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Raw Story Rated as Left-Biased
This website is becoming more popular, and it should be reflected accurately, and that is as a news source with a left orientation. That assessment comes from the MediaBiasFactCheck, which rates it as "left" on their scale of "Left/Left-Center/Least-biased/Right-Center/Right" scale.
The MediaCheck website itself is pretty straightforward, though I think somewhat kind -- they rate the NY Times as only "Left-Center" when it is hard left these days, and Fox News as "Right" when it is far more right/center in any real universe (editorially right -- but news, more objective). This is the website source:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/?s=Raw+story
Since Wikipedia itself has fallen prey to the left in many of its articles, with certain administrator/editors colluding to skew political articles to their own viewpoint, somehow I doubt this recommendation will be well met, at least by them -- and they can and do manipulate the system adeptly. Still, I am giving it a shot.
Lead
Users have repeatedly removed well sourced content from the Columbia Journalism Review and the Oxford Internet Institute from the lead and replaced it with promotional content, such as the unsourced sentence: The Raw Story publishes content produced by Reuters, Salon, ProPublica, AlterNet, The Conversation, The Texas Tribune and other outlets
. Random writers and editors who work at the Raw Story are also being inserted in the lead for no apparent reason. There's an entire section called "Staff" where that material should be included. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:38, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
The CJR link doesn't work. Looks like it's been removed from the CJR site. There's probably a good reason for that. The Oxford Internet Institute study is repeated twice in this article. The study took place over a single week, offers no supporting material as to how Raw Story meets its criteria other than a single link to a single story that checks out -- and doesn't meet any of their other stated criteria for the descriptor of "junk news." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)
The Humboldt Institute study relies on the designation from the Oxford Institute and offers no additional data proving Raw Story is a "junk news site." It's also interesting that the source material CJR used (it was essentially a duplicate of someone's masterlist elsewhere on the Internet) also classifies OANN as a "reliable" news source.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)
Seems like the "junk news" thesis falls apart once you click on the actual sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)
Everyone sees what Dr. Swag Lord does here. Look around Wiki... he's all about going after anything left of center. there is no problem putting the info there but why bounce all the good way down while finding a couple of negatives and bringing them up the pages. And then the page gets locked by the guy causing the company harm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.244.209.131 (talk • contribs)
Biased attempt to hurt company
Here's the situation. A user who is, according to a Wiki employee, a known problem decided to political go after our site. We have no issue on the full disclosure of all information. But, as you can see from the August 9, 2021 version, this person is intent on destroying the company's reputation, not by adding new information, but by pushing positive information down the page and elevating negative information. Who can help with this. Why is this allowed to go when Wiki is aware (one only need look at the person's history to see just what is going on here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.244.209.131 (talk • contribs)
can someone stop Dr. Swaglord?
This is really hard to understand. Everybody on Palmer Report agreed on partisan liberal blog in the header. I didn't like it but was overuled. The whole thing with Palmer report died down or seemed to. Now, without getting aproval Swag went and changed it to "fake news". Palmer Report is NOT afake news site and I really do not care what Swaggy says. Can he prove, with reliable sources that no article PR wrote was ever the truth? Because otherwise that "fake news" does not need to be in the header. It would appear Dr. Swag gets of on the drama as he is geting the same feedback I see on Rawstory. He is allowing his political biases to consume him and I have seen comments on here that people pretty much know this. EVERYBODY had decided PR's header. It is in the archived talk. But because Swaggy is determined to keep people from reading them, he went without ANY aproval and switched it. I would like to see his edit reverted and if not I will make a complaint on here about him and invite anyone including Raw story people to join me. 2600:6C65:7E7F:B93E:7509:328:C6D3:1B85 (talk) 19:59, 22 August 2021 (UTC) |
The Knock-Out Game
It looks like Raw Story pubbed a story that the Knock-Out Game was bunk around the same period. https://www.rawstory.com/2013/11/you-can-assure-your-relatives-this-thanksgiving-that-the-knockout-game-is-mostly-hype/
The report cited on this page, if you read it, says that police were concerned the phenomenon was happening. This is true, they were concerned, if you actually read the click-thru links from Buzzfeed and Raw Story. For example: https://kdvr.com/news/nationalworld-news/video-knockout-game-becoming-disturbing-trend-spreading-west/
Spoonpassport (talk) 23:26, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'll revise it a bit. But BuzzFeed News doesn't state that Raw Story later revised its reporting so we can't add that in. We would need a secondary source. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 23:41, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
But, Buzzfeed doesn't even say what you say it said ("with little evidence" is your editorializing). And the Raw Story report linked doesn't say what Buzzfeed says it said, either. Why use sources that don't check out? As far as "revised its reporting," Raw Story didn't revise anything. One story says, "Cops are concerned that X" and the second story says "This isn't really a thing." Spoonpassport (talk) 00:01, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- "And the Raw Story report linked doesn't say what Buzzfeed says it said, either. Why use sources that don't check out?" The community has determined that Buzzfeed News is a WP:RS (see WP:RSPSS) and that "The Raw Story is generally unreliable for factual reporting". The suggestion, therefore, would be that we privilege an unreliable source over a reliable source. Further, in this case, because the passage is referring to a specific TRS article, the article itself is a primary source and we generally prefer secondary sources over primary sources. For us to conclude that "... the Raw Story report linked doesn't say what Buzzfeed says ..." would require editors to engage in original research through process of textual analysis. Chetsford (talk) 02:15, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
This still doesn't answer the question as to why the Wikipedia page says something the Buzzfeed article does not say. And why another editor wouldn't correct what's going on here Spoonpassport (talk) 04:56, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- The BuzzFeed article states:
"Three days ago, Raw Story picked up local news reports claiming The Knockout Game was spreading west, writing that Knockout videos were being shared online amongst teenagers, increasing the game's popularity. The problem with that theory is there's almost no evidence to support that teenagers are uploading Knockout videos."
Our article states:In November 2013, The Raw Story, citing a local news report, claimed that teenagers were playing the "knockout game" and sharing the videos online. There was almost no evidence to suggest that teenagers were uploading videos of the knockout game.
I fail to see the discrepancy or the error our article makes. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 05:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
The local news reports were claiming. The police were claiming. Raw Story didn't claim anything. Reporting what people say isn't the same as saying them. The "most favored nation status" Buzzfeed writer didn't quite get it right and was inartful in his sentence structure. Spoonpassport (talk) 05:35, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- "Buzzfeed writer didn't quite get it right" Do you have a WP:RS that says Buzzfeed's article is wrong? Chetsford (talk) 15:34, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Of course I don't because no one in the real news world is going to write an article about how someone used the wrong gerund. That kind of thing only happens here. Spoonpassport (talk) 03:07, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- check out what they're doing to Palmer Report. You wont believe it. 2600:6C65:7E7F:B93E:A85C:5C92:ED1B:E538 (talk) 07:19, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
Satire vs. Fake News
It seems disingenuous to place a clear piece of satire in your "false claims" section for Raw Story. The folks who aggregated the satire piece were spreading fake news, but not Raw Story. The Buzzfeed article cited clearly says that the sites who aggregated it were the ones spreading false news. Spoonpassport (talk) 00:21, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah, I agree with this and I've moved it. I don't like your word choice "disingenuous", which makes it sound malicious when I can see someone reasonably not thinking that it would connote that The Raw Story were to blame, but I do think readers will be getting the wrong end of the stick and the main section directly above fits the content just fine. Thanks for the suggestion, Spoonpassport. — Bilorv (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
It was in a section called "false claims." The request to adios or move the story was ignored by more than one editor. And now that it's been moved, it still includes the loaded "fake" when applied to a clear piece of satire. Spoonpassport (talk) 02:10, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- If you actually took the time to read the source you'll see that BuzzFeed News refers to it as both as "satirical" and as "fake news":
"Two left-wing pages, Occupy Democrats and The Other 98%, posted a link to an article on U.S. Uncut that claimed the surgeon general of the US warned that drinking every time Trump lied during the first presidential debate could result in "acute alcohol poisoning." That story was an aggregation of a satirical Raw Story article with the same information, published earlier that day...The fake news story about the surgeon general of the US warning that drinking every time Trump lied during the first presidential debate could result in "acute alcohol poisoning" originated on Raw Story. We incorrectly said it originated on National Report, but their hoax was published after the Raw Story piece."
But I'm fine with Bilorv's edit moving it out of the "false claims" section. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 02:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Why are you accusing me of not taking the time to read the source? They were referring to the spreading of "fake news" by the sources who aggregated the story. Spoonpassport (talk) 02:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's what they saying doing in the first part. In the second part, they are unequivocally saying that the fake news story originated on the Raw Story (by the way, it may be a good idea to clearly mark your stories as "satire," which wasn't done in this case). Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:32, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
It's not "my" story. And they aren't "unequivocally" doing anything. That is your claim. And it's not true. Spoonpassport (talk) 03:39, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- The word "fake" is being used not to apply judgement, but as a descriptor. The story was intentionally fake—the whole point is that it was a fake story. I think it's very clear from the phrase "satirical article" that The Raw Story were writing a fake story and not intending for it to be spread as truthful, but that it was. I really don't see how the paragraph reflects badly on The Raw Story (though it is embarrassing to Occupy Democrats and US Uncut). — Bilorv (talk) 10:37, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- As for
The request to adios or move the story was ignored by more than one editor
, we're all volunteers here. Personally I am trying to monitor around 2000 pages on my watchlist while reviewing at least several drafts of articles by new editors each day and taking time to write new articles (which is the part of Wikipedia editing I most enjoy). It's no-one's job to read and evaluate the talk page in full before dropping a comment about something different, and you should request changes to pages you don't have permission to edit by starting the section with the code {{Edit extended-protected}} (or the right variant depending on the protection level). — Bilorv (talk) 10:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
CJR
The CRJ claim in the lede is false. That CJR resource has been deleted. The article claims CJR tags Raw Story as "click bait" in the present tense. This is false. What would be accurate is something like, "In 2018, in a now-deleted resource, CJR tagged Raw Story as a "click-bait" news site. Of course, there are other interesting and relevant things CJR has said about Raw Story. This piece, for example: https://archives.cjr.org/the_kicker/must-reads_of_the_week_68.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)
- As Chetsford already explained to you, a dead link does not mean a source is unreliable anymore or "false." You can clearly see the archived version in the citation or here. This was not from 2018--it was archived just over a month ago. If you like, I can add in the other CJR article in the content section. But we're not going scrub away all the unflattering content.Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 01:49, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm dispassionate about this article, however, I will make a general observation (not necessarily specific to this article) that including the phrase "in a now-deleted resource" could constitute WP:OR by making a conclusion about some tangible qualities of a source not otherwise evident from that source or other WP:RS. Invoking the past tense verb "deleted" implies an intentional action by a source which would usually require evidence of intent as opposed to the more likely possibility that it was simply lost to WP:LINKROT. I defer to other editors on whether or not this point applies here, though. Chetsford (talk) 02:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
In this sentence, who is "we"? "We're not going scrub away all the unflattering content." Is there a group discussion/consensus happening somewhere else on Wikipedia regarding the Raw Story article?
Also, I never requested what you state I requested. I asked you to correct something that is no longer accurate and demonstrably false as written in the present tense. I did not ask you to "scrub away all the unflattering content." So far, I've asked about 3 very specific issues. Spoonpassport (talk) 02:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- By "we" I mean the voluntary editors who regularly edit Wikipedia--not accounts with a single purpose who have a conflict of interest with Raw Story. You have still have not provided any evidence that CJR redacted Raw Story's classification as a clickbait site. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:11, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Do you mean "redacted" or another word? I have proof that their claim has been deleted and no longer exists. As do you. Spoonpassport (talk) 03:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- Once again, a dead link does not mean a claim has been "deleted" or "no longer" exists. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:27, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Your sentence re CJR is written in the present tense. This is a falsehood. Spoonpassport (talk) 03:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Okay, maybe you meant "retracted"? Spoonpassport (talk) 03:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
LOL
Now you're quoting from people's self-published books? People who worked for the RNC? That's just ... hilarious.Spoonpassport (talk) 06:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- Cyrus Krohn is the former publisher of Slate. But since I can't find a lot of info about the publisher, I'll try to replace it with a different source. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 06:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- He's obsessed. 2600:6C65:7E7F:B93E:A85C:5C92:ED1B:E538 (talk) 07:16, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
NewsGuard Review
This 2021 NewsGuard review seems more relevant than many opinion pieces sourced on this article: https://api.newsguardtech.com/label/rawstory.com?cid=cb491c78-2077-4963-aba4-b46546893a6f
You have to have a subscription login to access it, but that's true for a lot of trusted sources used on Wikipedia -- including the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and many others. Spoonpassport (talk) 23:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Vandalism of Raw Story's Wikipedia Page
As requested by Wikipedia's editors in an email of Sept 9. 2021, I am writing to report vandalism and bad faith editing on The Raw Story's Wikipedia page by an editor with an agenda. The editor has spent months filling Raw Story’s page with citations that fit an exclusively negative narrative. He/she also reverted efforts to repair the page to a neutral balance. This individual’s political agenda has been documented repeatedly on his/her talk page: Dr.Swag_Lord,_Ph.d
Given this editor's agenda, we believe he/she should be blocked from editing the page and the page should be restricted to editorial review from experienced editors. The editor has been repeatedly cited for his/her behavior, including but not limited to a recent edit war and questionable edits. A detailed review of his edits to Raw Story reveal a prolonged and obsessive attempt to misrepresent Raw Story's nearly two decades of journalism and delete positive references to its work.
Good faith edits were attempted to Raw Story's entry without success. Editors attempted to add useful information and contextualize issues this editor introduced. Edits were meant to improve and build upon the content, rather than to delete criticism. If criticism was deleted, it appears to have only been intended to restore meaningful balance to the page such that it doesn't serve the agenda of a single editor with a personal vendetta.
To advance his/her attacks, this editor has gone to great lengths to find abstruse citations for claims where the original source no longer exists. There is no longer any Oxford Institute Junk News aggregator, so the editor found sources that referenced it, none of which provide evidence of Raw Story being junk news, and even some of which question its methodology.[1] The editor also linked to a source calling RawStory a clickbait website, which also no longer exists (it was retracted). The editor linked to a self-published book by a member of the Republican National Committee, which was contested in one of the edits. The extremes to which this editor tries to find “valid citations” seems oddly personal and vindictive.
This editor's continued attempts to delete positive and meaningful references to Raw Story's work is coupled with a multi-month attack on Raw Story's content and its staff, (even going so far as to highlight a medical procedure performed on one of Raw Story's prior editors.) The fact that all of this editor's edits are negative should be suspect enough of someone determined to factually represent Raw Story’s work.
There are myriad problems with the editor’s citations added to Raw Story's page. Apparently unable to unearth enough "false claims," this editor began to blame Raw Story for errors of other sources. Citation 35 blames Raw Story for an article published by a Fox affiliate.[2] Citation 38 blames Raw Story for a Guardian article; this would be like blaming the Times for reprinting an article by the Associated Press. Citation 39 is misleading, as Raw Story reported that the Inquisitr was inaccurate.[3] Citation 42 references an alleged error made by Gawker. Citation 55 doesn’t reference Raw Story. Errors published daily by the New York Times are not labeled “false claims,” particularly when the Times relies on credible third-party sources, as Raw Story repeatedly did.
This editor also repeatedly deleted important information about Raw Story. Raw Story is hardly a “junk news site.” In fact, Raw Story is partnered with a Pulitzer-Prize winning former New York Times reporter, as part of an effort to expand the nonprofit’s important journalism.[4][5] The editor deleted this, and instead inserted references like, “The Raw Story was the 9th most shared media source on Twitter by Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2016 United States presidential election.” Is not partnering with a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter more relevant than who Hillary Clinton’s supporters were interested in?
Raw Story was first known for reporting on closeted Republicans who sought to bar LGBT Americans from marrying or adopting children. For no apparent reason, this editor has also sought to erase Raw Story's role in LGBT history. In 2004, Raw Story reported on the closeted the chairman of President George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, Ken Mehlman.[6] It reported further that Bush's campaign sought to prevent newspapers from reporting on their senior staffer's sexuality, by lying outright.[7] Mehlman, who came out as gay in 2010, superintended one of the most homophobic campaigns in U.S. presidential history, and would go on to be instrumental in passing gay marriage legislation in New York State.[8] Raw Story also reported on closeted California Rep. and former House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA), a gay congressman who endorsed efforts to bar LGBT Americans from adopting children.[9]
Efforts to disparage Raw Story have surfaced in lockstep with our focus on white supremacist extremism, critical original reporting that should be part of Raw Story's page. Raw Story's reporters have risked their lives to cover white nationalist protests. The “Proud Boys,” which appeared on Americans’ radar following the failed Capitol Hill attack, have been the subjects of Raw Story’s original reports for years. Since 2018, Raw Story has warned, through completely original content, of the growing menace of anti-Semitic, anti-government extremist groups – the same groups who would later organize and lead the Capitol insurrection. Such original reporting can be seen in Arun Gupta’s October 19, 2018 exclusive Here’s the truth about the pro-Trump “Proud Boys” and their connections to neo-Nazis,[10] Arun Gupta’s November 20, 2018 exclusive “Damn straight I support white pride”: Far-right organizer Haley Adams embraces white nationalism in exclusive interview,[11] Jordan Green’s December 12, 2020 “Anybody got a bazooka?” Proud Boys wreak havoc on DC as Mike Flynn and others rally Donald Trump loyalists,[12] Jordan Green’s December 13, 2020 A “rise in white supremacy”: Black pastor alarmed by Proud Boys night of violence and vandalism in DC,[13] Jordan Green’s December 21, 2020 Proud Boys rallies result in violence against people of color -- but their driving ideology is hatred against women,[14] Arun Gupta’s January 19, 2021 Years of impunity for right-wing extremists began with the Bundys and led to the failed Capitol Hill coup,[15] and Jordan Green’s January 6, 2021 “We’re gonna kill Congress”: Trump’s far-right supporters promise violence at today’s DC protests.[16][1] This sampling of Raw Story’s original content do not represent idle partisan reports, but are high-interest and timely original works. Jordan Green’s “We’re gonna kill Congress”: Trump’s far-right supporters promise violence at today’s DC protests” was published literally hours before the Capitol attack.[17]
This list of issues is not exhaustive. We kindly request that editors thoughtfully review this editor’s attacks on our page and prevent him from making further edits. We also request that the page be monitored, since we think it likely another editor will try to attack the page if this editor is banned from editing it.
We then ask that either we be allowed to re-add highlights of our original content, or that other thoughtful Wikipedia editors fairly examine and write about our entire body of work. Raw Story’s page should allow for criticism, but we don’t believe it should serve a single editor with a personal agenda.
Thank you for your time and thoughtful assistance.
Sincerely,
John Byrne, CEO/Founder, Raw Story
Artlover404 (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
[1] This is just an illustrative sampling of Raw Story’s original content. More articles by Jordan Green and Arun Gupta can be accessed at Jordan Green's Profile Page and Arun Gupta's Profile Page, respectively.
References
- ^ Hazard Owen, Laura. "Facebook Groups are "the greatest short-term threat to election news and information integrity"". Nieman Lab.
- ^ Holden, Will. "VIDEO: 'Knockout' game becoming disturbing trend, spreading West". FOX 31 News. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Boggioni, Tom. "Inquisitr.com duped by claim Costco dropped dinosaur cake because AZ Christian mom complained". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ PR Newswire. "Pulitzer-Prize Winning Reporter David Cay Johnston Partners with Raw Story in Push for Investigative Journalism". PR Newswire. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Byrne, John. "DC Report Partners with Raw Story". DC Report. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Byrne, John. "Bush-Cheney campaign manager, ex-chairman of Republican Party comes out as gay". The Raw Story.
- ^ Byrne, John. "Bush-Cheney campaign pressured papers to keep campaign manager's sexuality secret". The Raw Story.
- ^ Mencimer, Stephanie. "Gay Activists to Mehlman: Not So Fast". Mother Jones. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Ireland, Doug. "Congressman outed by LA Weekly". Narkive. LA Weekly. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Gupta, Arun. "EXCLUSIVE: Here's the truth about the pro-Trump 'Proud Boys' and their connections to neo-Nazis". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Gupta, Arun. "'Damn straight I support white pride': Far-right organizer Haley Adams embraces white nationalism in exclusive interview". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Green, Jordan. "'Anybody got a bazooka?' Proud Boys wreak havoc on DC as Mike Flynn and others rally Donald Trump loyalists". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Green, Jordan. "A 'rise in white supremacy': Black pastor alarmed by Proud Boys night of violence and vandalism in DC". The Raw Story.
- ^ Green, Jordan. "Proud Boys rallies result in violence against people of color -- but their driving ideology is hatred against women". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Gupta, Arun. "Years of impunity for right-wing extremists began with the Bundys and led to the failed Capitol Hill coup". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Green, Jordan. "'We're gonna kill Congress': Trump's far-right supporters promise violence at today's DC protests". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Green, Jordan. "'We're gonna kill Congress': Trump's far-right supporters promise violence at today's DC protests". The Raw Story. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- Hello and welcome Artlover404. Thank you for your very detailed comment and I'm sorry for any discontent this article has created for you. This is a lot to go through so let me try to address this in pieces.
- First, it's important you police your comments about other editors and assume good faith. Talk pages are most effectively used by describing specific edits you'd like to see made to an article (e.g. "add XYZ", "delete ABC", etc.) instead of making allegations and accusations against others. This is critical to maintain our collaborative editing environment.
- "The editor also linked to a source calling RawStory a clickbait website, which also no longer exists (it was retracted)." Do you have a reliable source that supports the statement this [1] citation from the Columbia Journalism Review was "retracted" as opposed to simply suffering WP:LINKROT?
- "Given this editor's agenda, we believe he/she should be blocked from editing the page and the page should be restricted to editorial review from experienced editors." I acknowledge your opinion, however, our WP:BLOCKING policy does not permit the blocking of editors for this reason.
- "The fact that all of this editor's edits are negative should be suspect enough of someone determined to factually represent Raw Story’s work." Wikipedia's policy on neutrality (NPOV) explains that "It is a frequent misunderstanding of the NPOV policy ... that articles must not contain any form of bias, hence their efforts to remove statements they perceive as biased. The NPOV policy does forbid the inclusion of editorial bias, but does not forbid properly sourced bias. Without the inclusion and documentation of bias in the real world, many of our articles would fail to document the sum total of human knowledge, and would be rather "blah" reading, devoid of much meaningful and interesting content." Often, when the only WP:RS about a subject are negative, the article itself will read negatively. That does not mean the editor is "out to get" the subject of the article, merely that they are obligated - by our policies - to include an accurate representation of what is written about the subject. For instance, Frank Gaffney and Alex Jones' articles read rather negatively because no reliable sources have written anything positive about them. If you can, however, suggest specific sources that cover therawstory.com in a positive light we could (and absolutely should), of course, include them.
- "Raw Story was first known for reporting on closeted Republicans who sought to bar LGBT Americans from marrying or adopting children. For no apparent reason, this editor has also sought to erase Raw Story's important role in LGBT history. In 2004, Raw Story reported on the closeted the chairman of President George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, Ken Mehlman." This, like many of the accomplishments you'd like added to the article, is sourced to therawstory.com itself. The Wikipedia community has collectively determined the following: "[therawstory.com] is generally unreliable for factual reporting, based upon a pattern of publishing false and sensationalized stories." For that reason, therawstory.com is probably not a reliable source for coverage of therawstory.com, I'm afraid.
- I hope the preceding was helpful in some way. I know it may not have provided the specific resolution you were seeking but, hopefully, it offers some ideas about specific edit suggestions you could make in a follow-up comment that would help mitigate any bias you perceive. Chetsford (talk) 18:43, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
- Hello Artlover404. Chetsford has already given you a very detailed response and so I won't repeat him. However I will add that any discussion of sanctions (blocks, page-blocks, topic bans, etc.) against Dr.Swag Lord would need to happen at a noticeboard like WP:ANI or WP:AE. I will also leave you a note on your talk page with some housekeeping details around conflicts of interest on Wikipedia. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:10, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Most of these complaints are unfounded. Here is the so-called "neutral" content your partners kept trying to re-insert in the article. As you can see, a good chunk of the content is either unsourced or sourced to the Raw Story's own website. Also, trying to add in random reporters who work at Raw Story into the lead seems rather promotional. When one of your partners asked me to insert a Colombia Journalism Review ref into the article, I happily did so. If you have other sources that are both reliable and independent of the Raw Story, please share them. Let me address some of your grievances
citation 35 blames Raw Story for an article published by a Fox affiliate
. I think you mean citation 37. Other editors and myself have already explain to your partners that Raw Story made erroneous claims about the knock-out gameCitation 38 blames Raw Story for a Guardian article;this would be like blaming the Times for reprinting an article by the Associated Press
: According to the source,At no time in the entire case were there “five feminist editors” up for a ban. But understandable outrage at the supposed misogynist move blew up on the Internet. And more stories followed—in Gawker, Raw Story, the Mary Sue, Inquisitr, and ThinkProgress—all sourcing the Guardian, spreading the myth of the fabled five feminist editors who were the only thing holding off Gamergate’s takeover of Wikipedia.
Citation 39 is misleading, as Raw Story reported that the Inquisitr was inaccurate
: According to the source,A number of web sites aggregated the story from the original Inquisitr article without independently examining its veracity, including The Frisky, IJReview, Raw Story, and Addicting Info.
Citation 42 references an alleged error made by Gawker.
According to the source,Occupy Democrats cited Raw Story, which in turn cited Gawker, which reported that O’Reilly had “lost custody” of his children in February 2016, but that article, again, did not suggest that O’Reilly was denied custodial care of the children due to violent behavior
Citation 55 doesn’t reference Raw Story
. According to the source,Corresponding Misinformation:...“Congressman erupts on Trump’s health ofcials for not correcting his ‘bizarre’ lies about coronavirus - Raw Story.”...“‘Stealth attack on Social Security’: Trump condemned for exploiting coronavirus crisis to push tax cut – Raw Story.”
Errors published daily by the New York Times are not labeled “false claims,”
. Of course they are. In fact, we have an entire article called List of controversies involving The New York Times which details some of the Times' falsehoods.Is not partnering with a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter more relevant than who Hillary Clinton’s supporters were interested in?
That's not up for us to decide. The sources you provided are not independent of the Raw Story since the first source is a press release and the second source is a blog written by Byrne. In contrast, the source for who Hillary Clinton’s supporters were interested in comes from a study published by top researchers at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center.Efforts to disparage Raw Story have surfaced in lockstep with our focus on white supremacist extremism, critical original reporting that should be part of Raw Story's page.
We do, in fact, include your reportage of white supremacy in this article. We included the time when Raw Story falsely claimed that the chief deputy of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office was a white supremacist who"plotted to abduct, rape and murder 'a black man or a Jew.'"
Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:48, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Good morning. Thank you for your detailed replies.
David Cay Johnston won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting in 2001.[1] Raw Story’s partnership was announced in an article at the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter’s nonprofit.[2][3][4] The collaboration has provided a needed investment in more than a dozen hard-working journalists. “Partnering with Raw Story promises to provide DCReport with the resources we need to expand our hard-hitting investigative reporting,” Johnston said in the announcement. Good faith editors tried to include this in Raw Story’s entry, and it was deleted.
Johnston produced a five-part exclusive for Raw Story on the tax evasion of Charles Koch, a brother of the controlling shareholders of Koch Industries and Palm Beach neighbor of former President Donald Trump, showing how he used an elaborate series of tax evasion measures to avoid nearly $1 billion in US federal tax.[5][6] Raw Story’s Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter revealed, with documents and emails, that the IRS had been notified by a whistleblower of the tax avoidance scheme in 2018. Raw Story’s reports were of critical public interest; indeed, Koch hosted a fundraiser for President Trump headlined by Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversaw the IRS and oversaw passage of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. The lawyer for the whistleblower who revealed the tax-dodging strategy mentioned Mnuchin by name. In addition, Raw Story's Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter disclosed that an IRS criminal investigation was abruptly closed months after Trump took office.[7] Raw Story’s Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter further revealed that the IRS ignored documents showing that the billionaire Trump fundraiser avoided millions in taxes on his Cape Cod estate where he hosted a 2016 campaign event for Trump.[8] The White House declined to comment on the report, and Koch’s representative said the whistleblower was fired for cause. Good faith editors tried to include this in Raw Story’s entry, and it was deleted.
Raw Story has been accused of inserting of inserting biased content into its page. Following is the “so called neutral” content offensive to the editor who has written most of Raw Story’s entry. The following was deleted.
- That Raw Story reprints content from the Guardian, Salon and Pro Publica
- That Raw Story employed a senior staff editor for the New York Times
- That Raw Story employed an NBC News Reporter
- That Raw Story’s former Executive Editor was Executive Editor for The Village Voice
- A citation from Politico stating that the Raw Story was conceived as an alternative for The Drudge Report
- That Raw Story partnered with a Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter in 2019
- The Raw Story's aforementioned Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter revealed the aforementioned tax evasion of billionaire and Trump neighbor William Koch
- That Raw Story originally focused on national security reporting and outing closeted gay political figures who worked to deny rights to LGBT Americans
- That Raw Story outed former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, after he left two messages on a gay sex phone line
- That Schrock resigned Aug. 31, 2004, after Raw Story’s report
- That Raw Story exclusively revealed, in March 2007, the location of a secret CIA prison in Poland that served as a core piece of the President George W. Bush's secret rendition program involving enemy combatants.[9] (Raw Story’s report was the first to expose a European location of the U.S. black sites first revealed by Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, for which she won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.[10])
- That Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland between 1995 and 2005, later admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site at the location
- That Raw Story reported on the Ammon-Bundy led occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge in 2016[11]
- That Raw Story’s reporter Jordan Green, who Raw Story hired to focused on white supremacist extremism and domestic terrorism, and who reported the day of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot that protesters were determined to kill members of the U.S. Congress, received a journalism award for his coverage of white supremacism for an article co-published with Raw Story[12]
This is the offensive version of Raw Story’s page. It hardly shows that Raw Story was hardly trying to remove disparaging content. And while we question the inclusion of sources that don’t exist, this version contains both the spurious “junk news” and “clickbait” assertion, but is more neutral than the present version which cherry-picks and parrots an entirely biased version of Raw Story.
It appears there is no defense for “clickbait website” and “junk news,” since they have been removed from the Web, short of the Columbia Journalism Review and Oxford putting out a press release. These outlets appear to be cited because they are esteemed — and as reputable organizations, they reputably removed the lists as they were false. None of the sources linked to regarding these claims demonstrate The Raw Story is either of those things; they merely repeat a list to which Raw Story was erroneously added. Adding them at the very top of The Raw Story’s page, especially given the fact they don’t actually exist, is cherry-picking to support a predetermined conclusion.
Editors defend erasing Raw Story’s role in advancing LGBT rights, claiming Raw Story is not a reputable source. I wrote these reports. I published the recording of former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA) announcing his desire for to find a man in “very good shape, flat stomach, good chest, good arms, [and] well hung,” looking for someone to “go down on me” on a gay phone sex line; I revealed that former House Rules Committee Chairman and onetime possible House Majority Leader David Dreier (R-CA) had a secret relationship with his chief of staff Brad Smith; I reported that former Bush-Cheney campaign chairman and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman lived a secret gay life while overseeing a campaign distributing homophobic anti-gay flyers in the battleground state of Ohio; and I reported that Chris Crain, the editor of Washington D.C. gay newspaper, The Blade, covered up Mehlman’s sexuality and chose not to report the fact he knew that Bush’s campaign chairman was gay. “Chris would confirm it,” I reported, but “he wouldn’t give out any names [of his sources].”[13] Blade reporters told me that Crain was part of this culture of secrecy because he was a colleague of Mehlman’s at Harvard Law School.[14] Multiple White House reporters told me at the time that they knew Mehlman was gay but they were afraid — or rather, they couldn’t — report it.
This was seminal work. No one had outed members of Congress and White House staff in the press before. The White House press corps refused, preserving “decorum” to retain access. Reporters and editors covered up the fact that Mehlman was gay, despite the obvious public interest in a closeted gay man running the anti-gay Bush White House and the anti-gay Bush campaign. Mehlman would later become Republican National Committee Chairman, leading a party that sought to deny the right of gay couples to marry; the right of gay men and women to adopt children; and the right of gay men and women to serve openly in uniform defending the country they loved. Rogers and I pointed out that throughout this period of media silence, and closeted privileges Republican congressmembers enjoyed, gay teenagers continued to kill themselves at alarming rates, ostracized by their families, friends and classmates, under a reign of anti-gay discrimination propagated by conservative men who were themselves gay.
The outing of closeted anti-gay politicians and anti-gay staffers in Washington changed the game on Capitol Hill. Closeted individuals who were party to anti-gay legislation and anti-gay rhetoric now knew they had a good chance of being exposed, and as a result, they were less likely to be vocal or take votes they knew could result in their hypocrisy becoming public. It became perilous for gay men to be part of the conspiracy to deny rights to their own. And slowly and steadily the mood shifted in Washington, such that even the somewhat conservative Supreme Court decided that same-sex couples deserved equal rights in 2015.
Raw Story has offered myriad examples of its important original journalism. It continues to publish exclusive reports on white supremacy in the United States, for which it has received awards. Just yesterday, we reported on ex-Marines in a neo-Nazi terror cell who planned to attack the U.S. power grid as precursor to assassination campaign.[15] It is beyond absurd that the only mention of white supremacy in Raw Story’s entry is regarding an error we made in picking up a story that appeared to be real by another website, which we promptly removed.
--John Byrne Artlover404 (talk) 14:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
References
- ^ "David Cay Johnston of The New York Times". Pulitzer.org. Pulitzer.org. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Byrne, John. "DC Report Partners with Raw Story". DC Report. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ "Profile, DCReport Inc". Guidestar.org. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Report, DC. "990 E-Z Report of Organization Exempt From Income Tax" (PDF). Guidestar.org. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Johnston, David Cay. "EXCLUSIVE: How Koch brother Bill Koch earned millions of tax-free dollars while showing no profits". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Johnston, David Cay. "EXCLUSIVE: How Trump neighbor and supporter William Koch avoided paying hundreds of millions in taxes". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Johnston, David Cay. "Exclusive: IRS abruptly stopped criminal investigation of Mar-a-Lago member accused of massive tax fraud months after Trump took office". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Johnston, David Cay. "Exclusive: IRS ignored documents showing that billionaire Trump supporter avoided millions in taxes on Cape Cod estate used for Trump fundraiser". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Alexandrovna, Larisa & Dastych, David. "Soviet-era compound in northern Poland was site of secret CIA interrogation, detentions". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Dana Priest of The Washington Post". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Gupta, Arun. "Raw Story's Arun Gupta caught up in same trap that snared Oregon militants". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Green, Jordan. "The lost boys of Ukraine: How the war abroad attracted American white supremacists". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Faith Wilson, Erin. "16 Antigay Leaders Exposed as Gay or Bi". The Advocate. The Advocate. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Moore, James and Slater, Wayne. "The Architect: Karl Rove and the End of the Democratic Party". books.google.com. Crown.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Green, Jordan. "Ex-Marines in neo-Nazi terror cell planned to attack power grid as precursor to assassination campaign: government". The Raw Story. The Raw Story. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- Hello, Artlover404. If you can, please provide specific text you would like to see added or removed from the article, along with WP:RS supporting those additions or removals. Wikipedia is a project maintained by volunteers and it is very difficult for us to translate descriptive expository and personal narrative into actual encyclopedia content. Also, when replying, please keep in mind that the Wikipedia community, across five discussions spanning 13 years, has almost unanimously determined that therawstory.com "is generally unreliable for factual reporting, based upon a pattern of publishing false and sensationalized stories." Therefore, sources about therawstory.com will need to be from outlets other than therawstory.com itself. Wikipedia operates according to a collaborative/consensus-building framework so no single person has the authority to unilaterally reverse this determination the community has made and any objection registered here is not one that could be realistically acted upon, unfortunately. Thanks! Chetsford (talk) 15:32, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
Artlover404, I will once again attempt to answer your complaints, but, as Chetsford mentions, it's very difficult to respond to these essay-like inquiries. Please try to condense your grievances (possibly in bullet-point format).
- For all of your references, please provide sources that are independent, secondary, and reliable. Please do not cite stories from the Raw Story directly. Also, do note cite blogs written by Bryne or Raw Story's tax returns.
That Raw Story reprints content from the Guardian, Salon and Pro Publica
: This was neither sourced nor particularly relevantThat Raw Story employed a senior staff editor for the New York Times
: This is already included in the staff sectionThat Raw Story employed an NBC News Reporter
: Lacks proper sourcingThat Raw Story’s former Executive Editor was Executive Editor for The Village Voice
: This is already included in the staff sectionA citation from Politico stating that the Raw Story was conceived as an alternative for The Drudge Report
:Will try to re-add this citationIf you're referring to This Politico article (which is written by Rogers), then it does not verify that Raw Story was conceived as an alternative for The Drudge Report.That Raw Story partnered with a Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter in 2019
: Lacks proper sourcingThe Raw Story's aforementioned Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter revealed the aforementioned tax evasion of billionaire and Trump neighbor William Koch
: Lacks proper sourcingThat Raw Story originally focused on national security reporting and outing closeted gay political figures who worked to deny rights to LGBT Americans
: Lacks proper sourcingThat Raw Story outed former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, after he left two messages on a gay sex phone line
: I think this did have proper sourcing but it seemed tangential to the Raw StoryThat Schrock resigned Aug. 31, 2004, after Raw Story’s report
: See aboveThat Raw Story exclusively revealed, in March 2007, the location of a secret CIA prison in Poland that served as a core piece of the President George W. Bush's secret rendition program involving enemy combatants (Raw Story’s report was the first to expose a European location of the U.S. black sites first revealed by Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, for which she won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.
: Lacks proper sourcing. Also, the Pulitizer site does not mention Raw StoryThat Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland between 1995 and 2005, later admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site at the location
: Lacks proper sourcingThat Raw Story reported on the Ammon-Bundy led occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge in 2016
: Lacks proper sourcingThat Raw Story’s reporter Jordan Green, who Raw Story hired to focused on white supremacist extremism and domestic terrorism, and who reported the day of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot that protesters were determined to kill members of the U.S. Congress, received a journalism award for his coverage of white supremacism for an article co-published with Raw Story
: Lacks proper sourcing Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
Editors:
I want to acknowledge an overabundance of enthusiasm and frustration in my prior responses. While I maintain that recent edits to Raw Story's page have been one-sided, I acknowledge lack of awareness of some of Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines and hope to provide more helpful feedback going forward. Also, I want to apologize if my responses have felt like attacks on Wikipedia's broader community of editors. At no point did I mean to offend or attack Wikipedia's community or question its mission. Could you point me to where Wikipedia lists what sources it considers trustworthy and reliable, so we don't waste anyone's time?
Here are some starting points for useful citations that might be useful to your readers. I didn't want to overwhelm the page, so I've just included a few to start. Let me know if these are helpful and I can provide more.
Providing a reference for an earlier request
Raw Story's former reporters include Sahil Kapur, a national political reporter for NBC News
- https://www.cnbc.com/2010/12/02/bank-of-americas-risky-wikileaks-strategy.html
- https://www.nbcnews.com/author/sahil-kapur-ncpn1123791
Wikileaks Exclusive
In 2010, Raw Story was the first to report that Wikileaks had obtained the hard drive of a Bank of America executive, which caused the bank’s stock to drop and led to Bank of America buying up anti-Bank of America domain names. An associate of Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, later said he had destroyed some of the data to protect sources.
- https://www.cnbc.com/2010/12/02/bank-of-americas-risky-wikileaks-strategy.html (Sahil Kapur at Raw Story was the first to connect the dots)
- https://www.cnbc.com/id/40437169 (it has been picked up by Sahil Kapur at the Raw Story...)
- http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2010/11/30/wikileaks-next-target-bank-of-america.html (Read it at Raw Story)
- http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/12/bank_of_america_buys_up_anti-b.html (In a preemptive move against a potential Wikileaks attack...)
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bankofamerica-wikileaks/some-of-wikileaks-bank-of-america-data-destroyed-idUSTRE77L55P20110822 (to protect sources)
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
In 2010, Raw Story revealed that Fox News had rejected a television ad criticizing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a military policy that kept LGBT service members in the closet to avoid their dishonorable discharge.
- https://www.glaad.org/2010/11/23/palm-center-fox-wont-air-dadt-repeal-ad (Raw Story reports the Palm Center sent the ad to Fox News, but)
- http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/11/happy_hour_roundup_135.html (A public policy think tank says Fox News has refused to run their ad pushing for DADT repeal.)
- Original Raw Story article: https://web.archive.org/web/20101126115142/https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/fox-news-reject-ad-dont-tell/
In 2010, Raw Story discovered that the Washington Post had failed to disclose that one of its bloggers had ties to the Obama Administration. The Post then updated the blogger’s biography, and its Communications Director said that the paper would “update their bios and disclose any potential conflicts.” The report was highlighted by several conservative bloggers.
- https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/07/wapo-fail/185191/ (have they not disclosed that one of their bloggers also moonlights for the Obama administration?)
- https://www.imediaethics.org/washington-post-blogger-lack-of-disclosure-called-out-fixed-quickly/
- Original article: https://web.archive.org/web/20100703105216/https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/0702/washington-post-fails-disclose-blogger/
Siri and Abortion Clinics
In 2011, Raw Story’s Executive Editor discovered that Apple iPhone’s Siri could not locate abortion clinics in New York or Washington, D.C. Siri users in Washington, D.C. were instead directed to anti-abortion pregnancy clinics in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Asked why she was against abortion, Siri said, "I just am." Siri was able to find escort services and Viagra, Raw Story found. The story was picked up by The New York Times, PC Mag and NBC News.
- https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/siri-struggles-to-serve-up-certain-results/ (Megan Carpentier, the executive editor at a blog called The Raw Story, noted that )
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/apple-explains-why-iphone-wont-find-abortion-centers-flna118794 (As Raw Story's Megan Carpentier — one of the first bloggers to notice the abortion center search issue — points out)
- https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/siri-questioned-about-abortion-clinics/1906072/ "Why are you anti-abortion, Siri?" the app answered, "I just am," according to Raw Story.
- https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/americans-demanded-freedom-tracking-during-covid-then-grabbed-their-phones-ncna1273007 (Recall that early incarnations of Siri could find prostitutes and Viagra but not abortion providers.)
- https://www.pcmag.com/archive/siri-are-you-anti-abortion-291205 (The Raw Story, meanwhile, has helpfully put together a list of "things the iPhone Siri will help you get instead of an abortion.")
- Original article https://web.archive.org/web/20111201082422/https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/29/10-things-the-iphone-siri-will-help-you-get-instead-of-an-abortion/
Coverage of White Nationalists
Staff reporter Jordan Green’s reporting on the Proud Boys was cited in 2021’s “Pride and Prejudice: The Evolution of the Proud Boys,” by West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center, which noted “the Proud Boys act as a radicalization pathway for more mainstream political organizing into harder white supremacist and white nationalist spaces.” Green’s reporting has also been cited by Elon University and the North Carolina Triad City Beat. Raw Story's reporting on white nationalist Haley Adams was also cited by Rolling Stone.
- Jordan Green’s reporting for Raw Story about the Proud Boys was cited by West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center. (https://ctc.usma.edu/pride-prejudice-the-violent-evolution-of-the-proud-boys/);
- Elon University (https://www.elon.edu/u/nclnw/2021/01/16/nc-local-for-jan-13-covering-the-current-crisis-local-journalisms-role-resources/);
- and North Carolina’s Triad City Beat (https://triad-city-beat.com/memorial-day-reopen-rally-greensboro/)
Thanks, Artlover404 (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Artlover404, Thank you very much for making your edits more readable. A non-exhaustive list of sources Wikipedia deems reliable, unreliable, or mixed can be found here: WP:RSP. I'll go through your list when I am able to. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:57, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Hi Artlover404 - you requested a variety of additions to the article that would credit therawstory.com with being used as a source in other articles. This seems, to me, to present two problems:
- The biggest problem is that many of the sources you cited to support your proposed additions have been determined by the Wikipedia community not to be reliable (e.g. News Busters, therawstory.com), or to be of limited unreliability for the topics you're seeking to cite them for (e.g. the Christian Post and abortion, Rolling Stone and political and social issues, etc.), or are reliable only for attributed statements of opinion (e.g. ThinkProgress), or don't even mention therawstory.com at all in the references you've provided (e.g. here [2], here [3], here [4], etc.; by my count, about half of the remaining references).
- Secondly, the requests for the addition of indiscriminate, routine information that does not add any encyclopedic value violates our WP:NOT policy. For instance, today, The Times of Israel sourced an article to The New York Times [5]. We are probably not going to add that fact to the New York Times WP article as it is merely routine information; a glancing mention that is insignificant and occurs many times each day. Our NOT policy says that "A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject." If a reliable source described The Raw Story breaking a story, or provided some analysis or context of its significance, that would probably be appropriate for the article. But one-sentence acknowledgments that a news website wrote a news article probably falls within our general practice of not including random, indiscriminate information.
- That said, it's very possible another WP editor might add some of this but I, personally, am not comfortable doing so. Best regards - Chetsford (talk) 23:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi Chetsford - I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, if mentioning your name flags you? I really appreciate your time in explaining this.
It would seem like Raw Story breaking the Siri story is material, and Raw Story was mentioned by name by multiple reliable sources? I included the RawStory.com articles just so that an editor could read the original story -- you'd mentioned that RawStory.com can't be referenced. I just didn't want an editor to have to go fishing in archive.org. I deleted also the conservative websites; again, I was only trying to provide a fuller picture. I'll keep in mind that Wikipedia doesn't hold Rolling Stone and Christian Post to be sources for news citations. Artlover404 (talk) 01:26, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Raw Story's former reporters include Sahil Kapur, a national political reporter for NBC News
: I added this into the staff section. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:05, 19 September 2021 (UTCDon’t Ask, Don’t Tell In 2010, Raw Story revealed that Fox News had rejected a television ad criticizing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a military policy that kept LGBT service members in the closet to avoid their dishonorable discharge.
I don't feel comfortable adding this in. The Washington Post article you cited doesn't even mention Raw Story. A hyperlink to the Raw Story is not good enough. The other source, GLAAD, is an advocacy group. We try to avoid advocacy groups as much as possible. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:17, 19 September 2021 (UTC)In 2010, Raw Story discovered that the Washington Post had failed to disclose that one of its bloggers had ties to the Obama Administration. The Post then updated the blogger’s biography, and its Communications Director said that the paper would “update their bios and disclose any potential conflicts.” The report was highlighted by several conservative bloggers.
I don't feel comfortable adding this in. The one sentence Atlantic article you cited doesn't even mention the Raw Story. It merely links to the Raw Story. The other source, "iMediaEthics," is much more in-depth about the Raw Story's reporting. However, I am completely unfamiliar with the reliability of this source and I was unable to find any discussion of this source in our archives. Given that "iMediaEthics" is not notable enough for its own Wikipedia article, I doubt this source fulfills our due weight policy. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Staff reporter Jordan Green’s reporting on the Proud Boys was cited in 2021’s “Pride and Prejudice: The Evolution of the Proud Boys,” by West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center, which noted “the Proud Boys act as a radicalization pathway for more mainstream political organizing into harder white supremacist and white nationalist spaces.” Green’s reporting has also been cited by Elon University and the North Carolina Triad City Beat. Raw Story's reporting on white nationalist Haley Adams was also cited by Rolling Stone.
I don't feel comfortable adding this in. The West Point Study doesn't mention Raw Story. All it does is provides a link to a Raw Story article in the notes section. This is the same deal with the source from Elon University. The sources actually have to explain what the Raw Story was reporting. Simply stating: "see this Raw Story article" is not substantive enough. The Triad City Beat article is better since it explains what the Raw Story was reporting. However, since Jordan Green is also an editor for the Triad City Beat, then this does not appear to be an independent source. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)In 2011, Raw Story’s Executive Editor discovered that Apple iPhone’s Siri could not locate abortion clinics in New York or Washington, D.C. Siri users in Washington, D.C. were instead directed to anti-abortion pregnancy clinics in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Asked why she was against abortion, Siri said, "I just am." Siri was able to find escort services and Viagra, Raw Story found. The story was picked up by The New York Times, PC Mag and NBC News.
I think it's fine to add this in. Since this was picked up by multiple sources, and since the sources note Carpentier was one of the first reporters to make this revelation, then I feel it is substantial enough to include in this article. Unless Chetsford or another editor has reservations, then I am prepared to make this edit. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:47, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
- Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, thank you for reviewing my suggestions, and for providing the link to Wikipedia's reliable sources. I appreciate your interest in including the Siri abortion story. Though it's limiting to require Raw Story be mentioned, I'll try and work through it with you. I've had a chance to do more research into Wikipedia's reliable sourcing process, and I found the Buzzfeed / Buzzfeed News discussion interesting. It provides some perspective. Jordan Green's work is quite different than our typical breaking news stubs.
- Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d and :Chetsford: As Raw Story is now dubbed up top as a "junk" news site and clickbait website, I wanted to suggest including trusted Wikipedia news sites that have reported on Raw Story's work, as a way of providing some balance. Do you think this might be productive? Our original reporting has received broad coverage by numerous Wikipedia reliable sites that mention Raw Story by name. I understand now from your comments that its necessary for Raw Story to be mentioned by name, and for it to be material, so I think I can narrow what I have to fit your requirements.
Here is another story we broke, for you consideration.
In 2011, Raw Story’s Stephen Webster revealed that the US Air Force awarded a $2.8 million contract to a California firm to create fake online personas to target overseas adversaries as part of the US “War on Terror.” The contract provided for 50 U.S. military spies based out of a Florida base, who would each create 10 fake personas, then mix web traffic sources in an effort to maintain “excellent cover and powerful deniability.” Raw Story noted that an “army of fake people could fake a consensus opinion in online comment threads or suppress stories.” The Military Times noted that such a program, if used on Americans, would violate U.S. law, though the Pentagon said it would only be used overseas. A CENTCOM spokesman told Webster details of the contract were “classified.”
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110320183341/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8388603/US-military-creates-fake-online-personas.html (The contract was first revealed by The Raw Story, a US news website.) Behind paywall at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8388603/US-military-creates-fake-online-personas.html
- https://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/18/sockpuppets-and-screengrabs-make-for-more-fun-for-anonymous/ (broken several weeks ago by the Raw Story website ‘s Stephen C. Webster.)
- https://www.wired.com/2011/03/jihadis-next-online-buddy-could-be-a-soldier/ (Raw Story's Stephen C. Webster reports that the actual CENTCOM activity is "classified," as spokesman Bill Speaks told Webster, but an Air Force contract specified that the command wants to create "detailed, fictionalized backgrounds, to make them believable to outside observers.")
- http://outsidethewire.militarytimes.com/2011/03/02/pentagons-unleashing-social-network-warriors/ (The Raw Story notes that a army of fake people) Artlover404 (talk) 18:58, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Infobox request
Hello editors, my name is Nathalie and I work for Raw Story. I've spent some time reviewing the rules of Wikipedia and know that I can't make edits directly because of my conflict of interest, but I'm hoping that editors on this Talk page will find my requests acceptable improvements to the encyclopedia.
I have several requests I hope to implement, but for starters, I was hoping we could update the infobox. The Raw Story is owned by Raw Story Media, Inc. It was founded by John K. Byrne and Michael Rogers, as mentioned in Plus and The Oberlin Review. Could we remove John and Michael from the list of owners and add them to a Key people line in the infobox? I think this will make the infobox more aligned with other articles for news outlets. Please let me know! Thanks in advance for your help. Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:32, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
- @Nathalie at RS:
Done 1063774814 It should be noted that although some of the links you provided suggested Rodgers as a founder he is not actually listed that way in the website's Masthead nor in his Staff Bio page there. —Uzume (talk) 21:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for the help, Uzume.Nathalie at RS (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
History request
Hello! Nathalie here again with another request. I have an alternative draft for the History section I was hoping editors might review. I hope you'll find this version is more complete and more accurate, fleshing out the timeline of the outlet through 2019 and clearing up the details surrounding the founding of the site, as well as offering a few improved sources while not changing the existing text too much.
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Byrne, the former editor-in-chief of The Oberlin Review, founded The Raw Story he graduated from Oberlin College in 2003.[1] The outlet officially launched in 2004, with Rogers joining the site the same year.[2][3] The Raw Story was a finalist in the Online News Association's Online Journalism Awards in 2008 in the "Investigative, Small Site" category. The site was nominated for the article "The permanent Republican majority", about improper partisan influence in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman following Siegelman's conviction for felony corruption.[4] File:Raw Story 10 year logo.jpg In 2017, The Raw Story was accepted as a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia.[5] In April 2018, Byrne and Rogers acquired AlterNet via a newly created company, AlterNet Media.[2] The outlet partnered with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston in 2019, providing funding for Johnston and his outlet, DCReport.[6] References
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I won't make any edits directly because of my conflict of interest. Uzume, you were kind enough to review the last request I had, might you also take a look at this one? Thanks in advance for your help! Nathalie at RS (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Nathalie at RS, could you explain your rationale for removing the cited paragraph "An August 2017 study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society found that between May 1, 2015, and November 7, 2016, The Raw Story was the fourth and fifth most popular left-wing news source on Twitter and Facebook, respectively. The study also found that The Raw Story was the 9th most shared media source on Twitter by Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2016 United States presidential election.[18] During the election, The Raw Story was heavily shared by Twitter accounts operated by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm known for spreading fake news online.[19]"? I have marked your request as declined for now; after replying, please reopen the request by removing the "|D" from the {{request edit}} above. SpencerT•C 23:03, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Spencer, great question! I suggested we remove the Berkman Klein source for a few reasons. The main reason is that its inclusion seems like it goes against what Chetsford said when responding to our founder, John Byrne (I had some trouble getting a link to this specific response, but it's a few replies down in this discussion.
- "indiscriminate, routine information that does not add any encyclopedic value violates our WP:NOT policy"
- "a glancing mention that is insignificant...Our NOT policy says that "A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject.""
- I've gone through the source, and Raw Story does appear on a few lists and in the infographics embedded in the study, but the outlet isn't discussed in depth at any point in the paper. It seems like including these sentences (about being shared by Clinton supporters in 2016 and being shared often on social media) in the Raw Story Wikipedia article would be a violation of that rule, though maybe I am misunderstanding it. I'd love another perspective! It also seems to me that people sharing Raw Story content isn't really part of our history, making that irrelevant to the article, but again, I am open to alternative arguments. I'd also note that the study is not present in the The Daily Beast's article, for example, despite the Beast also appearing in the study.
- As for being shared by the Internet Research Agency, again, I'd argue that who shares our content is not really part of our history and isn't really encyclopedic content. I'd also note that the cited paper only mentions Raw Story in passing a total of four times and that it is a data report and was not peer reviewed that I could find. Here's an updated link to the report. I think it's also worth noting that NYU specifically separates their data reports from their scholarly/academic article (NYU website). This report did happen, but again, it really isn't part of Raw Story's history and I'm not sure a website being shared by the IRA on social media really holds a lot of encyclopedic value. I am a little concerned that its placement and the phrasing of the sentence is being used to discredit Raw Story for something that we cannot control, but again, I am open to other interpretations/discussion! Thanks again for taking the time to review, I appreciate your help, Spencer! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Partly done Hi Nathalie, I went ahead and partially implemented your suggested edit, doing the following: 1. Added additional detail regarding founding 2. Removed the Byrne quote from the MotherJones article since it does not mention The Raw Story and thus wouldn't be directly relevant to this article. 3. Added a revised version of the sentence about DCReport (I added some additional detail about what the partnership entailed, and removed "Pulitzer prize-winning" since that seemed a little flowery and wasn't directly related to The Raw Story.
- I will leave the request open for another editor to review regarding the Berkman Klein Center and Internet Research Agency. To me, given the context of the whole article about how content has been used by different politically oriented groups especially during a major election, it seems relevant to me (in contrast with your statement that "people sharing Raw Story content isn't really part of our history"). Furthermore, a main motivation behind removal is due to concern that "its placement and the phrasing of the sentence is being used to discredit Raw Story" which is problematic. If you have alternative suggestions about wording and placement within the article - rather than carte blanche removal - I encourage you to make a suggestion about what you think would be better reflective of the sources. Best, SpencerT•C 17:08, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
- As for being shared by the Internet Research Agency, again, I'd argue that who shares our content is not really part of our history and isn't really encyclopedic content. I'd also note that the cited paper only mentions Raw Story in passing a total of four times and that it is a data report and was not peer reviewed that I could find. Here's an updated link to the report. I think it's also worth noting that NYU specifically separates their data reports from their scholarly/academic article (NYU website). This report did happen, but again, it really isn't part of Raw Story's history and I'm not sure a website being shared by the IRA on social media really holds a lot of encyclopedic value. I am a little concerned that its placement and the phrasing of the sentence is being used to discredit Raw Story for something that we cannot control, but again, I am open to other interpretations/discussion! Thanks again for taking the time to review, I appreciate your help, Spencer! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
- Spencer, thanks for taking the time to explain! I think one of the bigger problems with the text in that section is the phrase "a Russian troll farm known for spreading fake news online." The direct implication there is that Raw Story produces fake news, which I and my coworkers naturally take issue with. Perhaps we could cut that phrasing and move the study to the Content section as a compromise? I really appreciate all your help with this. It's tricky and I'm trying to make sure I follow all the rules. Thanks! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- That's fair. I have reworded this sentence; let me know what you think. SpencerT•C 16:52, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- This works for me. Thanks for all your help on this. Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- That's fair. I have reworded this sentence; let me know what you think. SpencerT•C 16:52, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- Spencer, thanks for taking the time to explain! I think one of the bigger problems with the text in that section is the phrase "a Russian troll farm known for spreading fake news online." The direct implication there is that Raw Story produces fake news, which I and my coworkers naturally take issue with. Perhaps we could cut that phrasing and move the study to the Content section as a compromise? I really appreciate all your help with this. It's tricky and I'm trying to make sure I follow all the rules. Thanks! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Staff update request
Hello editors, Nathalie here with another small request. I was hoping someone might help me update the Staff section? This will make it more up-to-date, accurate, and fix some typos. What I was hoping for is below.
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According to the site's masthead, the editor and publisher of the site is Roxanne Cooper as of June 2021. Other editors include managing editor Eric W. Dolan and senior editors David Edwards, Travis Gettys, Sarah Burris, Bob Brigham, and Tom Boggioni.[1][2] Editorial staff are members of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild.[3] Notable former editorial staff include New York Times senior staff editor Michael Roston,[4] NBC News political reporter Sahil Kapur,[5][6] and former Village Voice executive editor Tony Ortega.[7] References
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Please let me know if you have any questions. Since I have a conflict of interest, I won't make any edits myself. Spencer, you were so helpful with the last request, would you be willing to take a look at this one? Thanks in advance for your help!Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Done I'm not necessarily sure that all of the senior editors should be listed or "notable former editorial staff" without an article should be listed, but this is already in the article so I will make the change as requested. However, this could potentially be trimmed by another editor later. SpencerT•C 16:56, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- That's understandable. I appreciate your help on this! Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Editorial stance request
Hello editors, Nathalie here again with another edit request. I noticed a lot of news publications have a section called Editorial stance (like The Daily Beast) and was wondering if you might consider making a similar section in this article, pulling the second paragraph from the Content section and adding this sentence: "The outlet describes itself as bringing attention to stories they see as downplayed or ignored by other media outlets." (based on the Wall Street Journal source already used). Could we place that section above the Content section, then? It looks like that is the way it's done in similar articles, something like this:
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Editorial stance Content References
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Please let me know what you think! Spencer, you've been so helpful, would you mind taking a look at this request as well? Thanks in advance for all your help! Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Not done but I will leave this open for another editor to review and see what they think. The Newsweek quote is more sensational than specifically descriptive, doesn't tell me much about what RS does editorially, and veers toward un-encyclopedic (I also was not able to access the link provided); the second quote is from an interview with the founder making a self-proclaimed statement that is also somewhat vague, I think this may possibly be okay in the context of third party sources offering an outside view of the editorial stance of RS; the third seems something along the lines of what is described in Wikipedia:Avoid mission statements, and again is vague (and to me doesn't really seem to be an editorial stance per se?). For an example of what an editorial stance section looks like in a WP:Good Article, I would encourage you to check out Mumbai_Mirror#Editorial_stance or Port_of_Spain_Gazette#Editorial_stance. SpencerT•C 23:32, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Spencer, what you said makes sense. I re-used the Newsweek source from the live article, but also could not access it. I essentially added a sentence to the second paragraph of the Content section and moved into its own section. Maybe based on what you've said here, it would be better just to remove that paragraph and close this request? I didn't find any sources that would work to create an Editorial stance section similar to the links you provided. I've also got some ideas for possibly making some additions and reorganization to the Content section that I think would be an improvement on the balance and sourcing of the article. I made a little draft page here if you'd be interested in taking a look. Prior to posting my draft on my page, I published the live article's content, so you can review a diff if you want to see exactly what I've done. This is really tricky to navigate and looks like a lot (though many of the changes are reorganization rather than removal), so if you'd prefer I can make smaller requests for changes as well. Thanks for all the help! Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:57, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Nathalie, I will leave the editorial stance for someone else to review before I unilaterally remove it. There may be an online archive (e.g. Wayback Machine) for the Newsweek source. For the draft, if you could post paragraph-by-paragraph (or shorter, esp if the paragraphs are >6 sentences) comparisons with rationale, that helps reviewers better see the specific proposed changes. Of note, I will not be available to review the request for the immediate future, so the {{request edit}} template will be the best way to have this reviewed. SpencerT•C 04:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Spencer, thanks for responding! I really appreciate it. I couldn't pull up the Newsweek source even through Archive.org, it looks like it was originally linked back to an old library sharing system that no longer exists. Totally understand about doing the smaller piece-by-piece requests. I really appreciate all the help you've given me so far! Thanks again! Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Nathalie, I will leave the editorial stance for someone else to review before I unilaterally remove it. There may be an online archive (e.g. Wayback Machine) for the Newsweek source. For the draft, if you could post paragraph-by-paragraph (or shorter, esp if the paragraphs are >6 sentences) comparisons with rationale, that helps reviewers better see the specific proposed changes. Of note, I will not be available to review the request for the immediate future, so the {{request edit}} template will be the best way to have this reviewed. SpencerT•C 04:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Spencer, what you said makes sense. I re-used the Newsweek source from the live article, but also could not access it. I essentially added a sentence to the second paragraph of the Content section and moved into its own section. Maybe based on what you've said here, it would be better just to remove that paragraph and close this request? I didn't find any sources that would work to create an Editorial stance section similar to the links you provided. I've also got some ideas for possibly making some additions and reorganization to the Content section that I think would be an improvement on the balance and sourcing of the article. I made a little draft page here if you'd be interested in taking a look. Prior to posting my draft on my page, I published the live article's content, so you can review a diff if you want to see exactly what I've done. This is really tricky to navigate and looks like a lot (though many of the changes are reorganization rather than removal), so if you'd prefer I can make smaller requests for changes as well. Thanks for all the help! Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:57, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Content section update
Hi editors, Nathalie here again with another request, this time to update the Content section. I was hoping we could update the opening sentence to read:
References
- ^ Zeller Jr, Tom (January 4, 2007). "CNN Steps Into Osama/Obama Bramble; Blogs Document It". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 2, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
- ^ Mower, Lawrence (November 18, 2017). "Story labeling PBSO chief deputy as racist is fake news". Palm Beach Post. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
I'd like to make this change (mostly the removal of the phrase "mostly aggregates") because Raw Story does a significant amount of original journalism and it really isn't accurate to say that we are mostly content aggregators. This change also rescues the Palm Beach Post source, which had a broken link. Most other sources refer to Raw Story as an "alternative news" site, however, I understand that editors may prefer to keep language about content aggregation present. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thanks in advance for your help. Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Untitled.docx, I noticed you made an edit to the article. Might you be willing to look at this request? I'd really appreciate it! Nathalie at RS (talk) 20:51, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Done Looks good, I've made the revision. Feel free to ping me if you need any more help. Untitled.docx (talk) 00:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks so much for the assist! Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:29, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Introduction request
Hi editors, Nathalie here again with a small request to update the introduction. I'd propose the introduction reads similar to what follows, with the necessary citations already in place elsewhere in the article:
I think this helps bring the introduction more in line with the guidelines on introductions. Ideally, I'd like to remove the entire second paragraph because many of the citations don't really reference Raw Story directly, but perhaps we could move it to the Content section as a compromise?
I'd also note a few issues with the sources used in the introduction.
- Source 1 is the source code for Raw Story's website, which doesn't seem like a proper source by Wikipedia standards
- Sources 5-9 seem to be an example of reference bombing. Raw Story is not mentioned at all by name in source 8, has a brief mention buried in an appendix to source 9, and has a passing mention in an infographic of hyperpartisan outlets in source 6.
- Source 10, related to the CJR sentence, says Raw Story is classified as a clickbait site by CJR, but it was actually classified as such by Open Sources (CJR aggregated the research of others for its list). I looked and found Open Sources deep in archive.org and it seems the information on there has largely been crowd sourced. It also seems the site has been taken down entirely, though I didn't see any evidence of a formal retraction.
- The site even has a disclaimer that says "We have made every attempt to ensure that the information contained in this site and in our downloadable data is reliable; however, we are not responsible for any errors, or for the results obtained from the use of this information. All information in this site is provided “as is” and “as available,” with no guarantee of accuracy, reliability, completeness, or of the services or results obtained from the use of this information. "
- I'd be in favor of removing the CJR sentence for this reason, but am open to discussion!
- Source 11 is indeed from Oxford, but sources 12 (Nieman Lab) and 13 (Financial Times) spend a lot of time talking about the flaws in the Oxford report, with Nieman noting that Oxford did not distinguish between junk and partisan news. Again, I'd be in favor of removing this, as well as the reference to the Humboldt study in the Content section, which relies heavily on the Oxford methodology that is, at best, contested. However, I am open to further discussion.
Untitled.docx, I know this is quite a long message but hopefully my reasoning helps make it a little more palatable and that you are still willing to help! I've also uploaded a diff for the changes I hope to make to the Content section, but am happy to make smaller requests if that is easier. Thanks so much for taking the time to take a look. Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:29, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Partly done I left one citation at the end of the second sentence of the intro paragraph to be safe. For the second paragraph, I did move it to contents because I found it seemed partial to include it in the introduction. The Oxford sentence was already in the contents and I left it untouched as is, and I moved the hyperpartisan sentence down to the first paragraph of that section. I removed the Wired article citation and source 8. I don't want to remove those things to maintain NPOV. Untitled.docx (she/her) 🗩 20:48, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for the assistance! I may circle back to the Oxford study later in a separate request. Thanks again! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:39, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Content section update
Hi editors, Nathalie here again with another request to update the Content section. First, I'd like to propose adding two short paragraphs following the paragraph on the United Mine Workers of America reporting about some of our additional reporting that has been covered in national and international news outlets, something like the following:
The same year, The Raw Story was the first to report on a United States Air Force contract to create fake social media profiles as a means of psychological warfare to be used against terrorist cells.[4][5]
References
- ^ Golijan, Rosa (December 1, 2011). "Apple explains why iPhone won't find abortion centers". NBC News. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
- ^ "Siri, are you anti-abortion?". PC Magazine. November 30, 2011. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
- ^ Wortham, Jenna (November 30, 2011). "Apple Says Siri's Abortion Answers Are a Glitch". The New York Times. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
- ^ Ackerman, Spencer (March 2, 2011). "Jihadis' Next Online Buddy Could Be a Soldier". Wired. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
- ^ Williams, Christopher (March 20, 2011). "US military creates fake online personas". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on March 20, 2011. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
I'd like to add these because I think this reporting has received appropriate coverage in national and international sources to be included in the article.
I'd also propose that we remove the word "controversial" from the sentence about Megan Carpentier, as it seems to me that the word shifts the sentence out of a neutral point of view. I also have several other suggested edits for this section that I have posted in my user space if any editors would like to take a look.
Untitled.docx, would you mind also taking a look at this request? I'd really appreciate it! Nathalie at RS (talk) 17:42, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Done: With one addition included. I added the two paragraphs, and removed the word "controversial" from the transvaginal ultrasound sentence, but added one additional part (in bold):
- In 2012, then-executive editor Megan Carpentier wrote about undergoing a transvaginal ultrasound procedure in response to recent legislation in Virginia requiring an ultrasound prior to an abortion procedure.[1][2][3]
References
- ^ Lowder, J. Bryan (2012-04-18). "Transvaginal Ultrasounds: Megan Carpentier Reports". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
- ^ "Transvaginal Ultrasound: A Patient's Perspective". Rewire News Group. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
- ^ Lithwick, Dahlia (2012-02-16). "Why Does a New Virginia Law Require Women To Be Forcibly Penetrated for No Medical Reason?". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
- I wanted to add some context to the situation to replace the "controversial" part. Sorry for the delay in a response; I was away last week.
- Untitled.docx, no worries, I know you are busy as well. Thanks so much for your assistance and additional diligence! Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
One more small content request
Hi editors, Nathalie here again with another request. This time, I'd like to propose two changes. First, I'd like to add this sentence after the one on Jennifer Mascia's column:
- The same year, the outlet broke news of the connection between San Diego State University running back Adam Muema and Raymond "Lord Rayel" Howard-Lear. Howard-Lear claimed to be a prophet and made apocalyptic predictions online. Muema left the 2014 NFL Scouting Combine early and did not attend the San Diego State Pro Day while sending cryptic messages to reporters.[1][2]
And I'd like to propose adding these sentences to the end of the Content section, just before the current False claims subheading:
- The outlet has also reported on far-right extremists, including a report on January 6, 2021, hours before the attack in the U.S. Capitol that "predicted exactly what would happen," according to Editor & Publisher.[3] The Raw Story was among the first to report on instigators of the riots, including an attempt to get then-President Trump to declare martial law using the Insurrection Act.[4]
References
- ^ "Hiding In Plain Sight". ESPN. May 22, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
- ^ Schnell, Lindsay (May 15, 2014). "What Happened to Former San Diego State Star Adam Muema?". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
- ^ "Behind Raw Story's Progressive Mission". Editor & Publisher. October 3, 2021. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
- ^ Spocchia, Gino (May 31, 2021). "Oath Keepers wanted antifa to attack Capitol so Trump could declare martial law, indictment says". The Independent. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
I'd like to make these changes as these stories were well-reported in reliable sources. I won't make these changes myself because of my conflict of interest. I really appreciate the help! Untitled.docx, would you be willing to take a look at these changes as well? Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Nathalie, I want to verify the Editor & Publisher source before I go ahead and put the second paragraph you included in (I just haven't heard of them before), but for your first paragraph, I'm not certain on the notability of the subject. I looked up Adam Muema and there were a couple sources on him, but I'm not sure what's important about it, especially unsure why it should be included in a summary of your reporting. Can you explain why you think this should be included? Thanks! Sorry for responding late, I forgot about it. Untitled.docx (she/her) 🗩 04:24, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Untitled.docx, thanks for taking a look at this! Editor & Publisher is a trade magazine that I thought met the threshold for reliable sources. It, for example, lists its staff (at least in the print/online edition found here, on page 4, though I understand if this source may not quite meet all the requirements.
- As for the Adam Muema story, I believe it's an important story for a few reasons. It shows that new cults are still cropping up and that even people with bright futures (it was thought that Muema may be drafted into the NFL) can be pulled into them.
- From the perspective of why this should be included in a summary of Raw Story's reporting, I think it's notable because it has generated what I'd call significant coverage. Both ESPN and Sports Illustrated did fairly in-depth investigations, which I would say are significant coverage, and the ESPN story goes into some detail about the additional reporting we did related to Raymond Howard-Lear. It's my understanding that an event is noteworthy when it generates significant coverage. Though I don't believe this counts toward notability, Vice also linked back to Raw Story's original investigation into Muema and Howard-Lear. I'd like to think that ESPN and SI count as significant coverage (and both mention Raw Story's reporting directly in the text of the articles). I'd argue this story was at least as notable as the Jennifer Mascia column that's currently in the article, but I'm always open to other interpretations!
- Thanks again for getting back to me, I really appreciate it! Let me know if you have any other questions! Nathalie at RS (talk) 17:08, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
Done: with one addition. I decided to include the Adam Muema story, and I included the January 6 paragraph, but putting "alleged" in the Insurrection Act sentence as the source you provided reported it as alleged. I'm not entirely confident that the sentence about RS's Jan. 6 report is neutral enough, but I'll allow it because the source appears acceptable as far as I can tell and you did include "according to Editor & Publisher." Just explaining my rationale in case of disagreement. Untitled.docx (she/her) 🗩 22:16, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for the help, Untitled.docx! Nathalie at RS (talk) 02:45, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
False claims request
Hi editors, Nathalie here again with another request. I'd like to propose a few changes to the False claims subsection.
- First, I'd like to propose we rename the section Controversies and make it its own full section, as I have seen that more frequently than False claims across Wikipedia.
- Second, I'd like to propose moving the sentence in the Content section on the satirical piece we did related to the Surgeon General to this new Controversies section. Alternatively, I'd also be perfectly okay with removing that sentence entirely, as I am not sure the actions of other outlets based on Raw Story's satire count as encyclopedic content, but I am open to other interpretations!
- Third, I'd like to propose the following revision to the sentences about the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. I think these changes help make the sentence more neutral in tone and rescue a broken source.
- In October 2017, The Raw Story picked up a false story that claimed that the chief deputy for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office was a white supremacist who wanted "to rape and kill a black man or a Jew." The story was later found to be false, and activist Tim Wise, who had shared the Raw Story article on Facebook, said he would no longer share stories from the outlet due to their failure to fact-check. The story was later taken down.[1]
- Fourth, I'd like to propose some changes to the back half of the paragraph on Meghan McCain, to fit better with Wikipedia Manual of Style guidelines:
- McCain, the daughter of the late U.S. Senator John McCain, previously disputed The Raw Story's assertion that she "drank through" her father's cancer treatment.[2]
- Finally, I'd like to propose removing the See also section. Raw Story is not affiliated with Ora TV and I am not sure why that is here.
References
- ^ Mower, Lawrence (November 18, 2017). "Story labeling PBSO chief deputy as racist is fake news". The Palm Beach Post. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Lejeune, Tristan (2018-10-09). "Meghan McCain explodes on air after website says she drank through dad's cancer: 'Screw you!'". The Hill. Retrieved 2021-08-25.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
I'm always open to discussion on any or all of these points. Please let me know if you have any questions. Untitled.docx, you've been so helpful with other requests, would you consider taking a look at this one as well? I'd really appreciate it! Nathalie at RS (talk) 02:45, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- "I'd like to propose we rename the section Controversies" and make it its own full section In general, we avoid creating standalone "Controversy" or "Criticism" sections. It's also not clear that there was actually any controversy here, rather that these were fairly straightforward false claims. It seems more appropriate to have it integrated into the Content section, as it is, and title it in a straightforward manner that directly communicates what is contained in the section rather than vaguely hinting about it.
- "I'd like to propose some changes to the back half of the paragraph on Meghan McCain, to fit better with Wikipedia Manual of Style guidelines" The proposal in question is problematic as it massages a straightforward fact into a He Said/She Said dispute. We have a RS (USA Today) directly stating the claim in question did not occur; this is a matter of fact and reality. The MOS guidelines always give way to policy, which directs that: "the passage should not be worded in any way that makes it appear to be contested".
- Palm Beach Post -- I have a problem describing this as "the story was later found to be false" as the source does not state that either directly or indirectly. To write "the story was later found to be false" would involve WP:OR that compared the date of the Palm Beach Post story to the date of The Raw Story story and then made several inferences about the availability of information before and after the reporting.
- "I'd like to propose removing the See also section" Done. Chetsford (talk) 18:23, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Chetsford, thanks so much for the quick response! I had a couple of quick clarifications and questions.
- Regarding the Meghan McCain paragraph, the only change I was suggesting there was removing the parenthetical about John McCain and making it part of that main sentence. It's my understanding that MOS guidelines prefer to have articles read as fluid prose. The rest of the sentence remains unchanged and uses the "previously disputed" phrasing that is currently in the live article. This is separate from the previous claim which the USA Today is used as a source for. Would you reconsider making the change in light of that?
- Regarding the Palm Beach Sheriff story, the Palm Beach Post says, about midway through its story, "But the report is entirely fake, The Post found." This was after the story was posted by Raw Story, evidenced in the text from the Post saying Raw Story had posted the story and citing Tim Wise saying he wouldn't share things from Raw Story again, so wouldn't it be correct to say it was later found to be false? I'd love to hear your interpretation. This is the direct quote about Raw Story sharing the story:
- But that didn’t stop bloggers and news sites from picking it up. The most notable was Raw Story, a site that primarily aggregates news from around the web and has more than 1 million followers on Facebook.
- I was also curious about your thoughts on the general shortening I proposed of that paragraph. It seems redundant to me to say the story claimed the PBSO chief deputy wanted to do those things, then say the headline said the same thing, but I'm open to other interpretations!
- Thanks so much for taking the time to look at this request! I know it's a tricky one and I want to make sure I'm not accidentally breaking any rules, so I really appreciate the attention you paid to this! Nathalie at RS (talk) 20:16, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Chetsford, thanks so much for the quick response! I had a couple of quick clarifications and questions.
- Hi Untitled.docx, while Chetsford is reviewing this, I was wondering if you had any thoughts? I'd love to build some consensus on this. Please let me know! Nathalie at RS (talk) 13:38, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- - I also oppose adding a controversies section. There's not really any controversy I've seen other than false claims being made. On the other hand, about 50% of the article size is on criticism of RS. I'd think merging with content and reanalyzing the notability of each false claim/criticism would be appropriate in order to balance out the undue weight shown.
- - I'm not sure about the inclusion of the satirical piece. It may be more notable on the articles which republished the piece, but on The Onion, instances of their satirical content being republished by news organizations is included in their article. So I'm gonna leave that up to the other reviewer.
- - I can see how including "the story was later found to be false" could be considered WP:OR, but I believe simply removing the "later" solves the problem, as it says in the article: "the report is entirely fake, The Post found."
- - There is nothing wrong with your proposed change on the paragraph about Meghan McCain. The only issue is with the content already included in the Wikipedia article you are proposing changes to, so I'd leave it alone until the dispute is resolved. @Chetsford, how exactly does the inclusion of McCain's prior dispute over the "drinking through father's death" headline contest with the claim that the bomb threat comparison story was false? I'm not quite sure how those two contradict each other, but it may just be my interpretation.
- Hope I was of some help. Untitled.docx (she/her) 🗩 17:18, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Untitled.docx, while Chetsford is reviewing this, I was wondering if you had any thoughts? I'd love to build some consensus on this. Please let me know! Nathalie at RS (talk) 13:38, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Untitled.docx:, thanks for chiming in! I appreciate the feedback. I'd also prefer not to have a Controversies or False claims section. My main thought was to try to make it look like other Wikipedia articles I had seen, but I would much prefer distributing the content through the Content section like you had suggested. There are several other things I'd like to contest in this section (e.g. the Bill O'Reilly paragraph–Raw Story never made that claim, Occupy Democrats did) but I will do that in a separate request. Happy to post that soon if you would like to take a look!
- I also appreciate your thoughts on the Palm Beach story and think your suggestion would work well. Did you have any thoughts on the redundancy of the headline and the article claims?
- I really appreciate the answer! Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:24, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I misunderstood the McCain edit. Based on further explanation, that seems fine to me. I think Untitled.docx's suggestion of dropping "later" and making the "found to be false" edit is fine, too. From a readability perspective, I have issues with merging all of the False Claims content into the larger section as it would make it unusually unwieldly which would significantly break precedent for the structure of similar articles. Because publication of misinformation and false claims appears to be a major component of what TRS does, using that as a section break seems as good a place as any to break up extremely long content. Chetsford (talk) 04:57, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- No worries! Would you or Untitled.docx be willing to make the changes to those two sentences now that we have consensus? I think they would be a net improvement but I won't make the changes myself due to my conflict of interest. Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
- I made the changes to the Palm Beach sheriff and Meghan McCain paragraphs. Thanks @[[User:Chetsford|Chetsford] for your reply! Untitled.docx (she/her) 🗩 12:44, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- No worries! Would you or Untitled.docx be willing to make the changes to those two sentences now that we have consensus? I think they would be a net improvement but I won't make the changes myself due to my conflict of interest. Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I misunderstood the McCain edit. Based on further explanation, that seems fine to me. I think Untitled.docx's suggestion of dropping "later" and making the "found to be false" edit is fine, too. From a readability perspective, I have issues with merging all of the False Claims content into the larger section as it would make it unusually unwieldly which would significantly break precedent for the structure of similar articles. Because publication of misinformation and false claims appears to be a major component of what TRS does, using that as a section break seems as good a place as any to break up extremely long content. Chetsford (talk) 04:57, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
@Untitled.docx: Thank you so much for your help! Nathalie at RS (talk) 14:01, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Recent additions
Hello editors! It looks like there were several recent edits made that don't seem to quite be neutral in tone and/or encyclopedic content. I'll address a couple in this request and I hope that Dr. Swag Lord, Ph.d can offer some insight into why these additions were made.
- First, I'd like to address the Kushner family sentence. This is listed as COVID-19 misinformation in the Wikipedia article, but coverage of attempts by groups to profit on the pandemic is not misinformation.
- The cited source says that the phrase "cashing in on" could mean multiple things, but this is not in itself misinformation. Many words and phrases have multiple meanings. We do not accuse agriculture reporters of spreading misinformation when they write about animals "in a pen" when they mean a corral and not a writing utensil. The Snopes piece that the journal article references does not reference the multiple meanings asserted by the journal piece. Presently, these sentences are accusing Raw Story of spreading misinformation when it's really an argument of semantics.
- It's also worth noting that though Snopes calls this a "report", it is clearly labeled as an opinion piece and has the same information about the company as the Snopes piece.
- Furthermore, neither the original Raw Story piece nor the Snopes article mentioned by the study make any mention of "public damage." The Snopes article clearly notes how this company connected to the Kushners could have profited through a legal process related to COVID aid bills being discussed at the time. The claim of public damages is a baseless assertion made by the authors of the study based on an interpretation of the article headline and lead based on a potential connotation of the phrase "cashing in on."
- I can see no way in which this is misinformation (the journal article cites it as an example of the "fallacy of ambiguity and vagueness", but headlines are intentionally vague to attract readers, that's kind of the point, and vagueness is not misinformation) and feel that including it in the "False claims" section, when, again, it is an opinion piece with information verified by Snopes, is non-neutral. I would suggest this be removed entirely, but could also see moving it into the main Content section.
- Second, I'd like to address the previous sentences about how often the Raw Story articles were tweeted.
- First, at no point in that study does it say the story about Republicans blocking the bill is fake news, incorrect, or otherwise considered misinformation. The journal article discusses only web traffic and tweet traffic to that story. It is simply incorrect to cite this source as a mention of Raw Story spreading COVID-19 misinformation or making a false claim and placing it where it has been placed is neither accurate nor neutral.
- Second, while the article does make mention of fringe sources being associated with misinformation and other issues, I think it's important to review the entire quote in context.
- Whereas the exact identity of the alternative media that was documented in this study (eg, Raw Story) might not necessarily be important in a historical perspective, these processes of agenda setting have both theoretical and practical implications for public health efforts. Unfortunately, in this context, prominence of these fringe sources is also associated with misinformation, conspiracy theories, and vaccine-opposing messages.
- I'd argue that the current wording of this paragraph in the Wikipedia article which identifies Raw Story as a spreader of misinformation and vaccine-opposing messages a) is not directly supported by the text and b) is an example of synthesis. For what it's worth, Raw Story's vaccine coverage has consistently been in favor of vaccination and vaccines.
Given the length of this request, I'll stop there for now. Dr. Swag Lord, Ph.d, can you clarify why you added these sentences? I'm just not sure I see how these constitute false claims or misinformation. Chetsford or Untitled.docx, any thoughts? I'd love to build some consensus here. I won't make any direct edits due to my conflict of interest. Thanks in advance for taking a look! Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
Not done I'm closing this edit request as Not Done since it's unclear to me what the actual requested edit is. General discussion does not require use of the edit request template. Chetsford (talk) 21:41, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
- Hi Nathalie I hope you are doing well. Let me see if I can address your concerns.
- Firstly, misinformation is defined as
incorrect or misleading information presented as fact, either intentionally or unintentionally
(per our article on misinformation). This is exactly what the Raw Story has done in relation to COVID. If you're alleging that the Kushner family is profiting off the pandemic via Oscar--without evidence--then that is misinformation and is obviously related to COVID. It's also worth noting that though Snopes calls this a "report", it is clearly labeled as an opinion piece
--It's clearly not. I see a small "commentary" label in the byline but that's about it. You should make it more obvious to separate your news articles from your opinion ones. (see the Washington Post, for example.)Furthermore, neither the original Raw Story piece nor the Snopes article mentioned by the study make any mention of "public damage." The Snopes article clearly notes how this company connected to the Kushners could have profited through a legal process related to COVID aid bills being discussed at the time. The claim of public damages is a baseless assertion made by the authors of the study based on an interpretation of the article headline and lead based on a potential connotation of the phrase "cashing in on."
-- Firstly, please do not disparage the authors of the study. The authors are two university professors who are experts on online misinformation. They stated that:In our dataset, vagueness, when identified in broadcast media, often resides in the titles of the news, which allows for twisted interpretations. An example is offered by the Raw Story report entitled ‘Here’s how the Kushner family is cashing in on the coronavirus’, where the phrasal verb ‘cashing in on’ could be interpreted both as merely getting financial revenue from a situation or taking advantage of a situation in an unfair way. As underlined by Snopes, while it is true that the Kushner brothers are co-founders of the health insurance start-up Oscar, which released an online tool to locate COVID-19 testing centres in some areas, there is no evidence that the startup is linked to any public damage. Therefore, the use of polysemous terms in news titles shall be avoided since potentially misleading for the majority of readers who are used to getting their daily news feed scrolling through news titles.
- If the authors of this studied concluded that
there is no evidence that the startup is linked to any public damage
, then that is exactly what we say in this article. Your interpretation of the facts is not relevant. - If you want, I could insert in this article something like
The Raw Story used a vague headline with polysemous terms
. But that seems a bit too WP:TECHNICAL for the average reader.
- Firstly, misinformation is defined as
First, at no point in that study does it say the story about Republicans blocking the bill is fake news, incorrect, or otherwise considered misinformation.
Okay, fair enough. I can move it to a different part in the article.- But I have to push back on the other part. It is quite clear the article is talking about Raw Story as an example of "fringe sources." I'm not sure how this is "synthesis." Synthesis is when you combine multiple sources to make a claim not found in either. This is not the case here:
Twitter has also given rise to nontraditional, digital-only content. These nontraditional sources typically reached salience in terms of website sharing when a story they published became viral. For instance, Raw Story, a digital tabloid [109], featured the most-tweeted website in its story of Republicans blocking a bill in order to protect pharmaceutical companies from limitations on vaccine-related profits. The salience of nontraditional sources demonstrates an intermedia agenda-setting process that provides a platform for individuals who were previously blocked from entering the elite spaces to disseminate their messages [15,110]... The content of the URLs shared over Twitter represented, to a great degree, an alternative agenda. In this agenda, stories that advanced political motives that went beyond the issue of vaccination were featured prominently...Whereas the exact identity of the alternative media that was documented in this study (eg, Raw Story) might not necessarily be important in a historical perspective, these processes of agenda setting have both theoretical and practical implications for public health efforts. Unfortunately, in this context, prominence of these fringe sources is also associated with misinformation, conspiracy theories, and vaccine-opposing messages
. Raw Story is literally the only source the authors mention in this section. Thank you. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:00, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
- Apologies for the lack of clarity, Chetsford! I am requesting that this content be removed or altered to make the text more representative of sourcing and increase the neutrality and accuracy of the article.
- Dr. Swag Lord, thank you for responding so quickly!
- I am willing to compromise on the Kushner content. The chief assertion made by this source is that Raw Story spread misinformation through the use of a vague headline. If this content is to remain, I think it is critical to explain this in the article text.
- As it stands, the sentences in the Wikipedia article make it seem Raw Story made claims of public damage that this study then debunked, but those claims are not present in the column and it is a misrepresentation of what was actually published by Raw Story to say so.
- Perhaps we could replace the current text with something like the following: In a study published in April 2022, researchers said that Raw Story spread misinformation about the Kushner family attempting to profit off the pandemic through Oscar Health by publishing a commentary with a vague headline that used polysemous terms.[1]
- I feel that you may be putting words into my mouth. I have said nothing about the authors of the study personally nor their credentials and have disparaged no one. I am focused solely on the arguments or assertions being made. Arguments can and should be discussed independently of the people making them, and experts can get things wrong, even in peer-reviewed studies.
- The fact remains that the column did not claim the Kushners caused public damage of any kind. Many phrases taken out of context can be construed to mean different things, that's why context is critical. It is false to say that Raw Story claimed the Kushners caused public damages via Oscar.
- Finally, regarding synthesis and the tweet sentences, I would argue that though synthesis is usually for different sources, the principle still applies here because the Wikipedia article text combines two sentences from the same source to make a contentious claim not explicitly made in the source material. It is true that Raw Story was lumped in with anti-vax outlets, but Raw Story's reporting has consistently been pro-vaccine. For example: this story amplifying the need for vaccines or this story that notes vaccine mandates lead to higher intention to get vaccines. I would argue that this should be removed as the source does not explicitly say Raw Story spread vaccine-opposing messages. It simply is not true to say Raw Story has spread anti-vaccine messaging.
- Thank you again for your response! I really appreciate the detail you went into with it and hope what I said makes sense. I am happy to keep working on this and hope we can reach an agreement on something that is the most accurate and neutral it can be. Please let me know if I've misinterpreted anything! Nathalie at RS (talk) 14:55, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
The chief assertion made by this source is that Raw Story spread misinformation through the use of a vague headline.
- Okay, I think I can include something like this in the article.In a study published in April 2022, researchers said that Raw Story spread misinformation about the Kushner family attempting to profit off the pandemic through Oscar Health by publishing a commentary with a vague headline that used polysemous terms
-- The issue for this is the word "commentary." Neither the peer-reviewed study nor Snopes called the article "commentary." I know you feel that "report" is an inaccurate word, but there is nothing we can do here. We are obligated to follow reliable sources....experts can get things wrong, even in peer-reviewed studies.
--This maybe true, but it always seems like someone else is at fault. Whenever the Raw Story makes a false claim, it's never their fault. It's always this journalist misinterpreted what Raw Story was saying or these experts are making baseless accusations about Raw Story. When your boss was making edit requests, he had a habit of making these accusations too and it was getting very tiresome.It is true that Raw Story was lumped in with anti-vax outlets, but Raw Story's reporting has consistently been pro-vaccine.
-- So you admit that the study did include Raw Story as an anti-vax outlet? It's seems like you're only opposed to the words "vaccine-opposing messages." Would you be comfortable, then, if we wrote that:According to the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the prominence of "fringe sources" like The Raw Story is associated with misinformation and conspiracy theories.
? Thank you, Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
References
- ^ Musi, Elena; Reed, Chris (April 23, 2022). "From fallacies to semi-fake news: Improving the identification of misinformation triggers across digital media". Discourse & Society. SAGE Publications: 15. doi:10.1177/09579265221076609.
- Dr. Swag Lord, Ph.d, thanks for responding so quickly again. I am trying really hard to do this the right way and appreciate the dialogue!
- Thanks for being willing to revisit the phrasing of the headline sentence. I think it will be clearer that way.
- I do not agree that Raw Story is associated with misinformation or conspiracy theories. I was attempting a shorthand but I can see how that may have caused confusion, so you have my apologies. Raw Story always tries to publish correct information the first time and if things change or aren't quite right, corrections are published. I cannot and will not say that Raw Story spreads misinformation or conspiracy theories, and I think to include that in this article requires a source that says that plainly.
- Snopes and the study call the piece a report, I will grant you that, but the piece was and remains an opinion piece. "Report" implies that it was presented as regular news and it was not. In the reliable sources guideline you linked, it says that unreliable sources may be used as sources about themselves. Could we add "commentary" to the sentence and link back to the live article under that policy?
- I can certainly understand being frustrated with this sort of nitpicking of the sources, but I am not doing so for the sake of doing so. I think at least some of the objections I've raised would be raised by others making a similar close reading of the source material. My only goal here is to make this article as accurate and neutral as possible and ensure things are accurately represented, particularly in the cited sources. I think we share that goal, even if we disagree about the particulars of how to get there.
- Thanks for your attention on this! Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:46, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I'm not going to use a primary source to refute the wording present in two separate reliable, secondary sources. This would violate policy (see, for example, WP:PSTS). Please stop making such a request. Thank you, Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 11:31, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- "I cannot and will not say that Raw Story spreads misinformation or conspiracy theories, and I think to include that in this article requires a source that says that plainly. Sorry, I haven't been following this conversation too closely, however, I think we're okay if individual editors are uncomfortable with specific words used in the article, as long as sources support them. From my reading of the Discourse & Society and Scientific Reports papers, this is said coherently enough and part of our role is to distill sources to a plain and readable level. The tabled structure of the two papers does not lend itself to direct quotes but we can still elicit their clear and obvious meaning. Chetsford (talk) 13:28, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
- Dr. Swag Lord, Ph.d, thanks for responding so quickly again. I am trying really hard to do this the right way and appreciate the dialogue!
- Thank you both for your responses. Dr. Swag Lord, Ph.d, can you update the Kushner sentence based on what we talked about here? Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:43, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Done. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 10:22, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you both for your responses. Dr. Swag Lord, Ph.d, can you update the Kushner sentence based on what we talked about here? Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:43, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
- If it's Dr. Swaglord good luck. He appears obsessed with editing left-wing sites, and other people are complaining too. Check out his site history. (not a personal attack, just a fact.)
- 2600:6C65:7E7F:B93E:A85C:5C92:ED1B:E538 (talk) 07:01, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
O'Reilly sentence
Hi editors, Nathalie here with a little correction request. I was checking through the sourcing and I couldn't see where in the cited source it ever says that Raw Story accused Bill O'Reilly of abusing his ex-wife and led to losing custody of his children. The cited Snopes article says that Occupy Democrats is the publication that made the assertion, and Occupy Democrats cited Raw Story in its report. However, Snopes notes that neither Raw Story and Gawker (which Raw Story cited) suggested custody was lost due to abusive behavior. See below (emphasis mine)
- Occupy Democrats cited Raw Story, which in turn cited Gawker, which reported that O’Reilly had “lost custody” of his children in February 2016, but that article, again, did not suggest that O’Reilly was denied custodial care of the children due to violent behavior
This is the only mention of Raw Story in the Snopes article. Can we remove the paragraph on Bill O'Reilly? It is not supported by the sourcing to say Raw Story asserted violent behavior by O'Reilly led to losing custody of his kids, and it doesn't seem to me that being cited incorrectly by Occupy Democrats belongs in the Raw Story Wikipedia article. Please let me know what you think! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:43, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
DCREPORT no longer affiliated with Raw Story
The relationship ended in November 2021. Please update, David Cay Johnston. 98.10.53.190 (talk) 12:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
- Do you have a source for that? Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:26, 19 May 2022 (UTC)