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Grinberg

Isi96: You added cites for "scientific studies", starting with Grinberg et al Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election . I have seen a high-level statement about the conclusion: The team began by creating a formal definition of fake news outlets as sources that “lack the news media’s editorial norms and processes for ensuring the accuracy and credibility of information,” defining “fakeness” as an attribute of a publisher rather than an individual story. But how did they determine this? Please share an excerpt of the section where they explain why Daily Caller lacks those things. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:19, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Peter Gulutzan, the additional PDF included with the study (link) mentions The Daily Caller as an example of an "orange" fake news website on pages 18 and 21, and the study's methods for identifying fake news sites are outlined in pages 15-19. Hope that clears things up. Isi96 (talk) 22:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, it does. So they took stories from snopes.com (and categories from Buzzfeed, FactCheck and Politifact) and passed to "independent annotators". I couldn't find out what an annotator is -- sometimes they say "we" but more often it's nameless third persons -- and the only clear mention of how they assigned was about the tweets rather than the sources, i.e. "All tweets we selected for hand-labeling were annotated by at least two workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk". Maybe rather than "scientific studies" one could have speculatively said "some anonymous Amazon Mechanical Turk workers using Snopes", eh? However, Science accepted it, so unless someone else thinks it's undue etc. I'll say no more. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:38, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Greer details in lede

If Greer wrote articles that were not published in The Daily Caller at all, then that should at most be in the body rather than the lede. As far as I am aware, we generally do not delve into extracurricular activities of media part-owners in the lede of the article on that media. BD2412 T 03:41, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

If there is no comment on this, I am going to move this item out of the lede shortly. Cheers! BD2412 T 18:38, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Agree. GenQuest 13:11, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Hit piece

The wording in this article, including the LEDE, makes this article seem like a hit piece, something specifically forbidden here I thought. The lede section as written, with some minor changes, could just as easily be inserted into the NYT lede. But we won't do that, will we? Regards, GenQuest 13:30, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

I generally agree. There is an untoward proliferation of one-sentence sections detailing this or that transgression, and a complete absence of information about the readership/circulation/influence of the site. Notably, the fact that this much-derided site won an Edward R. Murrow Award is noted only in the award section at the end. BD2412 T 14:16, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree. The article should be written in the same way it would be in a section of a journalism textbook about U.S. news sources. You can of course try to improve it. TFD (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: It would be nice to have a collaborative effort to that end. I don't think any of us wants to feel like we're doing the lift all alone. BD2412 T 19:19, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

The discussion has come up before, you can check the archives. I think that the best way to begin is to find articles in quality sources, i.e., textbooks and journal articles and use them as a template for how the topic should be presented. Do you know of any? TFD (talk) 22:05, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

I would be particularly curious about the coverage of their journalism award in 2012. BD2412 T 01:36, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Me too. –dlthewave ☎ 02:57, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

@Dlthewave: I ask in part because Google search results are actually not helpful here. They give 1) the Daily Caller's own announcement of having won; 2) the award bestowing organization's list of awardees; and 3) a lot of noise coincidentally containing both search terms. BD2412 T 03:15, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, if it didn't get much coverage, then the limited coverage in our article makes sense. We reflect things according to the coverage they received and not according to the coverage we feel they ought to have received; it could be that, for whatever reason, that particular award at that particular time is not as prestigious or meaningful as you assumed. --Aquillion (talk) 07:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

It was for writing by Alex Quade for a short doc she made about the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Quade is an established journalist, currently billed as a freelance war correspondent with the ''Daily Caller''. I don't know what the significance is. The ''Daily Caller'' certainly has some well-respected and talented journalists who contribute and that should be mentioned. That doesn't mean it's a great publication, but the article should mention that. TFD (talk) 03:12, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Seeing the alarmingly favorable reaction (not just here, but the subsequent editing) to this sensational thread (which maybe(?) would normally have been deleted immediately as trolling), I'll just leave some thoughts. Avoid whitewashing. Follow WP:Preserve by not deleting but improving content: find more and better sources; improve wording and formatting, and make sure your editing doesn't reveal it's coming from the same right-wing fringe POV as The Daily Caller (one of our worst deprecated sources) so no one suspects fringe whitewashing is occurring. That would be classic tendentious editing. Keep in mind that advocacy of fringe POV is forbidden here, while advocacy of mainstream facts and POV from RS is not forbidden but expected by numerous PAG. Fringe POV have zero due weight here. Also see WP:RSP: "The Daily Caller was deprecated in the 2019 RfC, which showed consensus that the site publishes false or fabricated information." It is still a horrible source, and any sympathetic treatment will be noted. Those are my words of caution. Carry on. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:32, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

You are concerned about "sympathetic treatment" of a media outlet that won an Edward R. Murrow award, which is only mentioned at all in an award section at the end? BD2412 T 03:41, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to improve that mention of a 2012 award. That doesn't expiate the major sins of TDC. It is deprecated for very good reasons, so that award doesn't seem to have much meaning, but it did happen. Just don't give it undue prominence. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:45, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone here is proposing that the source be un-deprecated, but that's really neither here nor there. There are perfectly nice and accurate blogs and other wikis that are unusable as sources on Misplaced Pages, we don't have articles on them cherry-picking every criticism that can be made about them in the most dramatic possible arrangement. BD2412 T 03:51, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

TDC isn't some minor bit player. They wield huge influence in the right-wing and far right-wing bubble, and myriad RS have noticed and documented their positions and writings. We document that. Uncontroversial sources are treated differently by RS and thus also by us. We are not writing a hit piece, but we do document when RS hit TDC. We document when RS describe how they have once again shot themselves in the foot, so don't imply that it's our fault they are always getting in trouble. We mirror the realities of what's happening. Reconsider what you're doing. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:00, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

@Valjean: I've "stayed clean" for the whole of the seventeen years that I've been an administrator here. I know an out-of-balance article when I see one. You say "they wield huge influence in the right-wing and far right-wing bubble", which seems to be an important piece of information. but where is this reflected anywhere in the body of this article? BD2412 T 04:10, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

"According to a study by Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, The Daily Caller was among the most popular right-wing news sites during the 2016 United States presidential election. The study also found that The Daily Caller provided "amplification and legitimation" for "the most extreme conspiracy sites", such as Truthfeed, InfoWars, The Gateway Pundit and Conservative Treehouse."

That seems to indicate that TDC wields huge influence in the right-wing and far right-wing bubble. 192.77.12.11 (talk) 04:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The Murrow award is prestigious to be sure, but most good media organizations win a few of those and a bunch of Pulitzers and maybe a Peabody to boot. Winning an award once in 2012 does not a reliable outlet make. Andre🚐 04:51, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that at least five different organizations give out Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the award that the Daily Caller won in 2012 was one among 99 Edward R. Murrow Awards that particular organization handed out that year. See Edward R. Murrow Award for more information. This particular award appears to be an industry backscratching award by a group that gives out an extremely large number of awards of various names. Cullen328 (talk) 07:02, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not the accuracy of the article that bothers me, it's the tone. The article about the Völkischer Beobachter, which was Nazi Germany's worst propaganda newspaper, so much so that the Nazi government disowned it, is far less strident than this article. That article seeks to tell us about the news medium, while this one seeks to discredit it. I don't accept the argument that since Nazism is dead, we don't have to warn people about it, while the U.S. radical right poses a threat.

Do you not realize that the typical reader will pick up on the tone of this article and say, "Gee, these guys really hate the Daily Caller, wonder why?" and it will have no impact on them. TFD (talk) 05:17, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually, Der Stürmer has a strong claim to be "Nazi Germany's worst propaganda newspaper". And today, we have its modern successor, The Daily Stormer, to either read or ignore. Cullen328 (talk) 07:12, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

You are also incorrect about the Völkischer Beobachter, The Four Deuces. Hitler owned 100% of the shares of that newspaper ever since 1921, well before the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 when it was banned for a while, and it was published continuously under Hitler's ownership until the bitter end of the Nazi dictatorship in April, 1945. Cullen328 (talk) 07:25, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

My mistake, I was confusing it with Der Stürmer. But my point remains. Misplaced Pages shows more animosity toward the Daily called than Der Stürmer, showing that articles can be informative while maintaining a neutral tone. TFD (talk) 23:26, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

That is utter bullshit, The Four Deuces. You can do much better, starting by checking the accuracy of your false assertions before you click the big blue "Publish changes" button. Cullen328 (talk) 06:17, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

You wrote above that so much so that the Nazi government disowned it, and later claimed that you confused the two newspapers, The Four Deuces. While it is true that some Nazi officials disliked Der Stürmer, it is also true that the only Nazi figure who really mattered, Adolph Hitler, loved that vile hate rag and defended it to the very end in his Berlin bunker. Cullen328 (talk) 06:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

This is about a comparison about how we treat a much worse publication compared to how we treat the Daily Caller. Do you agree that the German publication was worse than the Daily Caller? if so, it really doesn't matter what top Nazis thought about it. What we should be discussing is why a neutral tone is used for that article and isn't for this one. Any thoughts? TFD (talk) 15:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

TFD, I don't think anyone is implying that TDC is worse than the German Nazi paper. The difference between our articles is based on the amount of literature and news coverage available to editors. Misplaced Pages is a recent creation and article content reflects the fact that news coverage for old events is of limited availability, so historical events and newspapers are described in a historical context using the sources available now. Much of that is scholarly literature. Obviously, junk sources like TDC are not the focus of serious historians and authors. Unfortunately for old subjects, many, and often most or all, of the contemporary sources at the time are lost to us and cannot be used. Current events, current publications, and websites are treated using currently available sources, the availability and accessibility of which are greatly amplified by the internet. That automatically means that our coverage will be different, and it can't be otherwise. Maybe the article about the German newspaper should be developed more. This TDC article will only get a historical treatment as time goes by, and it is our duty to make sure that happens. We build, not destroy, articles here. That's the whole purpose of Misplaced Pages and the WP:Preserve POLICY exists to limit the damage caused by deletionists. Fix and improve rather than delete. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me)

It's a ridiculous comparison, since there are fewer accessible English recent RS about Nazi publications than modern websites. Andre🚐 23:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

The tone of the article about the Daily Stuermer is neutral. If you formed a worse impression about it than the Daily Caller, it's because it was a far worse publication. But notice the article does not try to persuade readers of that by listing brief comments and anecdotes. In fact, it is more powerful, because of its neutral tone and comprehensive treatment of the topic. TFD (talk) 06:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, which publication are you talking about when you confusingly mention the Daily Stuermer above? Are you taling about Der Stürmer published by Julius Streicher or are you talking about the current publication The Daily Stormer published by Andrew Anglin? How can we make sense out of your comments when they are so ambiguous? Cullen328 (talk) 06:46, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

i was referring to the German paper. Sorry, but my keyboard does not have an umlaut so i was using the English equivalent. Umlauted vowels are written in English by adding an e as in names such as Mueller and Koehler, although some people omit them. TFD (talk) 15:21, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, tone can be a problem. So how do we fix it without violating WP:Preserve? What's missing? Fix that! Unfortunately with your example, there are far more RS about TDC than VB. Current events and currently active sources like TDC do get more coverage here. That's natural, so the comparison doesn't stand up very well. We should describe it better. There must be other aspects that can be included. Regardless of what we do, there will still be fans who feel this is a hit piece, and we'll have to live with that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:24, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

• At the very least I don't think Omeed Malik's tenure is leadworthy. In a quick search, The Hill seems to be the only secondary source that took notice of him at all; and the other articles noting the transfer in ownership quite notably do not mention him. But as far as the tone of the second paragraph of the lead goes... we have to reflect the content and focus in the sources. Saying that they were one of numerous outlets that earned a single award in 2012 doesn't change the overwhelming direction of sources covering them, saying eg:

• The point here is to offer educators a means for teaching this difference through a critical understanding of how conservative news operates to foster "fake news" that often begins on forums and online blogs with little credibility and zero accountability and ends in content created by major conservative media outlets such as Fox News, The Daily Caller website, and others.
• The right-wing media sphere is very interconnected, and websites tend to legitimize each other and circulate the same information across social media platforms. Websites like Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, Campus Reform, Gateway Pundit, and many more are known entities for spreading unreliable junk.
• In interviews, staff at the Daily Caller News Foundation walked a line between being explicit about the publication’s political stance, and being covert.
• And the stridently white-nationalist and anti-immigrant Daily Caller website, which cofounder Tucker Carlson left in June 2020 to focus on his top-rated primetime Fox News program, makes a point of inviting readers to report any errors, which it promises will be “hastily" corrected "so that our readers can get the real story." Publicly accepting and correcting one's mistakes is, of course, usually understood as a prime signal of professional integrity, and the extent of a news organization's willingness to do so honestly offers a yardstick for measuring just how serious its commitment is to factual accuracy. The Daily Caller, however, doesn't quite work that way.

Those are the sorts of sources that fill the top page of a Google Scholar search for recent coverage of the Daily Caller; and they're from high-quality academic publishers. Maybe there are other sources we're missing, but "they won one award a decade ago, how can all this other stuff be WP:DUE" isn't really reasonable on the face of it - the tone of our lead reflects the way the Daily Caller is covered in the vast majority of high-quality academic sources that go into depth on it. It is not an exaggeration to say that academic sources regularly use the Daily Caller as a standard go-to example when discussing "junk news" or similar concepts. --Aquillion (talk) 07:41, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the article be rewritten to portray the article subject as a high-quality source. The problem is, this could be moved pretty much as-is to a title like "list of criticisms of The Daily Caller", putting everything purportedly negative to be said about the subject on equal footing, whether the incident was in the larger picture trivial or not. Again, there is a glaring lack of context for the significance of the subject within the ecosystem of journalism. Perhaps the answer to this will be "so fix it", but it should not have gotten to a place where there is almost exclusively a relentless focus on criticisms in the first place. BD2412 T 13:26, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Start by blaming RS for that focus, not editors. Our job is to document how RS treat the subject. RS determine the due weight we give content. Good and RS rightly cricize TDC, and there seems to be little to justify any praise. Any "lack of context" should indeed be "fixed". Go for it. Otherwise, any "move" to another article with an exclusive focus on criticisms would be a classic POV fork. It seems that the fact that Tucker Carlson started TDC is a ball and chain that still manifests itself in TDC's continued failures to live up to even basic, honest, journalistic standards. He gave it a mission and that continues to rule. Anything ever connected with Carlson is tainted. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Given comments like "anything ever connected with Carlson is tainted", it could be suspected that this is not so much a case of documenting how RS treat the subject as one of searching for content from RS that specifically demean the subject. It is also worth nothing that many of the sources cited for criticism of the subject are also competitors of the subject. BD2412 T 16:38, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

No, this is just how RS treat the subject. Andre🚐 19:21, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

The comment also fails to AGF and politicizes the issue. (It is a mainstream RS view and fact that Carlson is an extremely unreliable source, so drop the political spin that defends him. Editors are supposed to adopt the views of RS and not defend unreliable sources and people. Such defensiveness is a partisan fringe attitude.) We are supposed to document what RS say and give the coverage the due weight they give it. We are not supposed to create a false balance. RS will always be the "competitors" of unreliable sources, so that's a red herring that ignores multiple PAG. Bothsiderism is unhelpful here. What can be done is fix any perceived deficits. Go for it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:32, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

The nature of the article as-is politicizes the issue. You keep saying, "Go for it," but offer no constructive ideas how to move forward in a direction that you would find acceptable. It's a horribly negative article, that I was shocked to come across here. It's unfair to our readers and our mission to maintain neutrality. And, BTW, I can assure you I am not a troll as you alluded too above. Listing criticism after critism sourced to idealogical opponents is not NPOV. We have to do better than this. GenQuest 22:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

The facts are that the Daily Caller is a widely regarded as low quality outlet. We say what reliable sources say. Trying to provide WP:FALSEBALANCE is unwise. Andre🚐 23:10, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I thought we were talking about the state of the article, not The Daily Caller. The Daily Caller may suck, every reliable source may say it sucks, I don't know. Apparently that's debatable. The article, however, sucks and needs to be fixed. That is something we can do something about. As it stands, having no article or just a stub would be better. ANYTHING other than a mere list of criticisms as it is now. Maybe TNT? GenQuest 23:40, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Strong oppose TNT Andre🚐 00:57, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Aquillion, these are all passing mentions of the Daily Caller. What I meant was let's find articles about the Daily Caller and use them as sources. To go back to Der Stuermer's article, it isn't a random collection of passing references to the publication and a collection of some of its most notorious articles. In fact it doesn't get into passing comments or details of articles at all.

The difference in approach is that the other article relies on secondary sources that provide analysis of the publication by experts who have presumably read the articles and drawn conclusions about their overall content and why they were written. There is no need therefore for the Misplaced Pages article to assemble evidence and prove that the publication was misleading and racist.

Can you find any reliably sources articles about the Daily Caller? It could be that few if any exist, in which case we might consider stubbifying the article.

TFD (talk) 23:52, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose stubification and disagree with this reasoning. These sources are not passing mentions at all. They are academic sources about right-wing propaganda outlets that use this as an example. Andre🚐 00:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• Again, I don't think anyone is arguing that the Daily Caller is a paragon of journalism, or a politically down-the-middle enterprise. The issue here is that this article is written in a poor, and therefore unencyclopedic form, as a laundry list of transgressions, apparently none too minor to bear mentioning. For example, even the 2020 incident in which Daily Caller reporters were arrested by Louisville police, while merely reporting on the shooting of Breonna Taylor, is portrayed as a controversy for the outlet as opposed to a controversy for the police, under the header of "Threatened lawsuit against Louisville Metro Police Department". I find it hard to imagine the same incident being portrayed the same way in articles on other media outlets, and equally hard to imagine that many of the pettier controversial instances would even be mentioned at all in another article. BD2412 T 02:38, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
• When a sources says, "major conservative media outlets such as Fox News, The Daily Caller website, and others," the topic is about "right-wing propaganda outlets," not the Daily Caller specifically. Otherwise, we could use it to create multiple identical articles. Does this source have a section specifically about the Daily Caller? TFD (talk) 04:10, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  It doesn't need to be solely about the topic to be about it. It's more than a passing mention. Andre🚐 17:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

CJR, Guardian, WaPo, NYT? Levivich (talk) 03:45, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

That's better,  because those articles provide detailed information. The only reservation I would have is that the last thre are analyses in news media and hence likely fail rs. But the ''CJR'' source is so brief, it would not support more than a stub article.

Imagine this article did not exist and we were looking for detailed reliable sources to create it. Do any such sources exist and what are they? TFD (talk) 04:21, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Several editors have said that because we don't have current news reporting on Nazi era news media, we are forced to rely on academic papers and textbooks. I would like to point out that academic sources are considered the most reliable while analyses in news media are considered unreliable. So the argument boils down to this article lacks neutrality because of a lack of reliable sources. The only solution based on policy therefore is to stubbify. If as one editor said, serious academics are not interested in the outlet, then it means it lacks serious notability, as defined in policy. TFD (talk) 16:54, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

analyses in news media are considered unreliable No they are not. This is a vastly incorrect line of argument. Academic sources may have more weight or prominence, but news sources are indeed reliable in many cases. Nor has anyone said that academics aren't interested in the outlet. There were several sources provided. Stubification is an non-starter and I strongly oppose. Andre🚐 17:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think going all the way to a stub is necessary, as there is some good content in the lede, and in the "History", "Political stances", and "Staff, contributors and organization" sections. In fact, I think the 2020 New York Times article, Tucker Carlson Sells His Stake in The Daily Caller, presents a fairly reasonable and balanced approach. BD2412 T 17:11, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Nor do I think we should systematically whitewash the "controversies." Some perhaps are overly detailed or could call for better encyclopedic prose style. But we don't want to end up with an article where "ties to white supremacists" and "refusal to criticize Fox News" etc are memory-holed. If the material is verifiable, well-sourced, and NPOV, it's not automatically POV to have negative information about the outlet in detail. Andre🚐 17:16, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no corresponding "ties to white supremecists" section at CBS MarketWatch or The Wall Street Journal or The American Spectator or Maclean's Magazine or Random House based on their association with one of the same people for whom this is a "controversy" for this outlet, so it seems that either it has already been memory-holed for all of those articles, or its appearance in this article is a double standard. The "refusal to criticize Fox News" is likewise odd; why doesn't every article on a media outlet have a section detailing other media outlets that they have failed to criticize. That is typical of the shape of things in this article. I have already noted the instance where reporters being locked up for covering a story is treated in this article as though this is a controversy for the outlet as opposed to being a controversy for the police department that arrested them. BD2412 T 18:19, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Scott Greer was deputy editor and contributor at The Daily Caller. After his departure in June 2018, it was revealed that he published articles espousing white nationalist, racist anti-black and antisemitic views under a pseudonym in white supremacist publications That is true of CBS and WSJ as well? The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported in 2017 that The Daily Caller had a "white nationalist problem", citing contributions by Kessler, Brimelow, Greer, and Ilana Mercer, whose writing on supposed racially motivated crime in South Africa was also published on the white nationalist website American Renaissance the same day it appeared in The Daily Caller Really,. did SPLC say that about Marketwatch and CBS too? 'Cause... we say what reliable sources say. If they say it about other things feel free to update those articles too. The "refusal to criticize Fox News" is likewise odd; why doesn't every article on a media outlet have a section detailing other media outlets that they have failed to criticize. This is a straw man and a fallacious slippery slope argument. Tucker Carlson is a well-known Fox News commentator and associated with the Caller. He isn't associated with the other outlets. As far as the "controversy for the outlet", where does it say that? All the article says is the following: During The Daily Caller's coverage of protests in Louisville, Kentucky related to the shooting of Breonna Taylor and subsequent verdict on the police involved, two of their reporters were arrested, prompting co-founder Patel to threaten a lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department. If you don't consider this a "controversy" maybe it should be moved somewhere else in a separate section, but seems perfectly NPOV. Andre🚐 18:24, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there a source to the effect that The Daily Caller was the only outlet that published those people (or does every article covering other outlets publishing them raise this as a problem)? With respect to the "failure to criticize" argument, is there a canon of journalism that requires media outlets to criticize other outlets? If not, then Carlson's presence is a non-issue. With respect to the arrest of the reporters, the subheader for that section is "Threatened lawsuit against Louisville Metro Police Department", which therefore identifies the threat to sue as the controversy, as though the outlet should have known that the police have the right to arrest journalists for covering a story, and how dare they threaten to sue over it. BD2412 T 18:41, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

With respect, why would they need to be the only outlet that published those people in order for it to be mentioned here? Additionally, if it isn't yet mentioned in other articles (which you haven't established that it isn't), it can be added to them as well. That's not an argument against inclusion here in place of whitewashing. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 18:47, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree OuroborosCobra, and can't we have a little good faith? BD2412 you seem to be assuming that everything in this article was written with an intent to defame and attack the publication. Maybe these are just the facts and they happen to reflect a publication with an objectively bad reputation. Is it literally true that the Caller "threatened lawsuit against Louisville Metro Police Department"? Do most media orgs threaten to sue police departments? When NYT or WSJ journalists are arrested do they threaten the cops? Is it controversial? If so, I think it's rightly considered a controversy. Andre🚐 18:54, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@OuroborosCobra: As I specified above, There is no corresponding "ties to white supremecists" section at CBS MarketWatch or The Wall Street Journal or The American Spectator or Maclean's Magazine or Random House based on their association with one of the same people. You can look at those articles yourself. If you dig enough into any sufficiently large enterprise, you will find some people who work there who have engaged in unsavory activities off the clock, and you may even find several people who have engaged in the same kind of unsavory activity. The article itself also describes Scott Greer as only having been discovered to have written white supremacist pieces after his departure from the outlet, which would make his time at the outlet irrelevant to such later discoveries. @Andrevan: I don't think any editor working to create this article acted in bad faith, per se. I think each acted out of a conviction that this outlet is bad and must be exposed as such, and collectively built up every detail consistent with this conviction, no matter how irrelevant. As for the arrest of the reporters, I would expect any news outlet whose reporters were being held in jail for reporting on misconduct by the police to take legal action to secure their release. This is not even unusual. BD2412 T 19:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The Daily Caller article discusses its ties to white supremacists because reliable sources discuss those ties. The articles for CBS MarketWatch and the WSJ should likewise reflect what reliable sources say. If such sources don't tie those outlets to white supremacy, then we don't. We write articles to reflect the content and emphases of reliable sources—it always amazes me to see experienced editors try to wriggle out of this requirement. You may personally think it's unfair to blame the Daily Caller but not those other outlets, but for Misplaced Pages's purposes it doesn't really matter what you think about that, only what reliable sources actually say. MastCell  19:12, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The section also notes that the outlet cut ties with and reputiaded those individuals in every instance where the outcome was followed up on. Perhaps the section header should be "Repudiation of ties with white supremacists". BD2412 T 19:18, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

That's not really what the sources say, and I'm getting increasingly concerned by the disconnect between source content and your framing of it. The sources say, for example, that the Daily Caller featured a video encouraging its readers to mow down protesters with their cars. After a neo-Nazi did exactly that at the Charlottesville rally, yes, the Daily Caller then removed the video. Likewise, they feature the work of white supremacists and, when caught doing so, they profess to be shocked—shocked. But your contention that they've "repudiated" their white-supremacist contributors appears to be false and a misrepresentation—the cited sources indicate that the Caller continued to defend Jason Kessler's work, for example, even after cutting ties to him once his extremism became a matter of public knowledge. MastCell  19:34, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The Daily Caller, per those sources, removed Kessler's articles from its website and cut ties with him; the source does not say that the Daily Caller defended Kessler's opinions, but merely said that Kessler accurately reported the facts in his reporting for the outfit. Since there is no accusation that Kessler wrote inaccurate content (or white supremacist content) for the Daily Caller, what else does repudiating require besides publicly cutting ties with the person and removing their content, even though it was not inaccurate on its face? BD2412 T 19:46, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure what this Google results link is intending to illustrate, but it doesn't appear to offer evidence for your assertion. Andre🚐 19:28, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Not every hit does, but most detail reporters being arrested in the course of reporting, with several further indicating that the arresting department was either threatened with legal action or that legal action was in fact taken against them. The point is that it is broadly understood to be improper for authorities to arrest journalists who are covering the activities of those authorities, and laudable rather than controversial for news outlets to defend reporters who are arrested in such a way. BD2412 T 19:32, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm looking for, but not finding, another analogous situation where a news outlet threatened to sue the local police department. It's true that reporters get arrested all the time, but I don't recall seeing the New York Times or the Washington Post threaten to sue the cops. I could simply be mis- or uninformed. However, you haven't provided any evidence of this. Whether it is proper or laudable is really beside the point since again, we write what reliable sources say and our opinions are not relevant. I happen to agree with you that police shouldn't arrest journalists. It's immaterial. Andre🚐 21:10, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

They don't just threaten it. Levivich (talk) 23:01, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. 68 journalists and two outlets since 2017. So this is almost certainly noteworthy and should be documented here. Because only two outlets were said to have done this that were tracked by this source, so presumably one of them is the Daily Caller. Andre🚐 23:06, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it should be documented it here, that is uncontroversial. The problem is that the placement and header portray this as the outlet doing something wrong, which in turn paints the arrest of journalists peacefully reporting on a police action as legitimate and proper. BD2412 T 00:23, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

TFD: "while analyses in news media are considered unreliable"???? WTF? That's utter nonsense. Thank you Andre for beating me to it. I'm surprised that an experienced editor like TFD would make such a claim. That's a newbie misunderstanding. I will now have to lower my bar for evaluating anything from that source. That's just sad. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:38, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I believe all articles should be built upon WP:GNG sources, which guide editors as to what is WP:DUE for inclusion. For example, if there is a source about notable person A that mentions their ties to notable organizations X, Y, and Z, that suggests those ties are DUE for inclusion in the Misplaced Pages article about person A, but not necessarily in the Misplaced Pages articles about organizations X, Y, and Z. Conversely, if there is a source about the history of organization X, and it mentions person A, that would suggest that person A is DUE for inclusion in the article about organization X.

As to this article, there are GNG sources about TDC (linked in this discussion and in the article) and some of them mention some "person A" or "controversy B", etc., and so those might be DUE for inclusion in this article about TDC, but not every mention of TDC in a source about person A or whatever else is necessarily DUE for inclusion in this article. The way to tell the difference between DUE and not DUE for this article is by looking at the GNG sources about TDC.

My general rule of thumb when writing articles is to include only details that are included in two or more GNG sources, meaning every sentence/paragraph is supported by at least two citations, three for anything controversial (including negative information about BLPs). That's not a policy requirement and I don't know if it's even best practice, but it's my practice.

Finally I'd like to gently remind everyone to "focus on the content and not on the contributor" please. Comments about editors' motivations, track records, etc., don't belong on article talk pages and make the editing environment less pleasant than it otherwise could be. Thanks, Levivich (talk) 20:06, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Your analysis is not without merit, but you're calling for a stricter standard than the one Misplaced Pages actually requires, which should be noted. Andre🚐 22:28, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

To the contrary, numerous people in this discussion have repeatedly violated the civility standards of Misplaced Pages. Everyone needs to tone it down a bunch. Buffs (talk) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I was referring to sourcing standards and notability, such as include only details that are included in two or more GNG sources. I'm not sure which civility issue you are referring to here. Andre🚐 15:26, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I think there's been a slight miscommunication: Andre was referring to the second-to-last paragraph of my comment while Buffs was referring to my last paragraph. It's kind of funny if you read Andre's reply as being about my last paragraph :-D Levivich (talk) 16:12, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah yep sorry. My bad for not being clearer. Andre🚐 16:41, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

stupid vague pronouns... Buffs (talk) 02:59, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure it is a hit piece per se, but we need to do better. For instance, the page seems to cover everything editors perceive as them doing bad, but not anything they would perceive as them doing good. For instance, the Daily Caller was the one who found documents related to Michael Flynn. I am not advocating for inclusion of that information, but I am advocating for removal of much of what is there on the other end. The article looks more like a list of articles run by the Daily Caller and Misplaced Pages is not the place for that. --CNMall41 (talk) 20:24, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@CNMall41: I agree. The current state of things is overkill, and seems petty. BD2412 T 14:11, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

This is an example of what is wrong with the page. What does Malik's time with BofA have to do with the Daily Caller? This information needs to go on a page for him or on the BofA page if worthy of inclusion. It is coatracking to put it here. --CNMall41 (talk) 20:10, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

A prime example of COATRACKING with a troubling side preference for Guilt by Association as opposed to neutral content. GenQuest 07:17, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't have a problem removing the Malik sexual conduct. I don't think he even has his own article. Andre🚐 07:32, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that as well. I added some of that to provide fuller context to Malik's situation, but I can see how it is really beyond the scope of this article. BD2412 T 21:38, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

References

1. Jr, Robert E. Gutsche (19 April 2022). The Future of the Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy: After Trump. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-57719-8 – via Google Books.
2. Zimdars, Melissa. Mis/Disinformation and Social Media. doi:10.4324/9781003171270-8/mis-disinformation-social-media-melissa-zimdars.
3. Buozis, Michael; Konieczna, Magda (11 December 2021). "Conservative news nonprofits: Claiming legitimacy without transparency". Journalism: 146488492110561. doi:10.1177/14648849211056145. ISSN 1464-8849,1741-3001. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help)
4. Tucher, Andie (9 May 2022). Not Exactly Lying. Columbia University Press. doi:10.7312/tuch18634/html. ISBN 978-0-231-54659-1 – via www.degruyter.com.

Peter Brimelow

The lead says, "Until 2018, the website had also published articles by white supremacists such as Jason Kessler and Peter Brimelow."

Brimelow was a columnist for CBS MarketWatch and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Harper’s, American Spectator, Commentary, National Review, National Post, Forbes, and other media.

He was an editor at Maclean's Magazine, Forbes and Barron's. His books have been published by Random House and Harper Collins and he and he was an advisor to U.S. Sen. Orin Hatch.

The article should explain why it is significant that the Daily Caller employed him, when so did many other publications. Furthermore, Brimelow was vigorously advocating white supremacy in the 1970s in otherwise reputable publications, so it's not as if no one else knew about it.

I am not saying that they or any other medium should have published his articles. However, I would like to see reliably sourced expert commentary about why this crossed the line compared with other publications. TFD (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I think that The Daily Caller published threefour Peter Brimelow articles -- March 14 2017, April 4 2017, April 12 2017, September 14 2017 -- and later erased them. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC) Update: there were four in the last complete archived copy that I could find of the Daily Caller's (now erased) author page. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:15, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

For the sentence in the lead "Until 2018, the website had also published articles by white supremacists such as Jason Kessler and Peter Brimelow.": I looked at an archived copy of cited source Atlantic, it doesn't mention Peter Brimelow. I looked at cited source Snopes, it doesn't say the publishing of Peter Brimelow went on until 2018. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:40, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The sentence more or less implies that this publishing lasted for years up to that point. If no prior publications are identified, it should say that in 2017, the website published articles by these people. BD2412 T 19:29, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I think that The Daily Caller published three Jason Kessler articles -- April 3 2017, April 26 2017, May 14 2017 -- and later erased them. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Brimelow is the 3rd of at least 4 white supremacists discussed in the article. Andre🚐 18:25, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

So what? White supremacists are routinely published by all major media. You need to explain in the article why publishing three articles by Brimelow reflects badly on the ''Daily Caller'', while it doesn't reflect badly on the ''New York Times'' and other mainstream media.

The section about Kessler is confusing. He was a supporter of Barack Obama whom the outlet hired to write two or three articles. He later went on to organize the United the Right Rally, at which point the outlet removed his writings from their site. So what exactly is the claim of wrong-doing?

From your comment that at least three or four white supremacists are mentioned in the article, I assume that listing them is intended to imply to readers that the Daily Caller is white supremacist. But articles should not imply information. Facts should be stated explicitly and opinions should always have in text citation. It's the failure to do that which makes this a hit piece, rather than an encyclopedic article. TFD (talk) 20:09, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The statement that Daily Caller is associated with white supremacists comes from reliable sources and is attributed where appropriate. Such as the SPLC. Andre🚐 20:58, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Let's be clear here, was associated, not is associated. The SPLC released its statement five years ago, and the Daily Caller cut ties with the named individuals four years ago or more. BD2412 T 21:12, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

That is a fair argument, and if you have newer sources that show the Caller is cleaning up their act, we could and should portray that change. Andre🚐 21:50, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The sources presently in the article showing that the outlet cut ties with the persons complained of are those sources. BD2412 T 22:20, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

When said incidents occur, they don't go into the memory-hole. What is needed is a source that says that since 5 years ago, the Caller has been a higher quality or more reputable outlet since addressing those particular incidents that are detailed in the article. Their lauded Murrow award was from 2012. Anything recently? Andre🚐 22:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

So a ten-year old award is of no moment but a five-year old criticism with a reported four-year old resolution is current absent a source to prove the negative - does that mean that in five more years the critism, being ten years old, will be of no moment? For what its worth, the 2020 New York Times article cited in this article describes the controversies of the Daily Caller in the past tense. BD2412 T 22:39, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Both the award and the criticism are fair for inclusion, and both should be included and in appropriate weight and context. My point about the award was that, if the Daily Caller is turning over a new leaf and becoming a better quality outlet, you might expect them to win at least 1 award after the change in ownership. Andre🚐 22:48, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The SPLC is a reliable source and is routinely cited in reliable sources. I have no problem in using it as a source. However, this is not an issue of reliability, it is weight. We mention the SPLC's opinion of groups they designate as hate groups because mainstream media routinely mention their classification in stories about the group.

SPLC articles by their nature express their own opinions and do not seek different opinions or ask their subjects for their responses. We need secondary sources to establish the weight of the SPLC's conclusions.

To be fair, the SPLC is itself subject to negative opinion pieces and investigative journalism. And my reply on the talk page of its article is that in order to include that material we need to establish weight by showing that it was picked up in reliable secondary sources. When that happens, other views are sought and the SPLC is allowed to reply. Otherwise that article would also turn into a hit piece. TFD (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I haven't checked out the article for the SPLC or edited it that I can recall. But I've used it to read up on things that SPLC has covered. I know that the SPLC can sometimes have an ideological perspective, and that's fine. That doesn't stop it from being mostly reliable for facts and information, and attributable where appropriate. Criticism of SPLC in RS is in the same vein. And I agree with you. We need to describe how the SPLC is viewed in RS by its critics in accordance with prominence of those descriptions and their appropriate reliability, or attribution as needed. Some criticism of the SPLC is trivial or unreliable or needs to be appropriately contextualized and rebutted. But for the most part, SPLC is considered a reputable organization and is regarded as within the mainstream of reputable organizations, if activist or advocacy-leaning.

The Daily Caller is much different. It's not a well-regarded organization at all. It's regarded as the butt of jokes, probably. We have to be fair to it, but we don't need to create a false balance where one doesn't exist. The Daily Caller doesn't get to have an article balanced 50-50 between Daily Caller is great and Daily Caller ain't too great. We just report what the sources say, proportional to the rough scope of their expression of what they say to the best of our ability. So far I haven't heard anything egregious about the present article, but of course editors are free to continue. Andre🚐 23:48, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

No one, literally no one, is calling in these discussions for such a 50-50 balance. No one is taking the position that The Daily Caller is a great news source. The sole point of contention really is that the article should not read like a gripe site. BD2412 T 23:58, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, it just reads to me like a fairly average Misplaced Pages entry about such a topic. According to a study by Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, The Daily Caller was among the most popular right-wing news sites during the 2016 United States presidential election. The study also found that The Daily Caller provided "amplification and legitimation" for "the most extreme conspiracy sites", .... "utterly unsubstantiated and unsourced claim".... Seems to check out per Valjean's point that "they wield huge influence in the right-wing and far right-wing bubble" Andre🚐 00:17, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

As I pointed out earlier, the tone is far more negative than the article about the Der Stürmer. The justification seems to be that we don't need to warn people about Der Stürmer because it is no longer publishing and its views are very unpopular. But we need to use a highly negative tone in this article because the publication is in existence and is very popular.

Of course there is nothing wrong with writing an article that says the Daily Caller sucks. It's just that it violates policy to include such an article here.

In the example I provided above, the article mentions that the Dailer Caller published three articles by a white supremacist, which is reliably sourced. But that author published far more articles in mainstream media, such as the ''New York Times''. You need to explain why this case was different or rather cite rs that explain it. So that make take a bit of research and it may be there is no answer. TFD (talk) 03:33, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Once again, nobody is saying we need to "warn" or we need to have a negative tone. We reflect the tone of reliable sources. It just so happens most reliable sources don't regard unreliable ones in a positive light, so we simply follow, not lead. Andre🚐 06:33, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Seeing that nobody has come up with anything suggesting Peter Brimelow wrote anything more than the four 2017 articles, I support removing "... and Peter Brimelow" from the sentence. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

@Peter Gulutzan: I agree, and I wonder how many of the other named writers complained of are similarly overstated. BD2412 T 14:12, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

There is a problem with how articles report implicit rather than explicit criticism. Either we explicitly state what the implicit criticism is, which violates OR, or we merely repeat it, which violates impartial tone. To me, the solution is that if no reliable secondary sources report the criticism, then we omit it per weight.

Saying that the Daily Caller published white supremacists implies that it is itself white supremacist. But we need a reliable source that makes that claim directly.  Better still, we need a secondary source that reports on this criticism of the Daily Caller. It isn't acceptable to say that we have to work with the few sources we have, because if the issue has had little coverage, then there is no reason to include it. TFD (talk) 16:42, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Andrevan, your suggestion that the article should "reflect the tone of reliable sources" goes against policy. Impartial tone says, "The tone of Misplaced Pages articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view." I suggest editors read the entire section.

The section also says that we should avoid direct quotes of commentators and instead summarize what they say, which is another reason this article lacks impartial tone. Misplaced Pages articles should be written from the perspective of an impartial observer, not a partisan.

Mosquitoes are responsible for the deaths of 52 billion people, which is more by far than humans themselves have killed. Yet the article does not pass judgment on them.

TFD (talk) 16:24, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I think you have a misunderstanding about what the article actually does and what the guideline does. The article is not passing judgment: the tone is simply negative because the material is negative: but a negative tone in this case is an impartial reflection of the sources. The article should reflect "unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions" in reliable sources. No reliable sources seriously take the side that the Daily Caller is actually a reasonable and reliable publication, so our article doesn't either. The impartial tone guideline suggests not quoting participants in a heated dispute. It does not categorically recommend against quoting and attribution of material at all. Misplaced Pages:Attribution Editors should provide attribution for quotations. Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view#Giving_"equal_validity"_can_create_a_false_balance WP:BALANCE Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources. Andre🚐 17:50, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

No one is suggesting that Misplaced Pages present The Daily Caller as "actually a reasonable and reliable publication"; but are there any sources that present little more than a laundry list of grievances against The Daily Caller (including some items that are not practices out of the norm for media at all, but are presented as grievances with respect to this particular publication)? BD2412 T 18:23, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

OK, but please note nobody has objected to the reasonable trimming and encyclopedization. But there seems to be an idea that summarizing certain associations or practices is airing dirty laundry. If white supremacists wrote for the Washington Post, and then other reliable sources wrote an article discussing that, that is fair game for our article: it's not automatically undue negative partisanship to say that this coverage is as TFD says, implicit criticism. It just so happens that most of the time, white supremacists don't write for non-white-supremacist publications because when they do, there is understandably a bit of a firestorm and judgment gets passed. But we have to be really clear: and I'm refuting TFD and not what you've just written BD2412: _Wikipedia quoting and/or summarizing a scandal is not passing judgment on the subject of the scandal, and information that the subject might want to make go away isn't automatically partisan criticism_. Andre🚐 18:51, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

You do not appear to undertand what tone means. See grammarly: "What does tone mean?"

"Tone reveals the author’s attitude about a subject or topic to their reader. It can be delivered in different ways, like through word choice, punctuation, and sentence structure.

"It’s similar to when you’re engaging with someone in person. Your facial expression, vocal pitch, and body language might convey a certain tone that informs the language you use in conversation.

"By using the right tone in your writing, your readers can better understand your emotions regarding a topic. It’s a signal to your reader about how your writing should make them feel. Your tone might be delightful or sarcastic, lighthearted or aggressive, among other types of tones, all through your writing."

Misplaced Pages articles are supposed to have an impartial tone. You are not supposed to inject your feelings and views into articles, no matter what the sources do. TFD (talk) 21:22, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

But again, nobody is doing that. You're interpreting a critical or negative tone in this article because the reliable sources we rely on for the article have a critical or negative tone. However the article itself simply neutrally reflects that reliable sources have been critical. We are not injecting feelings or views into the article. In fact I've scarcely edited the article. I'm sure the article entirely organically has ended up the way it is: it is not a hit piece and to suggest that it is, is a violation. Andre🚐 21:29, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

In fact, Peter Brimelow does write for non-white-supremacist publications most of the time, which is why you need to explain why his writing for the Daily Caller is noteworthy. In fact he has written for CBS Marketwatch, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Commentary and Macleans and the Financial Post in Canada. Lou Dobbs, who defamed Latino immigrants, according to the SPLC, was broadcast 4 hours per night for years on CNN. Tucker Carlson, who has been criticized for his ties to white supremacists, had shows on CNN and MSNBC. Why is Brimelow's publication of 3 articles in the Daily Caller significant? I am not saying it is not significant, just that we need a reliable source that explains this before including.

Some could argue that none of these publications should ever have published these authors, and the fact they did shows that they are white supremacists themselves. But that still brings us back to why you single out the Daily Caller. TFD (talk) 21:49, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

No, you're doing too much. Just write what reliable sources say. Do reliable sources say it about CBS? If so, add it there. The sources do say it about the Daily Caller. publishing a regular column by the elder statesman of the racist movement, Peter Brimelow. Brimelow wrote four op-eds for the Caller in 2017. He is a “zealous promoter of white-identity politics” whose anti-immigrant website VDare.com is “popular with the alt-right” and, by Brimelow’s own admission, publishes white nationalist writers, according to The Washington Post. Brimelow was a guest at the home of Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s chief economic advisor, in August. His first piece for the Caller, in March 2017, defended Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) racist remark that “we can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” Andre🚐 21:56, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

See "SPLC PRESIDENT CALLS ON CNN TO REMOVE LOU DOBBS FROM AIR, CITES NEWSMAN'S SUPPORT FOR EXTREMIST-INSPIRED 'BIRTHER' CLAIMS" (SPLC July 24, 2009). Many reliable sources noted that Lou Dobbs' connections with . Dobbs was broadcast on CNN four hours every week night for years, while the Daily Caller published three or four articles by Brimelow.

Why do you think that this article should have extensive information about Brimelow, while the CNN article shouldn't mention Dobbs? And why do you find it significant that Brimelow knows Kudlow, yet don't think the article about CNBC should mention Kudlow, even though he worked there for 13 years?

Why do you think we should only report SPLC criticism when it is directed against right-wing publications and not when it is directed against mainstream media? TFD (talk) 23:56, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Simple answer, I think the CNBC article should mention Kudlow and I think the CNN article should mention Dobbs. CNN has also run noted religious right homophobe Rick Santorum. This info should be in its article. Andre🚐 00:42, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Why aren't you arguing for that over on those articles then?

I would agree with you provided we had a source that explained why it was significant and how it compared to other mainstream media. As far as I can tell, a few Democrats have brought up Brimelow but don't complain about pro-Democratic media for doing the same thing. It's the pot calling the kettle black and it's disingenuous no matter which side does it. TFD (talk) 18:12, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

In this thread two editors, Peter Gulutzan + BD2412, support removing "... and Peter Brimelow" in the lead sentence mentioned in this thread's first sentence. Two editors, TFD + Andrevan, have not (as far as I can tell) said they support or oppose that specific suggestion. Are there watching editors with an opinion on this specific suggestion? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:14, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I was waiting to see if anyone could explain the significance of the section. By all means remove anything or everything from it. TFD (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I would reduce it to perhaps two sentences, and qualify that the same writers were also published on media outlets across the perceived political spectrum. It does not belong in the article lede. BD2412 T 18:47, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes but the thread topic is Peter Brimelow. I removed "... and Peter Brimelow" from the lead sentence as discussed, and if the removal survives we should look at cutting down or removing what's about him in the body. Looks like the first insertion was a bold edit by Avaya1 and expansion came later. Suggestion: remove "... by Peter Brimelow, founder of the white supremacist website VDARE, and ..." but keep and link Peter Brimelow in the next paragraph after changing the first sentence to "A Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) blog said in 2017 that The Daily Caller had a "white nationalist problem", citing contributions by Jason Kessler, Peter Brimelow, Greer, and Ilana Mercer." For adding that they were published elsewhere, we'd need cites. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not going to revert the removal from the lede but I will certainly revert the removal from the body if you do that. There is no consensus to whitewash this. Andre🚐 16:14, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Three editors agree there should be reduction of Peter Brimelow material in the body but haven't agreed about the specific wording/citing change so no progress. For Jason Kessler I'll start a different thread. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:52, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

"Threatened lawsuit against Louisville Metro Police Department"

As discussed to some degree in previous sections, I am concerned with how this is being presented in the article. To recap, two Daily Caller reporters were arrested by Louisville police while reporting on the shooting of Breonna Taylor by officers of the Louisville police department. It is undisputed that the reporters were exercising the constitutional freedom of the press in doing so. The Daily Caller asked that they be released, and the police refused. The Daily Caller threatened to sue, which is entirely within their right, and in fact is morally commendable. Nevertheless, this is portrayed as a controversy for the Daily Caller as opposed to a controversy for the police who blatantly violated the freedom of the press. This should be presented in a way that does not appear to take the side of saying that police departments should be able to arbitrarily arrest and detain journalists reporting on wrongdoing by those departments, and that it is controversial for an outlet to threaten to sue them for this. BD2412 T 21:14, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I rewrote the text to be flatter. Andre🚐 21:59, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not looking for it to flatter, just to reflect the reality of the situation. BD2412 T 22:36, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Your edit is fine. I meant flatter as in more flat. Andre🚐 22:45, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I am fine with calling this objection resolved. I am off for family night and will likely review additional content for suggested changes in the next few days. BD2412 T 22:58, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Who "discovered" that they were publishing white supremacists?

Re: this revert, no. The Caller did not "repudiate" Spencer et al. after their bigotry was "discovered". This wording is euphemistic to the point of absurdity, if not outright dishonesty.

The cited sources are pretty clear about this:

• Snopes notes that ProPublica "discovered" that the Caller was publishing white supremacists, and even then the Caller initially refused to take down the material because they felt it was "factually accurate".
• CNN says that the Caller published incitements encouraging peopel to mow down protesters with their cars, and removed them only after a right-wing extremist did exactly that in Charlottesville. To say that the Caller "repudiated" the work after "discovering" its bigoted or extremist nature is just plain false—they repudiated it in the wake of extremist violence of the kind which it had encouraged.
• The Times likewise makes absolutely clear that the Caller backed off its extremist content in response to the murder of a protester in Charlottesville—not because it "discovered" its writers' white-supremacist ties.

Time to make the article reflect the actual sources; I'm pretty alarmed by the re-write which seems to seek to bludgeon people into whitewashiing what sources say. MastCell  01:47, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any movement towards putting similar statements in the lede of all the other and more moderate outlets in which the same people were published, so have those been whitewashed as well? Or is there some bias that militates towards picking out one particular outlet for anomolous treatment? BD2412 T 02:06, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

You're not seeing that because reliable sources don't support it. Reliable sources discuss the Caller as an outlet that has repeatedly published white supremacists and other right-wing extremists. If reliable sources say similar things about other outlets, then those articles should of course be edited to reflect those reliable sources. But that's not an excuse for censoring or bowdlerizing reliable sources on this article, as you're attempting to do. MastCell  02:12, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

This is repetitive of discussions in previous sections. Multiple less derided outlets "repeatedly" published the same authors. Snopes is of questionable value here as the sole source to lean on for this, and even Snopes only references one such author, and notes that The Daily Caller had suspended their relationship with that one auther well before Charlottesville. BD2412 T 02:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

This "other outlets" argument continues not to hold water. Let's go and improve those other articles, then. Andre🚐 02:30, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

This is, again, the entire discussion we have had two sections above this. The DC published a relative handful of articles by freelance journalists also published by numerous other publications, and apparently cut ties with all of those journalists half a decade ago. The significance of this is inflated to WP:COATRACK proportions by mentioning it in the lede. BD2412 T 02:45, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

The CNN article saying that the Daily Caller incited the violence was published as opinion and/or analysis and therefore is not reliable for a statement of fact. Incitement to violence is a crime and AFAIK no one at the Caller was charged with this. While BLP crime may or may not apply, we shouldn't accuse people of crimes unless they have been convicted.

Note that Donald Trump was impeached for allegedly inciting the 1/6 attacks and may face criminal charges. Incitement to violence is prosecutable.

The problem is that we don't have adequate sources to write a neutral article beyond a stub. Editors who want a descriptive article should go to the library and find reliable sources instead of arguing on the talk page.

I would welcome a comprehensive article about the Daily Caller and would contribute if anyone could find reliable sources.

TFD (talk) 03:34, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, there's no consensus to stubify the article so you may as well abandon that line of argument. Andre🚐 03:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, if we left the "History", "Political stances", "Staff, contributors and organization", "Check Your Fact subsidiary website", and "Awards" sections as is, reduced the "Journalistic standards" to the lede of that section and a paragraph summarizing the other matters, and jettisoned the rest, it would not be a stub at all, but a reasonably informative article of reasonable length. BD2412 T 04:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I set up a general discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Neutral point of view#News media coverage. This seems to be a general problem sith marginally notable topics. They make the news when things go wrong, not when things go right. Since there is substantial coverage of major topics, such as CNN, criticism of them by the SPLC is given little or no weight, while it dominates this article. TFD (talk) 14:26, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• I have to agree with Mastcell here: The passive "it was discovered" omits the fact that other media outlets pointed out it to them, which seems to be a pertinent detail to include. We need to be very careful to avoid the appearance of whitewashing here.

As for the other outlets who haven't published them, OTHERSTUFF is not a valid reason to remove content here. Feel free to add that information to those other articles if it has been covered by reliable sources. –dlthewave ☎ 14:35, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

There is a serious failure of verification in the sources provided to support the assertion in the lede implying that there were multiple instances of contributors being repudiated "after other outlets highlighted their white-supremacist and extremist links, or after acts of right-wing violence"; while there are multiple contributors or pieces that have been repudiated, the sources all reference a single contributor, and a single instance of violence which occurred, after the repudiation of that contributor. The lede currently presents the false claim that there were multiple such instances. If there is only a single one receiving coverage, that doesn't merit inclusion in the lede at all. BD2412 T 15:08, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I went ahead and reworded the passage so that it can be clarified and verified here first. GenQuest 15:40, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFF is about arguments to keep articles in deletion discussions. Can you explain its relevance to this discussion? Or did you mean WP:OTHERCONTENT? TFD (talk) 15:43, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with dlthewave and MastCell. It's fallacious reasoning to complain that other articles are treated more kindly. Just improve those articles and stop the no-consensus crusade to whitewash this one. edits Andre🚐 16:10, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

How do you suppose it would play out if we tried to add a line to the lede of The New York Times stating that they published pieces from White supremacists, and only stopped when others called out those writers? Also, given that the NYT was founded in 1851, it is a statistical certainty that the NYT has published far more from White supremacists than the DC ever has. BD2412 T 16:45, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you have some RS that talk about the NYT's publication of white supremacists? Start with what the RS say. Andre🚐 17:47, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Just to be clear, if the exact same freelance journalist has pieces published in the NYT and the DC, they are only a White supremacist with respect to their pieces published in the DC? BD2412 T 18:02, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Obviously a straw man: again, our own research and our own opinions are irrelevant: what matters is what RS say. If RS write up the DC saying they publish white supremacists, that is relevant. If RS say the same about CNN or NYT that is relevant. If RS have a gap in their fact pattern, we're going to reflect that same gap, and not correct it. DC according to RS, publish a regular column by the elder statesman of the racist movement, Peter Brimelow. Did NYT do the same? Andre🚐 18:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCONTENT say, "you cannot make a convincing argument based solely on whether or not the same or similar content exists...in some other page; this is because there is nothing stopping anyone from editing or creating any article....comparing with articles that have been through some kind of quality review such as Featured article, Good article, or have achieved a WikiProject A class rating, makes a much more credible case."

IOW we can't compare this article with random others because they may be as bad as this one. But we can compare it with good articles such as CNN, which had good article status from 2008-2018 or The Washington Post (featured article (featured article 2013).

in any case, the response to a comparison should be WP:RANDOMPOLICY, but an explanation of why the comparison is invalid. You can say for example that the CNN and NYT articles are flawed, which raises the question of why you are working on this article rather than them, since they have wider readership. WP:OTHERWHATEVER isn't a magical incantation that should substitute for reasoned argument. TFD (talk) 17:12, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Editors are allowed to work on whatever article they find interesting. Andre🚐 17:45, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I didn't ask you whether you were allowed to work on articles you find interesting, but why you find it interesting to work on this one rather than CNN or NYT. A simple "I refuse to answer that question" would have sufficed, and I could have drawn my own conclusions. TFD (talk) 20:36, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I very well may work on the CNN or NYT article, but I'm not the person who wrote any of this article, so I was speaking more in general. Editors are going to do what they do. Andre🚐 20:39, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Andrevan: Accusing other editors of a crusade to whitewash crosses several lines. Levivich (talk) 17:49, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think so, though it may be toeing close to the line, but I agree with MastCell's comment that I'm pretty alarmed by the re-write which seems to seek to bludgeon people into whitewashiing what sources say. Andre🚐 17:51, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Reducing a current state of WP:UNDUE and WP:COATRACK coverage does not amount to whitewashing. To repeat for the umpteenth time, no one is advocating for saying that The Daily Caller is a good source, or a reliable source, or a politically mainstream source. BD2412 T 17:56, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll strike my comment since MastCell said it better. This has nothing to do with COATRACK and that's a misuse of that essay. Read the COATRACK article. It's not about negative information, it's about tangential info. Nor is it UNDUE if the RS cover it: we reflect what RS say proportionally, and it so happens this gets attention. Andre🚐 17:58, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Information presented substantially out of proportion to its relevance to the subject is certainly tangential. BD2412 T 18:25, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Am not trying to quibble on semantics here but "tangential" means following a line that is at best peripherally or anecdotally related, or is orthogonal to the material. The Daily Caller, and the right-wing media as a whole, coming under fire for criticism for working with white supremacists, is hardly tangential. The Daily Caller published an op-ed by anti-immigrant white nationalist Peter Brimelow defending Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) racist remark if other outlets do that, please write about it on their article too. Andre🚐 19:38, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the presentation of this content in this article is disproportionate. Of all of the content published by the DC, only a slim fraction is attributable to people who have been identified as having such affiliations; conversely, of the thousands of articles about the DC, only a slim fraction address contributors having such an affiliation. I realize that this is difficult to parse in normal searches because of the large number of results that will be from, rather than about, this media, but a search of Newspapers.com (which does not index the DC) returns thousands of articles about the subject, but looking through at least the first few hundred of those fails to turn up any mention of the outlet publishing work by White supremacists. So far, the one piece I have found mentioning both terms ("Daily Caller" and "White supremacist") is a 2018 piece by Michael Barone writing for the Washington Examiner, merely noting that the Daily Caller had reported a quote about Dana Bash supposedly flashing a White supremacist hand gesture at Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing. BD2412 T 20:08, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

"Daily Caller" returns 3,823 hits in print media. "Daily Caller" and Brimelow returns zero print media results; "Daily Caller" and Kessler returns 17, or 0.45%, with the actual content being a mixed bag. A 2020 story notes this in a paragraph in passing, and says that according to Neil Patel, "the Daily Caller had not published articles with those views and now vets its authors more thoroughly". Tom Halleberg, "Jackson busines owners enforce piecemeal mask restrictions", Casper Star-Tribune (June 30, 2020), p. A1, A4. Perhaps more interestingly, an article published a month before the Charlottesville rally already refers to Kessler as "a local blogger who was recently fired by conservative website the Daily Caller for his support for white supremacist groups". Michael E. Miller, "Charlottesville on edge again as KKK wants to rally", The Daily News Leader via The Washington Post (June 7, 2017), p. A1. It seems odd in that context for Misplaced Pages to convey the impression that the Daily Caller acted in response to the violence at Charlottesville over a month before that violence occurred. BD2412 T 20:31, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

All this Google Fu doesn't prove much. Just look harder. Aside from the sources already in the article and already presented above, there are quite a few. First of all, you skipped Greer. The Atlantic last week was the first to report ties between a former Department of Homeland Security official, Ian Smith, and a group of known white nationalists, including Spencer. Greer’s role at Radix offers yet another glimpse into how members of an underground white-nationalist scene—emboldened by the rise of Donald Trump during the 2016 election—were able to operate relatively undetected in conservative institutions. The Daily Caller harbored a racist. Or, better said, another racist. The Atlantic’s Rosie Gray uses leaked chat logs to establish that Scott Greer, who joined the Daily Caller in 2014, posted under the name “Michael McGregor,” on Radix Journal, a publication founded and published by white nationalist Richard Spencer. Andre🚐 20:43, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of Greer is a problem in itself. We appear to be saying that the Daily Caller is culpable for someone posting under a pseudonym which was revealed only after he left the outlet. If Greer is at all notable, this should be in an separate article about Greer. BD2412 T 20:51, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

"Culpable"? The Daily Caller is not on trial, or charged with a crime. The Daily Caller is not a person. It is notable and significant that the Daily Caller had a columnist that was a secret white supremacist because his ideas and his entire intellectual foundation are implicated. We should write about what is significant and interesting and noteworthy, and let the reader decide what the implication is. It's a significant story and we should not be engaged in a tactic of trying to avoid making an outlet look bad. Andre🚐 20:55, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Nor should we be engaged in a tactic of trying to make an outlet look bad by providing a drawn-out narrative of things that those running the outlet could not have known about. There is a balance to be struck with this, and this article is very far on the side of intently trying to make things look much worse than the facts allow. BD2412 T 21:01, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Here's the problem with saying the Daily Caller "published an op-ed by anti-immigrant white nationalist Peter Brimelow defending Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) racist remark." (The remark was, “we can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”) It's an opinion and therefore should be reported as such with intext attribution. In fact it was published by MMfA, which is strongly supportive of the Democratic Party, or at least the segment that supports the current leadership. CNN refered to the comments as "appeared to criticize foreigners and immigrants," and said that King said it was not racist.

In fact Steve King's comments received less note in his own article than they do here, and the term "racist" was not used. How is it that this article gives more criticism to the Daily Caller for publishing an article in defense of the comments than is given to the person who actually said them?

I question too how someone who began his career by trashing Bill and Hillary Clinton, and wrote a book trashing Anita Hill, with false claims should now be seen as a paragon of truth.

TFD (talk) 21:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

MMFA aside, the facts are not in dispute. Steve King has made many racist remarks according to the NYT WaPo "embraced white supremacy" Politico So, your digression and diversion about the Democrats and the Clintons is irrelevant and offtopic. Andre🚐 21:10, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

See synthesis: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source....if one reliable source says A and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be improper editorial synthesis of published material to imply a new conclusion, which is original research." What an article that doesn't mention the Daily Caller says about King or Brimelow is unusable as a source for this article.

The problem with your approach is that you want the article to say things you know to be true what aren't explicitly stated in any reliable source. It doesn't matter that your beliefs may be true or that you can prove them. If you would just limit yourself to policy and guideline based editing, we could avoid all this discussion. TFD (talk) 21:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Au contraire: it is not original research to write that Daily Caller published an op-ed defending Steve King's remarks. Reliable sources state that full-stop. As stated in MMFA and SPLC. These sources are reliable for facts but opinionated for attribution. If it's a given fact in other reliable sources that Steve King's remarks are racist, that eliminates the need to attribute the description. Original research and synthesis do not prohibit simple juxtaposition of reliably referenced basic background facts and corroboration of supporting facts (NOT conclusions). WP:SYNTHNOT. Furthermore, the incident is notable because the Caller themselves (along with GOP figures like McCarthy) joined in the condemnation of white supremacy by cutting ties with these individuals. In another circumstance: Neil Patel, the publisher of the Daily Caller, told reporter Rosie Gray in response to her request for comment over a series of emails McHugh and Brooks exchanged after the former was fired by Breitbart in 2017, that “we have absolutely zero tolerance for these insane white supremacy types…We have dismissed Dave Brooks effective immediately based on the email correspondence you sent which we had never previously seen.” Rep. Steve King, a hero to white nationalists Ingersoll responded by saying he was "insulted" by our questions and that he would have "fired Scott Greer instantly if I ever knew about his posting to that website." He also maintained that he has "rebuilt the process for vetting opinion contributors and for vetting news contributors," Andre🚐 21:35, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Just to be clear, all of this happened 4-5 years ago. We're not discussing anything relevant to current processes or activities of the Daily Caller. BD2412 T 21:39, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

But articles aren't point-in-time scrubbed to eliminate past scandals. Those scandals are part of the historical and source record. Otherwise we may as well delete the USSR article since that's not a place anymore. Andre🚐 21:41, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

The timeframe and scope of an issue relate to the amount of space an article should spend on the issue. Similarly, the comment that "All this Google Fu doesn't prove much" is too quick to dismiss what it does prove, which is that there is a proportionate amount of discussion in sources (that proportion being not much) from which this article is out of balance. BD2412 T 22:01, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

That an opinion is held by more than one person and reported in more than one source does not transform it into fact. It is only when reliable sources say that there is a consensus that it was racist can we state that without attribution.

BD2412's comments about age brings up the issue of weight. You have failed to present any article specifically about the Daily Caller that could be used to establish the weight of the various stories written about it. While your efforts to boldly go where no one has gone before and determine what about the Daily Caller is noteworthy and what isn't, the result is a POV nightmare. TFD (talk) 21:48, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources do not need to state a consensus. Reliable sources, unrebutted, making statements corroborated by other reliable sources, have given us facts. Your own personal opinions and original research do not trump reliable source facts. Facts are what I'm referring to and not opinions. Steve King is a racist. That's a fact based on the fact that reliable sources state that he has literally performed racism and that makes him a racist, in Wikivoice. The Daily Caller isn't racist, but they've been associated with racists. Andre🚐 07:31, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Jason Kessler

Remove the sentence about Jason Kessler from the lead? Reduce mention of Jason Kessler in the body?

There was some approval for that in the Peter Brimelow thread but, since Jason Kessler wasn't the topic, I ask again to be sure. I think that The Daily Caller published three Jason Kessler articles -- April 3 2017, April 26 2017, May 14 2017 -- and later erased them. I think that is insignificant and suggest removal of the sentence in the lead, removal of the paragraph in the body, and retention of the mention by the SPLC blog which should be cut to a single sentence.Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:50, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

• I agree competely. BD2412 T 17:19, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
• Definitely not Lede-worthy. GenQuest 17:28, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
• Based on MOS:LEADREL, the white nationalist issue should be noted somewhere in the top section. If the people are named, it should probably be all three instead of Kessler individually. Llll5032 (talk) 17:38, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

  The inclusion of any of these specific names in the lede is vastly out of proportion to the miniscule number of sources on the topic that discuss them. BD2412 T 17:41, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

  The number of sources in the "Ties to white supremacists" section is not miniscule. Llll5032 (talk) 17:43, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

  The number of sources referencing specific individuals is miniscule. There are 140+ sources in the article, of which a dozen are in that section, inclding the Insider piece that makes only one passing mention of the Daily Caller. The Washington Post piece only makes passing mention of the Daily Caller by noting that Kessler had been fired well before organizing the Charlottesville rally. Even this, however, is disproportionate to real-world coverage of the Daily Caller. BD2412 T 17:54, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

  Guilt by association is not Lede-worthy (or even article-worthy, IMO). Is there a section that describes the Daily Caller as publishing unrepentant, un-retracted white nationalist articles? GenQuest 18:03, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

It would be fair to note at the top when the articles were retracted or removed. Llll5032 (talk) 18:06, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I am neutral about the names, but the overall issue was noted by enough RS that it should be mentioned at the top. There is no need to reduce the description of Kessler later in the article, where the connection to the DC is noted by a number of RS including the Washington Post, Pro Publica, and the New Republic. Llll5032 (talk) 18:01, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

• I rewrote that sentence to summarize the section rather than focus on Kessler individually. Further improvements are welcome. –dlthewave ☎ 17:52, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Dlthewave added. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:25, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I would say remove it from the lede altogether based on the number of sources that cover it. The lede is a summary of the body but doesn't need to include everything or we might as well copy and paste the entire body in the lede. What is the relevant importance of having it there? --CNMall41 (talk) 20:05, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I think the coverage is misleading. None of the Kessler's articles were overtly white supremacist. Kessler's last article was the day after the protest against removing the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesille. When the Daily Caller was informed that Kessler had spoken at the rally, his article was taken down. See articles in the SPLC and Salon Kessler would later emerge as a leading figure in white nationalism as an organizer of the United the Right rally later that year.

The implication in the lead is that the Daily Caller invited a prominent leader of white nationalism to write an article, when in fact his prominence would come later. That's the type of problem that arises when we build an article around news articles instead of articles about the subject. According to the man bites dog theory, news media will report things that are out of the ordinary, giving the impression that they occur more frequently than ordinary events. We really need an article about the Daily Caller in a reliable source that can be used to establish the weight and analysis of the various issues.

TFD (talk) 01:30, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean we should use a tertiary source, like a reference book's description of the DC? Llll5032 (talk) 04:06, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

It could be, but even an article in a magazine or newspaper would be useful. What we have are basically news reports, making it difficult to write a neutral article. TFD (talk) 05:06, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree, that would be the best way to resolve the questions. Llll5032 (talk) 11:45, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Llll5032 and dlthewave that we should improve and not remove this, and further that there is not a consensus here to remove or reduce the mention of the Daily Caller's "white supremacist problem." Are there textbooks and reference books about the Daily Caller? There are some mentions that were discussed but none that go far enough into detail to name all of the people who wrote for it. I think it's fine to summarize the white supremacist problem and go into more detail in the body. By its nature a topic such as the Daily Caller is going to have a lot of coverage in periodicals, magazines, newspapers, thinktank publications, etc., and doesn't really register to the very elite academic crowd as a topic worth delving into for a weighty historical tome, in 2022. Andre🚐 07:28, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

You both make good points. Perhaps the section should be updated with more sources since 2018, and any claim at the top should get references. Llll5032 (talk) 11:24, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

One could write for example an article about the Democratic Party that was dominated by scandals from Whitewater to Laptopgate, all of which was reliably sourced, but together gave a false impression of the party. The Labour Party (UK) was diagnosed as having an "anti-Semitism problem" more recently than the DC was diagnosed as having a "white nationalist problem," yet it has little mention in the article.

Propaganda "may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception." Weight is such a crucial policy because it assigns proper context to information. Furthermore, no synthesis prevents editors from encouraging any particular synthesis.

This is actually an example of ineffective propaganda. It's so egregious, that it discredits itself. You'd have to be a bit more subtle in order to be persuasive.

What we need is a reliable article about the Daily Caller. See WP:TERTIARY: "Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight." TFD (talk) 12:47, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that any wording needs to be careful and proportionate. Llll5032 (talk) 12:59, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

The Britannica entry about Carlson does not have specifics but has some general statements about the DC. Llll5032 (talk) 13:45, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I WP:BOLDly made an edit in the second paragraph based on some of the questions raised in this discussion. Llll5032 (talk) 13:11, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I found two articles: "DAILY CALLER" (Covering American Politics in the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia of News Media Titans, Trends, and Controversies ABC-CLIO 2017, pp. 153-155) and "DailyCaller.com" (Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics SAGE 2013, pp. 345-346.)

Unfortunately, they are a couple of years out of date, but they do present mainstream perspectives.

If editors want to write an informed and balanced article, rather than a hit piece, they need to use sources like this as templates for the weight the article should give to various issues. They should also note the neutral tone these articles use, which is the style that should be adopted here. While that may mean walking into a university or research library, the time spent would be more productive than arguing here. TFD (talk) 14:39, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

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