.
• Gender differences. Only action complained about is that he decided against using an interview that contradicted his thesis, and that he chose interview subjects who agreed with him. Party complaining is FAIR, a partisan organization. Not a controversy.
• Parkinson's disease. Only action complained about is getting fact wrong about death rates. No party is described as complaining, though FAIR is a source. Not a controversy (it is OR to go through record to find examples of journalistic mistakes, and irrelevant to the biography).
• CEO salaries. Only action complained about is factual misstatement. No party is described as complaining, sourced to FAIR. Not a controversy.

The relevant WP:BLP policy section is:

The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics'

That comes from the balance section of WP:NPOV, which BLP explicitly incorporates as being particularly important and stringently enforced. The controversy section is overwhelming the article, and instead of cooperating in keeping this in line some editors are simply continuing to add more criticisms. BLP prohibits this, and does not require expansion of the article as an alternative - that is not my place here. I am here to fix a BLP problem, not to write the article. I have re-noticed this page on Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. You are threatening to edit war on it rather than discuss, which is not a good sign.

-- Wikidemo 01:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Wikidemo here. These entries offer very little to Stossel's notability, offer no secondary sources, and give disproportionate space to critics in regard to NPOV weight. If any of these things get any mention, it should only be as a source to the statements that critics charge him with unbalanced reporting and factual misstatements. Let's focus on the main controversies in a paragraph form, with references to other points in the lead statement for the section. Morphh 2:44, 02 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo, you're introducing a new supposed policy, namely that a criticism from a "partisan" organization doesn't create a controversy and doesn't merit any mention here. There is no such rule. The policy about reporting opinions states: "It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view." (from Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view#Undue weight) Thus, the test is whether an opinion can be attributed to a "prominent" adherent, not whether it can be attributed to a nonpartisan adherent.

I will also note that the mass attack on MMfA and FAIR continues, and continues to disregard context entirely. For example, with regard to Parkinson's diseaase, Stossel either did or didn't say that it kills more people than AIDS, and the official death statistics either do or don't contradict him. Does anyone think FAIR just made up the quotation? or that FAIR made up the public health statistics? It's one thing to say, "FAIR opined that the allocation of time to the pro and con sides was improper." There you have at least an argument that FAIR's ideological orientation is relevant to point at issue, because there's a judgment call to be made in a TV program of limited length. It's clearly wrong, though, to lump that in with a case in which FAIR is simply being credited as the person or entity that pointed out certain objective facts. There's a difference between FAIR (partisan or not) and some anonymous blogger.

By the way, the people running FAIR and MMfA are all alive. The BLP policy applies to talk pages. Does this constant unsubstantiated disparagement of these two organizations violate BLP with respect to their principals? JamesMLane t c 03:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

These organizations define themselves as partisan. Morphh 3:56, 02 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "partisan" is the right word, but I hesitate to voice even so tentative a disagreement because I'm afraid you'll go zooming off into a defense of your statement. The important point is not whether they are or are not partisan. The important point is that, under the Misplaced Pages policy that I quoted, whether they're partisan is immaterial.

It's quite obvious that, if you characterize MMfA and FAIR as partisan, then you'd have to characterize Stossel himself as partisan. Yet there he is, quoted in our article about Sicko. The editors working on that article are apparently unaware of any new rule under which only nonpartisan opinions can be reported. There was discussion on Talk:Sicko about whether to include a reference to a Stossel piece that mentioned Moore only in passing, but once Stossel wrote his Wall Street Journal piece directly attacking Moore, it went into the article, apparently without objection. The Misplaced Pages article also includes an attributed response to Stossel's criticism. That seems to me to be the correct approach, one we should emulate here. JamesMLane t c 04:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Straw man argument being used for excessive deletions

Over and over we see comments on this talk page stating that not every criticism of Stossel can be included. Just since I last looked at the page, the changes include "The point I think is that this is the encyclopedia article of a living person, it's not the place to air out every complaint anyone has ever made" (from SecretaryNotSure), and "I don't think the administrators who write and enforce BLP are going to be any more sympathetic than I am to efforts to chronicle every criticism that can be sourced" (from Wikidemo).

I would like to make a personal request, for the sake of my blood pressure, that people stop attacking this straw man. Please bear in mind two points:

• There are many, many notable criticisms of Stossel that no one has tried to add to the article.
• No one is even arguing that "every complaint anyone has ever made" should be included.

For any specific instance, we can discuss whether it should be in the article. That discussion should, however, address the merits, and not attempt to impute to some editors views that they do not hold. JamesMLane t c 22:51, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No straw man here, rather a direct claim that the criticisms are excessive and against BLP. If you want to get technical, none of the criticisms are notable. Notability is the standard for which subjects deserve their own article, not which criticisms belong in an article about a living person. That is a matter of several overlapping policies and guidelines including verifiability, neutral point of view, and BLP. People are indeed arguing that any criticism that can be reliably sourced should not be removed. BLP addresses this in several ways and is explicit on the point:

The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics

The criticisms I have deleted are specifically the ones least relevant to the subject's notability, that overwhelm the article. For the most part they do side with the critics.Wikidemo 23:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

LIES! Lies in fact! Since when can a journalist go on national TV and blatantly say Parkinson's kills more than AIDS in a piece complaining about how much funding AIDS gets and not be known far and wide for the shame in newsrooms across the country? Since never! I would like you to please try to step back and get some perspective, because so far, your statements are showing precious little congruence with common sense. Rtp4 01:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Warning: you are being uncivil. Please stop. Wikidemo 01:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I most certainly am not. I am complaining about the veracity of your statements, and not about you at all. That is explicitly allowed and encouraged by WP:NPA#What is considered a personal attack? If it is making you uncomfortable then I suggest you put more effort into the truthfulness of your argument.

If I am coming off as frustrated, you are correct, I am very frustrated. I have asked you repeatedly to identify any of the points you deleted that would not bring any journalist into disrepute. You haven't bothered to respond. Wouldn't that frustrate you? Rtp4 01:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Your | edit history shows you have been a registered member here less than seven hours. Your very first edit was to revert a deleted criticism, your second to expand an existing one, your third to set up a talk page, and your fourth to add two completely new criticism paragraphs. You restored more criticism, and in your very first talk contribution ever on Misplaced Pages you called my statement "ridiculous", then later, "insane", told me to "take my own advice", reverted the deletions again, said I am "utterly unable" to defend my position, and in the edit for which I gave you a civility warning, criticized me for a claimed lack of common sense. That is your entire history here - anything I left off was a mere correction or amplification on one of the above. Your account so far has been for nothing other than adding criticism to the biogrophy of Stossel, and arguing and edit warring on the subject. So no, I don't think I have all the info on your frustration. I am not even a supporter of Stossel or an insider on this page. I'm trying to help out with a problem here, neutrally, and you are attacking me for getting in your way of adding criticism. If you are indeed a new wikipedian I urge you to slow down and familiarize yourself with some of the policies and norms here. If you have been around a while and just created an account, doubly so! We are here to write good articles, not to slant articles against controversial figures. Wikidemo 02:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I should also add that by shouting "lies!" in bold and ALLCAPS, you're either adding some humor or indeed accusing someone of lying. I hope it's the former - accusing a Wikipedian of lying is clearly uncivil. Accusing a living person of lying, even on a talk page, is clearcut BLP violation. Please clarify. Wikidemo 02:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, saying "LIES!" is not supposed to be funny or calling anyone a liar, it is saying that the statements are lies. I created this special-purpose account so that my main account wouldn't be tarnished by such mischaracterizations. I have added material to other sections of the article -- have you? You don't seem to understand the difference between WP:BLP and WP:NPA, the latter which I would like you to please study carefully. You have mischaracterized my statements -- not once was I complaining about you as a person, only about your edits. I am not going to waste any further time on your attempt to change the subject until you respond to my original question. Rtp4 12:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Wikidemo, but you have failed to convince me that there is no straw man argument here. I will assume from your response that you are denying my request and that I will just have steel myself to more infuriating comments. I need to get a flu shot soon anyway, so maybe my GP will put me back on the blood-pressure meds while I'm there.

As for your quotation from policy, I agree completely with the reference to criticisms that "are relevant to the subject's notability". I've addressed that aspect several times on this talk page, although those intent on deleting criticisms haven't chosen to respond. If you'll forgive me for quoting myself, one such comment was:

Stossel is a controversialist. Given the nature of his work and his entire public persona, the controversies are more important to his bio than they would be to that of, say, Peter Jennings -- another prominent ABC News on-air personality whose work was of a substantially different nature.

Stossel is in the news a lot more than he otherwise would be precisely because he produces shows that are not objective journalism. His shows argue for his point of view, with the inevitable result that he stirs up controversy. In particular, people who disagree with him are more likely to point out his imbalances, distortions, and outright lies than they would be if he were nonideological. Some readers will come to this article having never heard of Stossel. The article should tell them about the kind of shows Stossel does and about the significant criticisms that have been made. JamesMLane t c 02:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

If he is so controversial and the criticism is significant, then it should be easy to find secondary sources from his competition (FOX, NBC, CBS, CNN, NYT, WSJ, etc.). In many of these criticisms, I don't see sources of John Stossel "in the news" or the "controversy", just MM and FAIR criticism. So again... are these relevant to the subject's notability? He's been with 20/20 for 25 years, a bestselling author, and some barely known self-defined partisan attack organizations are what is being used (in great detail) for an encyclopedia biography to define why John Stossel is notable. They don't merit the weight for the detailed inclusion. Morphh 3:28, 02 October 2007 (UTC)

My experience is that the corporate media, like the ones you name, engage in comparatively little such criticism of each other. (They express disagreements but they don't often attack each other's journalistic standards. They seem to think, probably with some justice, that it's "inside baseball" stuff that their mass audience doesn't care much about.) I don't agree with the dismissal of MMfA and FAIR, for reasons I've stated in this edit and others. Finally, there's no basis for charging that these organizations are being used to define what makes him notable. The article should certainly report his broadcast career, his Emmys, his books, etc. JamesMLane t c 04:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

To the extent we have a standard it is that criticism sections have to be relevant to the subject's notability. If I accept the argument, his notability is for raising controversial subjects, not for being a bad journalist. The so-called "criticisms" sections I deleted are not about his taking controversial positions, or even about his being controversial. They are simply about alleged failures of his journalistic integrity. Even if true they do not go to his notability, it is simply saying he is bad at what he does. If we've already established that he gets his facts wrong, adding a second or third or fourth incident as a litany does not add to our coverage, it simply adds WP:WEIGHT to the partisan claim that he is a bad journalist. Wikidemo 08:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know of any standard that requires this kind of hairsplitting. He's not being criticized for generalized inaccuracies; he's being criticized for decisions he makes in pursuit of his advocacy journalism -- the imbalance of opinions presented, the selectivity of the factual presentation, and the outright lies. I simply don't understand how, in a bio of a jorunalist, someone could argue that particular subjects should be excluded because "hey are simply about alleged failures of his journalistic integrity." That's not peripheral; it's absolutely fundamental. Nor do I think we've "established that he gets his facts wrong". Some readers would consider that point established after one incident. Others wouldn't be convinced by five incidents. There's no numerical quota on criticisms. The significant criticisms should be included. Some of Stossel's critics (or, perhaps more precisely, ABC's critics) find his subsequent mistakes quite significant. The significance is that, in the face of his prior record, he remains as an ABC correspondent with a high salary and, even more striking, with the continued freedom to shape his broadcasts as he does. JamesMLane t c 09:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

If we've cut to the chase here and found the real question, the answer is a simple "no." Misplaced Pages is not about assessing people's abilities or integrity in their profession. IIn bios we report what their profession is, their relevant accomplsihments and details. Why they did it, what effect it has, what people think of them, how it has influenced people. But we don't get into arguments over how good they are at doing it, or whether their opinion is true.Wikidemo 10:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree that Misplaced Pages shouldn't adopt any particular assessment of the bio subject's abilities or integrity. We report opinions rather than adopting them. We give a fair presentation of each significant opinion, properly attributed, along with a statement of the major facts upon which each side relies. Thus we do "get into arguments" in the sense of providing information about those arguments, because many readers will want some information of that sort. We don't "get into arguments" in the sense of telling the reader which conclusion we draw. We don't say either "John Stossel is a bought-and-paid-for corporate shill" or "John Stossel is a fine reporter who's being unfairly attacked by ideologues." I haven't seen anyone arguing seriously in favor of the latter type of edit, though.

I also agree with you that we don't undertake a general inquiry into whether the bio subject's opinion is true. This article is not the appropriate place for a comprehensive pro-and-con debate about whether education should be privatized, whether AIDS research funding should be decreased, etc. All that should be considered for inclusion here is material related specifically to Stossel and to his forays into these subjects. JamesMLane t c 10:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's my belief that "John Stossel is a fine reporter who's being unfairly attacked by ideologues." Not exactly sure what "type of edit" I'm not making, but NPOV should work fine. Andyvphil 12:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I gathered you held that opinion. My point is that, as best I can remember, you haven't edited the article to insert an assertion that your opinion is true, just as I haven't edited it to add my view that he's a shill. Either statement, if included in the article as fact instead of attributed opinion, would indeed violate NPOV. (At least we can agree on something.) JamesMLane t c 16:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Why Media Matters is not a reliable source

I am copying stuff I already posted above to here because I'm sure it has been overlooked by many people. WP:BLP requires reliable secondary sources in biographies. So, with that in mind, here's a little info about Media Matters:

Media Matters' CEO, David Brock, has admitted to intentionally lying and intentionally defaming people—such as Anita Hill—in the past. To quote Amazon.com's review of one of his books, "David Brock made his name (and big money) by trashing Anita Hill as 'a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.' But it was Brock's reporting that was nutty and slutty, he confesses in the riveting memoir Blinded by the Right. He absolves Hill; claims he helped Clarence Thomas threaten another witness into backing down..." While Media Matters CEO David Brock has changed his politics, there is no reason to believe he has changed his dishonest methods. --JHP 00:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Posted regarding the Health Care Criticism section:

The problem is that it is very easy to present objective facts in a way that misleads readers. That's what Media Matters does. For example, Media Matters complained that "During the program, Moore was interviewed on air for a total of 1:40, while the five free-market advocates were interviewed on air for a total of 6:24." What Media Matters conveniently omits is that Stossel spent a very large part of the program describing the problems of sick Americans who can't get insurance. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards would have loved that part of the show, because it showed how screwed up America's health care system can be. Media Matters also omits that Stossel did a report on Sicko one week earlier and interviewed Michael Moore then, too. (He probably did one interview with Moore but split it over two weeks.) In addition, since John Stossel is an advocacy journalist and he was advocating Health Savings Accounts as a potential fix for America's high health care costs during this particular episode, it's not unreasonable for him to have given more air time to experts who can explain the benefits of Health Savings Accounts. --JHP 04:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's another example of Media Matters' distortions. Media Matters says, "Stossel failed to report that the World Health Organization ranks both countries ahead of the United States in its ranking of world health systems." Media Matters is talking specifically about his Good Morning America appearance, but Stossel explained on 20/20 why the World Health Organization report is misleading. In addition, three weeks prior to Media Matters' criticism, Stossel had also discussed the World Health Organization report here. Stossel wrote, "The WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But that's a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That's not a health-care problem. Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada. When you adjust for these 'fatal injury' rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation. Diet and lack of exercise also bring down average life expectancy. Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how 'fairly' health care of any quality is 'distributed.' The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but 'unequal distribution' would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution."

Media Matters is being blatantly dishonest. After Stossel has already stated that the U.S. ranked low on WHO's health care study and explained why their health care study is flawed, Media Matters comes back and accuses Stossel of not telling people that the U.S. is ranked low on the WHO health care study. So here's the question, does Stossel get lots of criticism because he's a bad reporter, or does he get lots of criticism because there is ONE very outspoken organization that is not being honest in its characterization of him? Here's another question I have asked several times in the past, why do Wikipedians keep going back to Media Matters as their "reliable source" whose claims are very often unsubstantiated by any other organization? --JHP 07:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

In summary, Media Matters is headed by a guy—David Brock—who has a history of trashing the reputations of people he disagrees with. He freely admits this in one of his own books. In addition, having actually watched Stossel's recent reports on Health Care, I found it very easy to catch Media Matters distorting Stossel's journalism. --JHP 07:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I, for one, didn't overlook your attack on Media Matters for America (MMfA). Nevertheless, I can understand your feeling, because I can't escape the conviction that you and others have overlooked several things that I wrote. The most important is that your application of "reliable sources" to the presentation of controversy is totally mistaken. You've overlooked the distinction between facts and opinions. I addressed the point in this edit; I won't recopy it, but it applies to much of what you've repeated here.

Your character assassination of Brock refers to his time as a Stosselesque hired liar for the American right. He didn't just "change his politics"; he recognized that, as compared with liberals, conservatives had devoted much more effort to manipulating the media, including the creation of their "noise machine" and their willingness to distort and lie. He decided he belonged in the reality-based community, which is why the right-wing American Spectator decided it had no further use for his services. At any rate, I find it telling that, in all your relentless criticism of MMfA, there's not one single instance in which you can point to a false statement concerning a matter of fact. You disagree with the organization's interpretation, spin, emphasis, etc., but MMfA hasn't issued any knee-slappers remotely comparable to Stossel's false claim to have tested produce for pesticides or his false claim that Parkinson's Disease kills more people than AIDS or any of several others. If Brock is so dishonest it should be easy for you to catch him in something comparable in his many attacks on Stossel.

Health care: MMfA makes an allegation about the allocation of time on the show. That's the factual statement and I haven't seen anyone dispute it. Now, how significant is it that Stossel gave so much more time to the free-market people? That's a matter of opinion. It's not a matter of MMfA saying something that "misleads the readers". MMfA is allowed to criticize this particular show without trying to take account of every other show Stossel has ever done (let alone every article or book he's ever written). It's certainly open to Stossel's defenders to present properly sourced information that would support a different conclusion, such as that Stossel does some pro-left shows and some pro-right shows and so overall he's balanced. I doubt that that's true, but I wouldn't be surprised if some right-wing columnist has said it is. Finally, if you think that Stossel's choice of whom to interview is "not unreasonable", fine, you're entitled to your opinion. Others disagree with you. We can report the conflicting opinions (attributing each to a prominent spokesperson), and state the facts on which each side relies, and let the readers form their own judgments. (Your comment is an illustration of the very distressing tendency on this page for editors to decide that the article shouldn't report an opinion if they, the editors, disagree with it or consider it "not well founded". That approach is not consistent with NPOV.)

WHO rankings: MMfA was, as you yourself note, commenting on Stossel's Good Morning America appearance. The MMfA statement about that appearance was, as far as I know, true. That Stossel presented additional information in a different telecast or in a written article may well be true but it doesn't mean that MMfA's description of the Good Morning America appearance was an "example of Media Matters' distortions", let alone that it was "blatantly dishonest", as you charge. Here again you haven't pointed to any factual inaccuracy by MMfA. Plenty of people would have seen Good Morning America without being exposed to the other commentary, so MMfA has a basis for choosing to analyze the Good Morning America appearance on its own. That's precisely the kind of judgment call that Stossel himself makes. For example, to cite one of the passages under dispute here, Stossel was doing a show about gender differences and decided not to include some experts whose views differed from his. Let's assume that nothing in that particular show was an outright lie. There remains the fact that there were additional truthful statements he could have presented, just as MMfA could have chosen to do a comprehensive analysis of the entire Stossel oevre on health care. In both instances, someone made a selection of which facts to report. You would scream bloody murder if the Misplaced Pages article about Stossel made the leap from that choice to stating that he had engaged in "distortions" or that he was "blatantly dishonest" -- and you'd be right to object. (By the way, as I noted in an earlier comment, BLP applies to comments on talk pages. Under some of the militant interpretations of BLP that I've seen, any editor would be justified in deleting your attack on MMfA from this talk page. I won't do so because I don't agree with those interpretations. You're protected by the distinction between fact and opinion that I mentioned above. Your comment is not a BLP violation, but neither is a passage in the article reporting (without adopting) an opinion that Stossel is dishonest and unreliable.)

The alleged "campaign" against poor John Stossel: You ask, "does Stossel get lots of criticism because he's a bad reporter, or does he get lots of criticism because there is ONE very outspoken organization that is not being honest in its characterization of him?" First, Stossel gets plenty of criticism outside MMfA. If you look at the list of references you'll see that criticism can be found in The Nation, Brill's Content, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as from organizations like FAIR, Media Transparency, and the Environmental Working Group. Beyond that, I should think the answer to your first question is pretty obvious. The main reason Stossel gets lots of criticism, compared to other reporters, is that he does "advocacy journalism". Michael Moore gets lots of criticism, too. The big difference is that Stossel works for a large established news organization that has standards for objectivity, fairness, conflict of interest, etc., and that applies those standards to its other reports, but that doesn't apply them to Stossel. Offhand, I can't think of anyone else in the employ of the major corporate media who is officially allowed to be such a partisan while nominally serving as a journalist. Judith Miller was fired from the Times for much less than what ABC lets Stossel do. (Obviously, I'm not counting people who write opinion columns or who appear on Point/Counterpoint-type programs, where advocacy is expected.) I think Stossel would draw more criticism than most reporters just on that basis, even if he were scrupulously accurate in his facts. But, of course, he's not scrupulously accurate -- far from it. It's not every day that the likes of ABC has to issue a formal apology for a false report. Whether it's fair to conclude that Stossel is "a bad reporter" can be debated, but it's undeniable that he presses his advocacy to the limit of what he can get away with. In the process, he gives his critics plenty of ammunition. As a result, he gets criticized.

In conclusion, I suggest again that, if you think a particular criticism from MMfA or any other source is ill-founded, the solution is not to try to expunge it from the article. The solution is to add reports of opposing opinions, properly attributed to prominent spokespersons per WP:NPOV. People who see an alleged "imbalance" in the article should right it by providing more information, instead of by removing information. I would guess that some such information could be generated if people would devote to that task a fraction of the effort that's going into attacking MMfA and FAIR. JamesMLane t c 09:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Much of this criticism along with a rebuttal doesn't merit devoting detailed content. Aside from major controversies such as the pesticides, many of these should not be expanded in regard to specific issues (to do so would violate NPOV weight). "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Misplaced Pages (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." I'm not saying we should remove it altogether, but appropriate weight must be applied to the criticism, particularly in a BLP. Take the major issues (those with good secondary sources) and provide some detail and then take all the other issues and write them into a single paragraph. This would provide appropriate weight to Stossel's controversies in his biography, while maintaining the points that he has been criticized for additional issues or topics (detailed in the references). They are examples for distortion of facts, balance of coverage, and conflict of interest. Each issue does not merit it's own point by point as, based on sources, some criticism is from an extremely small minority. Morphh 14:22, 02 October 2007 (UTC)

JamesMLane, I did not overlook what you had written. I just realized you were wrong. You wrote, "The most important is that your application of 'reliable sources' to the presentation of controversy is totally mistaken. You've overlooked the distinction between facts and opinions." However, to quote WP:BLP, "The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources...". It does not say "facts claimed by critics"; it says "views of critics". Views can be opinions or someone's characterization of the facts. Furthermore, you don't seem to know what a secondary source is. Media Matters is a primary source regarding its own opinion, not a secondary source. Therefore you cannot use a Media Matters article as a source when adding Media Matters' opinion to the article. If you have a New York Times article reporting Media Matters' opinion, then you can add Media Matters' opinion to the article by using the New York Times as your source. Media Matters would be the primary source and the New York Times would be the secondary source. Only the secondary source is allowed to be used as a reference regarding critics' views on living people. When the issue at hand is a violation of WP:BLP, you keep going to other Misplaced Pages policies and citing them as if citing them allows you to violate WP:BLP. It does not. We are required to adhere to all Misplaced Pages policies, and adhering to one does not allow us to violate another. In summary, when it comes to facts, reliable sources is the requirement. When it comes to the views of critics, reliable secondary sources is the requirement. Let me also say that I noticed your little comment on your user page that says you are "Biased against the right wing". While I commend you for your anti-right-wing bias, it has no place on Misplaced Pages. Your comment that David Brock was a "Stosselesque hired liar for the American right" suggests that your bias is playing a major part in your editing of this article. By the way, I'm the guy who originally added the Brill's Content article to this article. --JHP 00:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

One more thing, Media Matters is not a living person by any stretch of the imagination. (By that standard, the Republican Party and Altria would also be "living people".) David Brock is a living person, so I tried to rely heavily on a book review of his own book. However, I felt it was necessary to point out that an unreliable source is repeatedly being used as a reliable source in violation of WP:BLP. In order to do this, I needed to point out the history of Media Matters' founder and CEO. I felt caught in the middle of a catch 22 situation. There is other interesting stuff on the Web about Brock and Media Matters that I intentionally left out. --JHP 01:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't have time to respond in detail (RL concerns intrude), but let me ask one quick question. Under your interpretation of BLP, it would seem improper for the Sicko article to mention Stossel's criticism of Moore by citing to Stossel's Wall Street Journal article (or, as some might choose to call it, Stossel's attack piece). One would have to wait until some other source cited Stossel. Is that your view? It seems to me to be clearly wrongheaded, both in this article and in that one, but I want to make sure I understand your position. JamesMLane t c 04:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting predicament. As you phrased it, yes, I would say if Stossel's criticism of either Michael Moore or Tracy Pierce was mentioned in the SiCKO article, and Stossel's article was used as the source, then the criticism should be removed if the criticism is a view rather than a fact. (I would tend to presume Stossel's criticism belongs in the "view" category and Sanjay Gupta's criticism belongs in the "fact" category, because of the types of journalism each man normally engages in.) However, Stossel's criticism of the movie could remain, because a movie is not a living person. However, if you could not decouple criticism of the movie from criticism of the person, then WP:BLP would take precedence and the criticism should be removed.

As I look at the Sicko article, however, I don't see Stossel's article used as a source. Instead I see the letter from Julie Pierce hosted on michaelmoore.com used as a source. In this case, the BLP section on self-published sources might apply. (If michaelmoore.com hosts Julie Pierce's letter, is it self-published?) In this case WP:BLP says, "Material that has been self-published by the subject may be added to the article only if...it does not involve claims about third parties". Here's the real kicker. Stossel wrote a response to her letter here. I would say that's not self-published, because ABC News is the publisher. (I think self-publishing refers to personal web sites, blogs, and books from vanity presses.) If we judge that they are not self-published, perhaps we could use Julie Pierce's letter as a source for Stossel's original criticism, and then use Stossel's response as a source for Julie Pierce's response. Sorry if that's too much of an iffy answer. As WP:BLP says, "An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is 'do no harm'." I would say if in doubt, take it out. I am willing to bet there are WP:BLP violations in the Michael Moore and Michael Moore controversies articles, but I haven't looked through them. --JHP 06:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I made some rewording edits of the "controversies" section. Someone else removed some of the, which I don't have a position on but it looks fine. Someone, I'm sure, will look at my wordings and say "that guy is making Stossel look good" or presenting the issues in the best light in favor of Stossel. That's probably a correct assessment! This is a bio of a living person. (didn't someone mention that before?) However, the comments are accurate and well supported, including the part about how he got a reprimand instead of being suspended because he tried to correct the mistake - It's also pretty clear it was a mistake, not intentional (but some don't agree, I know, but remember we're presenting in in the best light) that's right from the sources. I know some might not agree and just "have to" have the little digs in there.SecretaryNotSure 14:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Your rewording makes the article worse in several respects. Because of the protection, I can't correct it, so I'll start a separate thread below where we can discuss what we'll do when the protection expires. JamesMLane t c 16:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested edit protect

I've reverted a portion of the derogatory information, and asked for edit protection.

Although I believe all five of the most contentious paragraphs need to go, I am only removing the two most appropriate at this time that are not covered by WP:3RR. This would only be my third removal of the material in 24 hours, but I don't even want to get close to 3RR. In fact, I shouldn't have to deal with this kind of material even once, much less three times. As per WP:BLP, "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material...about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Misplaced Pages articles" and "the three-revert rule does not apply to its removal." We're not even supposed to be talking bout this, much less edit warring over it. If anyone cannot see why this press release by a partisan organization is a bogus source for impugning the integrity of a living journalist, it seems to be time for administrators to step in.

People are not taking BLP seriously. I have been trying to help as a neutral party who is not interested in the outcome other than to maintain Misplaced Pages policy standards. However, it appears that there is no middle ground. For me to continue insisting on BLP compliance I would have to get sucked into an edit war on an issue that I have no stake in. I am therefore going to bow out for the moment and let Misplaced Pages's dispute-related procedures take their course. Wikidemo 14:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The press release that you savage as an alleged "bogus source" makes factual assertions (about what Stossel said and about the real world) and expresses opinions based on that analysis. The distinction is crucial.

For example, you've removed the passage about Stossel's false report concerning Parkinson's Disease and AIDS. The press release doesn't say, "We're FAIR and we're experts on public health, so when we tell you that Stossel is wrong, you should believe us." If that were the pitch, then whether FAIR is a "partisan organization" might be relevant to assessing the weight of the critique (although that fact wouldn't be dispositive; environmental groups and trade associations can reasonably be cited as sources for areas within their expertise, provided that the source is properly identified whenever the point at issue is contentious). What the FAIR press release actually says, though, is that (1) Stossel said Parkinson's Disease kills more people than AIDS; and (2) AIDS is on the CDC's list of top causes of death, and Parkinson's Disease isn't. I see no reason to believe that FAIR would lie about two points that are so easy to check. (Your completely unsubstantiated impugnment of FAIR's integrity is itself arguably a BLP violation, but let that pass for the moment.) Consider all of Stossel's/ABC's resources, plus outfits like the misleadingly named Accuracy in Media that try to depict the corporate media as biased toward the left (!), plus the numerous right-wing columnists who would love to discredit FAIR any way they could. Do you believe that no one would have called out FAIR on this if FAIR were misreporting either Stossel's broadcast or the CDC data? Could FAIR have survived this long as a prominent media watchdog group if it made a practice of lying about what a broadcast actually said or about the contents of published government reports?

It's a completely knee-jerk application of BLP to say, in effect, that FAIR doesn't exist, and to remove such passages without regard to the nature of the reliance being placed on FAIR. For most or all of these items, it's not as if FAIR were claiming to have inside information that's not publicly available. JamesMLane t c 16:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing knee jerk about removing defamatory sources about living people. If the words of BLP mean anything it is to eschew this kind of material. The press release may serve its purpose in the world of politics and punditry, but it is indeed bogus as a source of contentious information in Misplaced Pages about a living person. The headline of the piece is "Stossel's Distortions Finally Catching Up With Him?" and in the very first sentence it accuses him of "fabricated evidence and distorted facts." In other words, lying. The merit of whatever else it may say is beside the point, it is an attack piece. With all due respect, trying to defend a partisan press release that accuses someone of lying as a reliable source is arguing the untenable. You also seem to be arguing that Misplaced Pages is the place to build a case for who got their facts wrong. That's not the function of a Misplaced Pages article. We traffic in knowledge, not facts. Wikidemo 17:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Since this is the third time James has brought it up, BLP does not apply to FAIR or MM. They are organizations, not a person. To the rest of his discussion, per NPOV it doesn't matter whether it is true or not or whether it can be proved or not. Sourced statements may not deserve detailed content because of the weight appropriate; in this case, a primary source single organization criticism. "Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." - WP:WEIGHT. In these cases, I'm willing to compromise and include the references as an example of the type of criticism, rather then remove it all together. Morphh 17:25, 02 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo, what's knee-jerk is to dismiss everything FAIR says without the slightest regard to what's actually contentious. Whether Stossel is a put-upon victim of leftist ideologues or a shamelessly dishonest corporate shill is contentious. But that's different from something like CDC disease statistics. Do you have the slightest factual basis for asserting or implying that there's anything contentious about FAIR's statement concerning the CDC report?

The headline is irrelevant to that inquiry. You seem to assume that one requirement for being a reliable source under WP:RS is that the source itself comply with WP:NPOV. There is no such requirement. If there were, Stossel's own attack piece on Michael Moore, headlined "Sick Sob Stories", wouldn't qualify, yet Stossel's views are reported in our article about Sicko.

The point isn't whether "Misplaced Pages is the place to build a case for who got their facts wrong." The point is that, in an article about a professional journalist, a serious accusation of factual inaccuracy deserves to be mentioned (along with any defense that Stossel or some other prominent spokesperson has offered). These are facts that contribute to the reader's knowledge about Stossel.

Morphh, the organizations are run by living persons, and I suspect some of them would take umbrage at the implications for their professional integrity that are being casually tossed around on this page. At any rate, if you look at my prior comments, you'll see that I referred to "militant" interpretations of BLP, not all of which I share, which is why I described Wikidemo's post as "arguably" a violation.

I agree with you that NPOV is a separate issue from whether the point can be demonstrated to be true. To take the disease example again, I'm persuaded that FAIR's accusation is true -- for the reason that the vast right-wing noise machine has apparently said nothing in response to it. I think we're justified in simply reporting what appear to be undisputed facts -- that Stossel said Parkinson's kills more but actually AIDS kills more. Nevertheless, if some people are uneasy with that, I could live with rewording the passage so that it makes FAIR's role explicit. It would be something like: "In a 1999 20/20 report pertaining to the allocation of medical research money, Stossel said that Parkinson's disease kills more people than AIDS. FAIR accused Stossel of inaccuracy, citing the Centers for Disease Control report on causes of death, which listed AIDS ahead of Parkinson's." The reference would be the FAIR press release at . That way, any reader who believes that FAIR would lie about the published report will know how much weight to give the criticism. JamesMLane t c 18:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the content, I find it odd that FAIR seems to make almost same argument as Stossel. However, they make the statement that the Parkinson's Disease death rate is similar to AIDS, not higher. Stossel could have a differnt source for his data that put it slightly ahead.. I don't see why this is significant, controversal, or relevant to the subject's notability. Morphh 18:54, 02 October 2007 (UTC)

The link you give is to a different FAIR(!), but it is interesting that the other FAIR's allegation that Stossel lied, on the basis that "The most recent (1997) mortality report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists HIV/AIDS as the 14th leading cause of death in America; Parkinson's does not make the list, which includes the top 15 causes." is here (semi-)contradicted by the claim that the "Parkinson's Disease death rate similar to AIDS yet the NIH spends $148 on each patient $3,040 on each citizen estimated as having HIV/AIDS". I would take it that Stossel got it wrong, but not far wrong, and may have been relying on obsolete data. We can clarify this and I do not interpret OR as prohibiting us from doing so. It is the nature of Misplaced Pages that if we do not provide a canonical treatment of this issue it will be reinserted time and time again, mostly in misleading forms. It is therefor both useful and practical to put a NPOV treatment of the subject in the article, once and for all. If the result doesn't look like a paper encyclopedia, sobeit. Andyvphil 21:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha - That's funny. OMG - Reading it a bit more they support Stossel. FAIR vs. FAIR .. too funny. "Parkinson's Disease & The FAIR Foundation: In every presentation given by The FAIR Foundation, Parkinson's Disease is highlighted in the powerful ABC/ADA John Stossel Video. It features another hero in the battle for more research funding: Joan Samuelson, J.D., who has persevered against PD to be President of the Parkinson’s Action Network. Please take a few moments to view the video HERE (used with authorization--high speed connection required). Morphh 21:32, 02 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what the death rates are for different diseases, but it is very conceivable that you get different death rates depending on whether you measure deaths directly related to a disease or indirectly related. For example, AIDS greatly weakens your immune system, which is why it is called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Many people who get AIDS actually die directly from another disease such as pneumonia. The same may be true for Parkinson's Disease. Therefore, the numbers you get can depend greatly on how you measure. Your statistics can also vary depending on what population you are measuring. The rates for the U.S. may be different than the rates for the developed world, which are almost certainly different than for the entire world. (AIDS rates probably go way up when you count Africa.) You can also get different rates if you measure people who have the disease. What percentage of people who have AIDS die from AIDS compared to what percentage of people who have Parkinson's die from Parkinson's? Finally, the results can vary depending on what time period you are measuring. As Mark Twain reportedly said, "There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." --JHP 23:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The appropriate thing to do is to cover only those criticisms of Stossel that are demonstrably significant as controversies, not those assorted pieces impugning his integrity and competence that strike one as serious allegations if true. I see 2-4 real controversies in the article. Everything else is a mere accusation of error or bias. The final form should be one big paragraph outlining the major controversies, or a short paragraph for each, followed by a one-sentence statement that Stossel has also been accused by media watchdog groups of factual inaccuracies, bias in choosing facts and interviewees, and misrepresenting things that other people have said (or whatever the exact mix is). Accusations can then be sourced for the proposition that they were made and linked to so people can see for themselves, but not cited for the proposition that the criticism is true. If we open ourselves to that, every biography is a potential battleground. I cannot respond to some of the points that seem to be based on things other than actual Misplaced Pages policy. I'll take your word that you don't mean to accuse me of a BLP violation for claiming that an organization's press release is a bad source.Wikidemo 19:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The pesticides issue

I disagree with several aspects of this edit by SecretaryNotSure as it relates to pesticides.

• Role of EWG: It's misleading to say that EWG "questioned" the pesticide result, and that ABC News "discovered" an error. That implies that EWG merely said, "Hmmm, this seems odd to us, are you sure?" and that ABC News did the heavy lifting. If you check the cited source (this article in The New York Times), you'll see that EWG actually did the investigative work itself. EWG contacted the scientists who'd been commissioned to do the testing. EWG then told ABC News what the latter's own sources actually said. It's therefore a more accurate depiction of EWG's role to say, "The Environmental Working Group discovered that the produce samples had been tested only for bacteria...."
• How it happened: The current wording asserts as a fact that it was "an oversight". We can certainly report Stossel's explanation. (He says it was "an inaadvertent error"; it would probably be better to use his exact words, although "oversight" is certainly a reasonable paraphrase.) We should not adopt his explanation, though. We have no reliable source establishing, as undisputed fact, that it really was inadvertent, as opposed to deliberate deceptiveness by Stossel. Therefore, his explanation should be reported but attributed to him.
• What ABC did: The current wording says, "EWG complained the story wasn't corrected in a timely manner." That implies that it was a spat about whether ABC runs the correction now or doesn't get around to it until next week. That wording conceals an undisputed fact that many people consider to be extremely important: ABC didn't merely delay in airing a correction, but rather rebroadcast the false report, uncorrected, even after having been informed of its falsity. The fact of the rebroadcast should certainly be included in this article.
• Why ABC was so lenient with Stossel: The current wording says, "Stossel was only reprimanded in a letter because Stossel had made efforts to correct the error." I'm not aware of any substantiation for that exculpatory spin. Stossel was forced by ABC to correct the error. What one of the cited sources actually says is, "Mr. Stossel and his producer, the message said, were punished not so much for their mistake, 'but for the arrogance of ignoring complaint letters that followed.'" That article also notes that ABC's leniency toward Stossel (i.e., not firing him) has been criticized.

In sum, I don't agree with the view that a Misplaced Pages bio article should adopt spin in favor of the subject. JamesMLane t c 17:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

NotSure's edit needs to be reverted, because it gets everything wrong. This is so clear that I hope we can even get NotSure to agree and have the reversion performed during the block. And, BTW, Wikidemo, asking protection immediately after you edit is bad form. Andyvphil 21:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

You'll do well to avoid attacking me. I've been completely open and straightforward about what I'm doing here. Wikidemo 22:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for falling into the brouhaha. I didn't ask for locking the page or know it was going to be. If I knew my words were going to be enshrined like the placard on the Voyager spaceship, I would have choosen them more carefully. But here's the thinking behind the wording for of the "organic food" kafuffle.

• The reference at NY Times says:

"The doctors' denials were first brought to light by the Environmental Working Group, which supports the consumption of organic produce. Members talked to the doctors after the report. In a letter to Mr. Stossel, the group asked for an explanation." They "talked to" the doctor; they "asked for" an explanation from ABC News. To me that's sounds like "questioning" because that's what they did, they questioned the doctor and then asked ABC news a question. Yes, I'm trying to avoid the term "discovered" because of it's sinister implications. That makes it sound like they barged into the lab and took samples or dug through the dumpster at ABC and found a memo that said "hey john, here's those fake test results you ask for..."

• Barring any evidence to the contrary if they say it was a mistake it was a mistake. That's why I said it was an oversight. Because I thought that sounded more encyclopedic than "they finally figured out dumbass didn't do the right tests."
• Yes, some of those statements were repeated (the entire report wasn't "rebroadcast") even after EWG "notified them" of their doubts, or after "EWG told them." it was wrong. Well, lets be realistic, do they pull reports off the air because someone says it's wrong? Or, do they investigate first, then decide if the report is wrong or not? The later, of course. The EWG is evidently upset that they didn't "listen to them" right away, that would have avoided repeating the error. In other words, EWG says ABC news didn't act fast enough, they took too much time to investigate. That's why I chose the words "in a timely manner." What's the other choice? Should we say "EWG demanded ABC news immediately change any news story once they are notified..." or "ABC failed to immediately remove the error when a guy from EWG called them up and said it was wrong..." or something like that?

Not only that, the 2nd broadcast sounds like it was part of the routine schedule, so it doesn't seem that significant. It seems like it was a case of the investigation going on (and it took too long) and the broadcast schedule going on also.

• The producer was suspended but not Stossel. The Wendy McElroy article mentions this: "...Stossel escaped suspension himself because he had forwarded mail disputing the segment’s accuracy onto Fitzpatrick for investigation. " And the NY Times article says "Shelley Ross, ... sent an e-mail to her staff members, warning them to take all complaints about their reports seriously. Mr. Stossel and his producer, the message said, were punished not so much for their mistake, but for the arrogance of ignoring complaint letters that followed. Both of those together suggest, (since it was the producer that was punished) that the reason Stossel wasn't suspended was because he did pass on the complaints for investigation, hence the wording that Stossel made efforts to fix the error.

We do know that he was told to issue an apology, I guess. So did ABC news. But we don't know if Stossel would have apologized with or without being told to, so all we can say is they both (ABC news and Stossel) apologized and that they corrected the error.SecretaryNotSure 00:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"The Environmental Working Group questioned that result, and ABC news discovered that through an oversight the produce samples had been tested only for bacteria."

1) It's misleading to say "EWG questioned that result". They questioned the bacteria claims, but they fully debunked the existance of any pesticide result (except on chicken, which results weren't used). And they said Stossel was making up test results and should be fired. Saying they "questioned" whether Stossel was right to say that neither sample had pesticide residue, while technically true, doesn't capture this.

2)The implication of the sentence is that ABC News responded to EWG's "questioning" and discovered an "oversight" on the part of someone who ordered or performed the tests. No, and no. What they responded to was a NY Times article, not EWG. And there is no reason to believe that not testing the produce samples for pesticides was a "oversight". There was never any intention nor was it necessary to test the produce for pesticides -- the focus was organic fertilization and bacteria. To put it another way, the error was introduced in the scriptwriting, not the testing.

"...some of those statements were repeated (the entire report wasn't 'rebroadcast')...the 2nd broadcast sounds like it was part of the routine schedule, so it doesn't seem that significant. It seems like it was a case of the investigation going on (and it took too long) and the broadcast schedule going on also."

3) The first broadcast was in Feb. 2000, the rebroadcast in July. Dunno why you think the entire report wasn't rebroadcast. It was, and a segment was added where Stossel said he had been questioned about the pesticide claims and claimed he did indeed have the test results to back it up. The investigation by ABC News hadn't gone on too long at that point -- it hadn't begun.

"...Stossel had made efforts to correct the error."

4) Again, misleading. Stossel wrote his producer to confirm that the tests he thought had taken place had actually taken place, and accepted the latter's assurances they had. This is not an "effort to correct an error". You have to acknowledge there is an error before you can attempt to correct it. Andyvphil 13:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.

• I don't see much of a difference. The EWG "questioned." That's what they did. To say something was "thoroughly debunked" implies something more.

• We don't know "why" anyone did anything. Was it the EWG letter? Was it the NY times? Something else? How do we know what caused them to fix the error or what "got their attention?"

• By jove! You're right about how the segment was rebroadcast. I was confused by the reams of text and some reference to a blurb on "ABC world news now" or something. I'm firing my editor and I'm going to issue an apology for my error. I'm kidding. It doesn't make one iota of difference if they rebroadcast it 100 times, the point is exactly the same -- EWG didn't think the error was fixed fast enough, and they're probably right, it should have been fixed faster, hence the language about "not timely"

• Like you just said, Stossel forwarded concerns to his producer, that, by definition, is "made efforts" to fix it. I don't agree that you have to know it's an error before you can fix the error. First you have to find out if it's an error.

Let me just add to the kafuffle one little thought. I'll probably regret saying this, but from reading all that stuff about this issue, it looks to me like the main point of Stossel's report was basically true and the error about the testing didn't really matter much. So I say "give him a break!"SecretaryNotSure 18:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me point out that there are a bunch of defenses of John Stossel's organic food error here. None of these defenses are mentioned at all in this article. Instead, only the negative stuff is mentioned. Despite all the criticism Stossel got about his error regarding what tests were done, the overlooked fact about Stossel's organic food report is "Most of it reflected conventional wisdom among scientists". Media Research Center wrote, "MediaNomics went to the videotape, and found that the wrong comments about pesticides were just two sentences in a report that lasted nearly ten minutes. Stossel’s main point -- that consumers are buying expensive organic foods because they mistakenly believe they are more nutritious -- was amply documented and hasn’t been contradicted by any of his critics." The same technique that conservatives use to discredit Michael Moore is used by progressives to discredit Stossel: highlight the minor errors to get people to overlook the fact that the major points are mostly correct. By highlighting the negatives and overlooking the positives, Wikipedians are furthering their cause. --JHP 21:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Example

Ok, I figured we should probably start some examples to discuss.

So here is a very quick and rough sample of what I'm thinking. Could be expanded and reworded but the idea is a few paragraphs focusing on the major controversies, with references to smaller criticism in a final paragraph. Let me have it... (cringing).. Morphh 15:17, 03 October 2007 (UTC)

Where are the lies that he never even denied? Like Parkinson's/AIDS and the change in incomes? Where is Julie Pierce's main point, that Stossel didn't contact her or her doctors before writing about them and her husband? Acct4 15:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, it could be expanded. However, I don't think the Parkinson's AIDS thing should be included.. we're discussing it above and laughing about the FAIR vs. FAIR. Perhaps footnotes on "alleged distortion of facts" but the fact that he hasn't responded makes it even less notable. Julie's comments are refered in the footnote for those that want to read it. Is that really a major point of controversy - Julie's feelings were hurt by Stossel? Poor Julie, but again, discuss and summarize major points. Morphh 16:08, 03 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you serious? I strongly disagree. Reporters are expected to refrain from lying to support a point they are trying to make, and transgressions are very serious. I have stricken your personal attack against Ms. Pierce. The fact that Stossel made no attempt to contact her or her physicians before writing about them is a serious breach of one of the first rules journalists are taught. If you continue to make personal attacks against the subjects we are discussing then this will require mediation. Acct4 16:35, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

We have several references that make the point of distortions of fact, and I included this one in the second paragraph. Stossel (or likely what would be the shows producer or staff) have no requirement or obligation to speak to Julie. Julie was part of a movie and thus a public figure and is open to media discussion without further contact. Now, it is a nice thing to do but they don't need her permission and it certainly is not an exception to the rule. People write about public figures every second of every day, what makes Julie special. I'm not saying I agree with it but we're talking about points that go toward the notability of John Stossel. What does Stossel not calling Julie (referenced in one self published aritlce), if that's even Stossel's job at ABC, have anything close to do with his notability, a bestselling author with over 25 years on 20/20? As far as personal attacks, that goes for something like me attacking you on wikipedia, not public figures (unless I do some major BLP violation) and I wasn't meaning it as an attack, just that it was not worth mentioning. Morphh 17:06, 03 October 2007 (UTC)

What does being a public figure (which, per New York Times Co. v. Sullivan she certainly is not) have to do with whether it is appropriate to get comment from those being reported on? Do you think that if you wanted to write a story about the quality of Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's treatment that you would somehow be absolved from attempting to contact his doctors for comment? That is preposterous. If there are any journalism authorities which agree with you, please bring them to our attention. But there are none, because being a public figure bears on the question of whether defamatory statements are legally actionable in the absence of actual malice, and not on the fundamental responsibility of a journalist to make sure they are informed from both sides of a story. (For example, Rush Limbaugh, certainly a public figure, complains today that, "Not one member of the media, not one congressman, nobody has called our office to ask, 'Did you really say this? And what did you mean by it?'") Acct4 17:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think your Limbaugh statement actually proves my point, that Media often don't contact who they're writing about. You still have not address how this is notable but I'll add it in. I don't agree but we're here to work toward compromise and this is something I can live with. Morphh 18:04, 03 October 2007 (UTC)

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/03/msnbc-rush-no-comment/ CBGBxxx 21:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not as if Mrs. Pierce, when she weighed in, had much to contribute on Stossel's subject besides misinformation about Canada. I haven't read Stossel's op-ed, since it's on a paysite, but as I understand it his point was that the expensive experimental treatment she was demanding wasn't going to be paid for by any form of health care, insurance or socialized. There are a lot of kidney and urinary tract cancers and if only 106 Americans and 4 Canadians got bone marrow transplants as treatment of them in the most recent five year period...that miniscule percentage has "experimental" written all over it. And, no, if Michael Moore puts a documentary in the theaters no one has to reinterview his subjects before observing in print that they are engaging in misleading BS. Andyvphil 11:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I updated the Example with wikilinks and references so you get a better idea. This includes the changes suggested by Acct4 above, but does not include the changes suggested by SecretaryNotSure debated in the prior section. It is not that I disagree with SecretaryNotSure, I haven't even looked at it.. but since it is being debated, I thought it best to leave it out for now and adjust later after we reach some agreement on the base content and format. Morphh 21:39, 04 October 2007 (UTC)

Added some tweaks. Andyvphil 23:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The page lock will be removed tomorrow if we have come to some agreement. Is everyone ok with the above example as a replacement for the current Controversies list? We can make little tweaks here and there once it is in but if everyone is good with this as a base compromise, we can move forward. Morphh 20:13, 05 October 2007 (UTC)

I certainly don't care for the contentless final paragraph except as a summary. There should be a fuller treatment of the various accusations against Stossel, but I am considering the desirablity of a sub-article entitled Stossel and his Critics or somesuch to allay the concerns of those who think the subject overweights the main article. So, I'll acquiesce in the substitution but am not endorsing the underlying idea of the paragraph form and don't really agree that anything is settled. Andyvphil 22:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I've been watching this from the sidelines and think some people have axes to grind and seem to be becoming "owners" and fanatics of this article. I oppose adding the "supposed" conflicts, per the consensus discussion that has run it's course and will follow the discussion outcome. This article unfortunately is being prevented from article development because of edit wars and agendas. Media Matters has been questioned by many reputable journalists, organizations, and in many articles as a reliable source because of the known bias. I am not here to defend Stossel, but I am here to defend the sources being used in WP...or oppose. Again, many of these are non issues and only one organization is pointing the finger. Several well written suggestions have been voiced by several editors and perhaps the controversy is Media Matters trying to discredit Stossel. I support the paragraph format over the list format and I support the non media supported controversies be removed and not included. I may add another comment, but that is the sidelines view of this whole discussion. I am glad the article was locked and would support it being locked again should cool heads not prevail. One last comment, I propose that in the sentence Politically progressive organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), Media Matters for America (MMfA) the words Politically progressive be removed and instead Organizations be used in it's place since self-terms do not necessarily make you such. I can use the term, world renown pianist all I want, but because I don't know how to play piano answers the question much better than my self-termed title. --Maniwar (talk) 21:37, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The purpose is not to conceal information, and the reader should not have to follow blue links or refs to get some idea of FAIR's & MM's orientation. It's left-of-left, and that should be in the article. Andyvphil 22:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

1. http://www.reason.com/news/show/33014.html
2. http://mediamatters.org/items/200601200003
3. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/viewresults.asp
4. Smearing Education Choice
5. http://archive.salon.com/media/feature/2000/02/25/stossel/
6. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020107/dowie/3
7. http://www.thegreatboycott.net/John_Stossel.html
8. http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=761
9. http://mediamatters.org/items/200709160003
10. http://mediamatters.org/items/200709150001
11. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/gratzer.htm
12. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/about_mi.htm
13. For example, adverts, announcements, minor news stories, and coverage with low levels of discrimination, are all examples of matters that may not be notable for the purposes of article creation, despite the existence of reliable sources. For examples of other circumstances also agreed by consensus to override this presumption, see Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not.
14. Examples: The 360-page book by Sobel and the 528-page book by Black on IBM are plainly non-trivial. The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton (Martin Walker (1992-01-06). "Tough love child of Kennedy". The Guardian. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)) is plainly trivial.
15. Self-promotion, autobiography, and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopedia article. The published works should be someone else writing independently about the topic. (See Misplaced Pages:Autobiography for the attribution and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material. Also see Misplaced Pages:Independent sources.) The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the topic itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, author, inventor, or vendor) have actually considered the topic notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus upon it.
16. Including but not limited to newspapers, books and e-books, magazines, television and radio documentaries, reports by government agencies, scientific journals, etc. In the absence of multiple sources, it must be possible to verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view, is credible and provides sufficient detail for a comprehensive article.
17. Lack of multiple sources suggests that the topic may be more suitable for inclusion in an article on a broader topic.
18. Several journals simultaneously publishing articles in the same geographic region about an occurrence, does not always constitute multiple works, especially when the authors are relying on the same sources, and merely restating the same information. Specifically, several journals publishing the same article within the same geographic region from a news wire service is not a multiplicity of works.
19. Works produced by the subject, or those with a strong connection to them, are unlikely to be strong evidence of interest by the world at large. See also: Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest for handling of such situations.
20. See Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of information; #5 News reports.
21. "Give Me a Fake: Stossel Under Fire". Environmental Working Group. 2000-09-06. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
22. Rutenberg, Jim (2000-07-31). "Report on Organic Foods Is Challenged". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-09-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
23. Rutenberg, Jim (2000-08-14). "MEDIA; Apology Highlights ABC Reporter's Contrarian Image". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-09-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
24. McElroy, Wendy (2000-08-15). "Blaspheming Organic Food: The Persecution of John Stossel". LewRockwell.com. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
25. Stossel, John (2000-08-11). "20/20: Stossel Apology for Organic Food Report". ABC News. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
26. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1134
27. Rose, Ted (March 2000) "Laissez-Faire TV: ABC's John Stossel is a man on a mission to teach Americans about the evils of government regulation and the rewards of free enterprise." Brill's Content
28. Johnson, Gene C., Jr. (2007-08-02). "Price Strikes Back at ABC". Los Angeles Wave. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
29. Semuels, Alana (2007-07-25). "Preacher sues '20/20,' alleging defamation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
30. Stossel, John (2007-09-13). "Sick Sob Stories". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
31. Pierce, Julie (2007-09-14). "Open Letter to ABC's John Stossel ... from Julie Pierce, American SiCKO". Michael Moore. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
32. Stossel, John (2007-09-25). "Stossel Responds to 'Sicko' Letter". ABC News. Retrieved 2007-09-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
33. "John Stossel". Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
34. "John Stossel". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
35. "John Stossel". Media Transparency. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
36. http://www.ewg.org/files/tamperingwithtruth_letter.pdf Letter from parents to Mr. Stossel
37. "Stossel Tampers with the Facts". Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. 2001-07-17. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
38. Hart, Peter (2007-05). "In Denial on Climate Change". Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
39. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1887
40. "Stossel presented skewed 20/20 segment on "stupid" public schools". Media Matters for America. 2006-01-19. Retrieved 2007-09-26.
41. http://mediamatters.org/items/200709160003
42. Spencer, Miranda (May/June 1995) "Desperately Seeking Difference: ABC Finds Biology Is Destiny" Extra! (FAIR)
43. http://archive.salon.com/media/feature/2000/02/25/stossel/
44. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020107/dowie/3
45. http://www.thegreatboycott.net/John_Stossel.html
46. http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=761
47. CNN Reliable Sources transcript from the airing of June 30, 2001, 18:30 ET
48. http://www.ewg.org/node/19634
49. Stossel, John (2006-07-26). "Smearing Education Choice". Townhall.com. Retrieved 2007-09-24.

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