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I've reverted a portion of the derogatory information, and asked for edit protection.
Although I believe all five of the most contentious paragraphs need to go, I am only removing the two most appropriate at this time that are not covered by WP:3RR. This would only be my third removal of the material in 24 hours, but I don't even want to get close to 3RR. In fact, I shouldn't have to deal with this kind of material even once, much less three times. As per WP:BLP, "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material...about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles" and "the three-revert rule does not apply to its removal." We're not even supposed to be talking bout this, much less edit warring over it. If anyone cannot see why this press release by a partisan organization is a bogus source for impugning the integrity of a living journalist, it seems to be time for administrators to step in.
People are not taking BLP seriously. I have been trying to help as a neutral party who is not interested in the outcome other than to maintain Wikipedia policy standards. However, it appears that there is no middle ground. For me to continue insisting on BLP compliance I would have to get sucked into an edit war on an issue that I have no stake in. I am therefore going to bow out for the moment and let Wikipedia's dispute-related procedures take their course. Wikidemo 14:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Maybe someone will suggest we should list something like this:
SecretaryNotSure 19:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with several aspects of this edit by SecretaryNotSure as it relates to pesticides.
In sum, I don't agree with the view that a Wikipedia bio article should adopt spin in favor of the subject. JamesMLane t c 17:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for falling into the brouhaha. I didn't ask for locking the page or know it was going to be. If I knew my words were going to be enshrined like the placard on the Voyager spaceship, I would have choosen them more carefully. But here's the thinking behind the wording for of the "organic food" kafuffle.
"The doctors' denials were first brought to light by the Environmental Working Group, which supports the consumption of organic produce. Members talked to the doctors after the report. In a letter to Mr. Stossel, the group asked for an explanation." They "talked to" the doctor; they "asked for" an explanation from ABC News. To me that's sounds like "questioning" because that's what they did, they questioned the doctor and then asked ABC news a question. Yes, I'm trying to avoid the term "discovered" because of it's sinister implications. That makes it sound like they barged into the lab and took samples or dug through the dumpster at ABC and found a memo that said "hey john, here's those fake test results you ask for..."
Not only that, the 2nd broadcast sounds like it was part of the routine schedule, so it doesn't seem that significant. It seems like it was a case of the investigation going on (and it took too long) and the broadcast schedule going on also.
We do know that he was told to issue an apology, I guess. So did ABC news. But we don't know if Stossel would have apologized with or without being told to, so all we can say is they both (ABC news and Stossel) apologized and that they corrected the error. SecretaryNotSure 00:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks.
Let me just add to the kafuffle one little thought. I'll probably regret saying this, but from reading all that stuff about this issue, it looks to me like the main point of Stossel's report was basically true and the error about the testing didn't really matter much. So I say "give him a break!" SecretaryNotSure 18:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I hate to risk igniting the tempest in the teapot. I thought the bullet points was better and we've got to let go of the idea that we have make it sound like Stossel did something wrong just because there was some mistake in that "organic food" story. Anyone who knows anything about the news business knows that "mistakes happen." That's why newspapers are always issuing "corrections" to things. Maybe some of the more objective types will make some better edits. SecretaryNotSure 22:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that's exactly what we do, we use our wisdom to decide if something was a mistake or if it showed some kind of bad faith. That what "neutrality" is, we don't simply list everything every crackpot claims about something. I would dispute that readers think would think it's all that significant that the testing wasn't done properly especially since the main point of the report was sound.
Yes, we do presuppose the criticism is false. We have to because anyone can claim anything. They have to prove it, otherwise we consider it false.
I'm thinking of a better edit, it would say something like this:
"In a story on organic food, Stossel showed organic food could kill you because it was infested with bacteria, and the regular food didn't have any more pesticides. However, the EWG bitterly disputed the pesticide tests. Further tests confirmed little pesticides in either sample, and concluded that the organic food would only kill you because of the bacteria. Stossel apologized...."
SecretaryNotSure 15:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I figured we should probably start some examples to discuss.
In a story on pesticides and organic food, Stossel claimed that ABC News tests had shown that neither organic nor conventional produce samples contained any pesticide residue. [1] The Environmental Working Group discovered that the produce samples had been tested only for bacteria; even after 20/20 received that information, the story was rebroadcast uncorrected. [2] [3] [4] Stossel was reprimanded by ABC and issued an apology over the incident. [5] In a story on laissez-faire economics, liberal economist James K. Galbraith said Stossel took a short interview clip out of context and that he was making the opposite point. [6] Stossel defended the overall work but acknowledged the possibility of error. Todd Seavey, the associate producer who conducted the interview, denied that there was any distortion. [7] In a segment that investigated the extravagant finances and lifestyles of certain televangelists, ABC aired a misleading clip of TV preacher Frederick Price originally used (misleadingly) by the Discovery Channel. Price sued ABC for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. ABC News has twice aired apologies for the error. [8] [9] Stossel produced and hosted a story on health care where he described the case of Tracy and Julie Pierce that was explored in Michael Moore's film, Sicko. [10] Julie criticized Stossel's comments saying they were distortions and factual inaccuracies, and that he didn't interview her before writing his opinion piece "Sick Sob Stories". [11] Stossel expressed sympathy and responded to some of her criticisms. [12] Politically progressive organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), [13] Media Matters for America (MMfA), [14] and others [15] have criticized Stossel over his political positions, [16] alleged distortion of facts, [17] [18] [19] [20] and balance of coverage. [21] [22] Critics also claim a conflict of interest for Stossel donating profits from his public speaking engagements (as per by his ABC contract) to, among others, a charity that produces a program that features him. [23] [24] [25] [26] Stossel has responded to some of the criticism. [27] [28] [29]
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So here is a very quick and rough sample of what I'm thinking. Could be expanded and reworded but the idea is a few paragraphs focusing on the major controversies, with references to smaller criticism in a final paragraph. Let me have it... (cringing).. Morphh (talk) 15:17, 03 October 2007 (UTC)
I updated the Example with wikilinks and references so you get a better idea. This includes the changes suggested by Acct4 above, but does not include the changes suggested by SecretaryNotSure debated in the prior section. It is not that I disagree with SecretaryNotSure, I haven't even looked at it.. but since it is being debated, I thought it best to leave it out for now and adjust later after we reach some agreement on the base content and format. Morphh (talk) 21:39, 04 October 2007 (UTC)
The page lock will be removed tomorrow if we have come to some agreement. Is everyone ok with the above example as a replacement for the current Controversies list? We can make little tweaks here and there once it is in but if everyone is good with this as a base compromise, we can move forward. Morphh (talk) 20:13, 05 October 2007 (UTC)
I too have been on the sidelines. In response to this version: it's good to see people have (mostly) worked this out, and I think the new section is a good improvement. It is actually just as strong or stronger in establishing that Stossel is a controversial figure with credible complaints about his journalism, yet it doesn't read like a litany of partisan complaints. Good job. A few comments / critiques:
I see it's not edit protected so I'll make a few of the less controversial changes myself. Wikidemo 22:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
It's about 99.44% there. Has anyone else noticed the plethora of references? Do we really need so many? It's a virtual web link directory of everything someone has written who disagrees with Stossel. Like, do we really need 7 links to support the the idea they ran a clip of the preacher and his cars and houses? The basic facts aren't even in dispute. p.s. was that Stossels fault or was that some error made by ABC news? SecretaryNotSure 00:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes -- The sentence seems to say the story on TV on health care criticised the couple that's featured in the film Sicko, then talks about the thing Stossel wrote called "Sick Sob Stories." I thought those were two separate things. I thought "FAIR" criticised the TV show because they didn't like the experts he chose to interview and that the written thing by Stossel was criticised by the woman from "Sicko." And Stossel responded to the criticism by the woman from "Sicko" but not, so far as I know, the "criticism" from "FAIR." I could be mistaken of course so feel free to fix it or remove the tag if it's correct. SecretaryNotSure 14:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm sad. So many completely different subjects, all in the same paragraphs. It's just really poor prose, no matter how you look at it.
1of3
22:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this statement "ABC news found the producer to be at fault and suspended him for a month, and also reprimanded Stossel". Like Andyvphil, I also have some concern with this. Does the source say who's at fault? Obviously the producer is more at fault but Stossel was reprimanded, so this implies some fault I would think. However, I don't know that saying the producer was most at fault solves the problem either - same issue as we're assigning fault. Perhaps it should just be written "ABC News suspended the producer for a month and reprimanded Stossel...". That way we're not saying who was at fault and letting the reader decide... unless we have the source saying so (which we can repeat), I think this borders on original research. Morphh (talk) 13:18, 09 October 2007 (UTC)
SecretaryNotSure has made quite a few changes to the article and particularly to the controversy section under discussion. I'm not sure what the best course of action is at this point, we could leave it to the normal editing process where others will review and modify or we could revert it and move all the changes here for discussion. I haven't had time to review the content but I'm probably for the normal editing process unless it looks like it is moving toward edit waring. Morphh (talk) 13:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
this is the second caution I'm forwarding to Andyvphil. This one is a strong caution to be followed by reporting. (Point taken, and warning has been moved to Andyvphil's user page, but warning still stands). -- Maniwar ( talk) 19:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been doing some edits, trying to make jazz the article up a little. (I noticed the WP:TPA talks about it should be written as an interesting thing to read, not just a list of facts and figures.
Thanks for the help, I'm trying to maintain npov, not all my edits have been accepted, that's fine. But can I ask why we are giving so much weight to these "crazy groups" who say Stossel did this or that or lied or made up things or he's fake, etc etc etc? Why not just mention such groups exist and list their websites. Maybe briefly mention what they say.
There are certain groups that are not neutral. They have some axe to grind. god knows why, but they are "watching" only certain people and criticise them all the time. These are not neutral press outlets, they are interest groups or reverse-fan clubs or whatever. I would favor not being the co-enablers for these crazy groups. SecretaryNotSure 01:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm not sure what the gradual approach is. I guess you mean justify each change here. OK. Not sure what "edit entropy" is either, but it sounds bad so we'll try to avoid that.
Yes, I see there's a peripheral involvement with Stossel and the preacher's comments. If your expertise says it should be included, that's fine. But as you say, you recognize it's a minor mistake and doesn't really tell us much about Stossel -- So I say, then write it that way. Instead, you're telling us you have to make it sound worse because this is wikipedia and if we don't make it worse, someone else will?" Do I understand that rationale correctly?
By the way, the newspaper says they made the error -- it was pretty careless especially since they know this guy makes his living based on his personality and casting him in a bad light was pretty serious -- However, I think it's an open legal case (wikipedia problems alert!) and all we know if that ABC 20/20 broadcast the mistake, they issued two retractions, the guy is still suing saying that's not enough... we don't know who's right here. We especially have to be careful not to do exactly the same mistake and say something that sounds like "Stossel was sitting around with this videotape and said lets cut out this part and make that guy sound like he's bragging about his riches..." We agree that would be a bad thing to do, we also agree it would be bad if we did the same thing to Stossel.
The same with the comment about the lettuce. Somewhere way above, a while ago you even noted that it was a minor error, and it got blown out of proportion. I think what you remarked was that sure, ABC News must get thousands of crazy letters from this group, and by god, they got lucky this time and were right, and so "scored a point" of some sort. This was made worse by the producer who ignored most of these complaints, etc etc ... without retrying the case here... you expressed the same idea that I agree with, that it wasn't that big a deal, just a mistake, but it was a PR coup for some interest group.... correct me if I'm wrong. So, I say the same as above -- write it that way!
I don't buy into this defeatist notion that "well, this is wikipedia and even if we write it correctly, someone will come along and change it to something bad, so we might as well make it sound bad to begin with." What kind of philosophy is that? I say write it the way you believe it to be true as best you can.
Getting back to what I was asking above... what's the rationale for including any or every group or person with an axe to grind? If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying they aren't reliable or good sources, or they are nuts, but because this is wikipedia, we know someone will add this bad information -- so therefore we should add the bad information first?
hmmm...
Well lemme get back the content here:
Thanks. We'll eventually get it. If you can, give me some guidance on why we should quote the crazy groups. That was the original question. SecretaryNotSure 21:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the commentary. Now I understand what you mean by entropy. I'm going to ponder. Well, two things: First, why we "can't" write things that we believe to be the closest to the truth ...
And 2nd, I'm going to ponder the comment that it doesn't make any difference if a guy is told some test results, and he reports what the lab told him Vs. A guy makes up things and says some tests were done when they weren't. Those are two different things. We'll go with version 1 unless someone has evidence for version 2. We shouldn't "libel" anyone.
You're right about the word "retraction" (kinda) the source says he's upset by the "two retractions" but the reporter says they broadcast the retraction twice. Yes, technically you can only "retract" a story, you can't retract it twice... whatever.. And where did they get "Discovery Channel" involved? The source says it was from "Lifetime." SecretaryNotSure 00:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. First, it's not the "John Stossel Show" so we aren't here to decide who runs the show. We can only go by what they (ABC News) tell us. It's produced by some guy we're not going to mention, not John Stossel. Presumably he is synthesizing, analyzing. I think we basically agree, that no matter what caused the error, it was an error and Stossel corrected that and apologized. And, we agree the error wasn't even that important. We all agree there's no basis to say "he lied" - because the term "lied" implies something more, we would be saying he knew something to be false and said it anyway, etc. OK fine, we agree. So lets write it that way.
The 2nd point I have to disagree that we "can't say he didn't lie." Yes we can. Not only can we, we must not say he lied because we don't have any evidence he lied. Some group said that, that's not a reason to repeat anything. What if someone said he was a child molester? Should we include that because "we can't say he didn't molest children" because we don't know... Well, yes we do, unless there's reason to believe he molested children then it's not true and we don't say it. Same with someone saying "he lied."
One last thing, there's no need for the [t]hey. He spoke those words, he didn't write them. Well actually he may have written that also somewhere else but I don't know. It doesn't matter, we're not quoting the editor at newsmax we're saying what Stossel said, we aren't "bound" by the way the newsmax guy decided to punctuate it. Also, it's trivial and just makes it harder to read for no good reason. The only time we would worry about something like that is if he dropped a word and maybe we know what he meant and that was added for clarity, that sort of thing. We would add the [t] or [they] for clarity if he said it and made some mistake. Like, for example if he said "hey don't like me" and we know what he meant to say we could write it as "[t]hey don't like me." SecretaryNotSure 14:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
There were some edits today, something about "logrolling" and "lawyering" or something. I don't know what that is. From all I can tell, it seems to be "lets rephrase this to make it seem like it was stossels fault and what some group says is true and what stossel says is false.. etc etc. And then it goes on to say how groups like "MMfA" is some kind of neutral "watchdog group" and leave out even the implication that they have some poltical leanings or motives ... nah! The reader doesn't need to know that... nah! Just leave it out... SecretaryNotSure 01:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Except that the bullet list was a vey brief phenomenon. What we're actually reverting to is the pre-bullet-list form, slightly improved by chronological ordering. The question is what lesson you draw from this. Andyvphil 22:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I was hoping you'd reconsider your image of what a Wikipedia article ought to be in the light of this experience. If you are more tolerant of letting it go the way it wants to go you'll find you have less entropy to fight, I think. Quoting self, 2 September: ...it is guaranteed that the criticisms will be reinserted time and time again, usually in unbalanced form, if an adequate NPOV treatment is not present. Andyvphil 07:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
This section needs some work I think - should have dates in the text and be in date order, and shorter. I'm removing speculation - encyclopedia should never include the phrase "but this is pure speculation"! Also not sure the wrestling item is really notable enough for inclusion. The guy is an investigative reporter - of course his subjects say he's not telling the truth. We need to be careful what we include here because of BLP concerns. Tvoz | talk 06:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, where's the evidence that only the "Environmental Working Group" complained, and no one else? So then why is the story about them? SecretaryNotSure 22:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, where's the evidence that the error being corrected is somehow related to an article in the New York Times? (i.e. it says "after the new york times took notice, then ABC news did something)? SecretaryNotSure 22:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
No hurry. We can wait. When you find that evidence, let us know. 'Till then we'll just remove the parts that aren't supported by evidence, when you get time to let us know where the evidence is, we'll put it back, if warranted. Thanks for your help. SecretaryNotSure 00:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
That wasn't the question. We know EWG wrote or did something. The question is where is the evidence that EWG and no one else looked into the story? SecretaryNotSure 07:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
The text implies that the EWG was the only one. It's not explicit, if we must include reference to the particular group, it shouldn't falsely imply they did something more than they did, also, the point of the whole thing isn't what some group did, it's what Stossel did. The article is about Stossel, not everyone who disagrees with Stossel.
Where's the evidence that EWG were "the first ones" to question the statement? That's what EWG says, that's what EWG told the NY Times, but that's not proof of anything. We would have to ask ABC news or Stossel or the producer how many letters or calls did they get, and how where were they from? There's nothing about that published, the sources are simply statements from EWG that "they" were the ones who found this error. Isn't it possible that other members of the organic food industry complained? It seems likely, and one source does talk about complaints from "the organic farmers." Are the environmentalist also farmers? If not, then someone else complained.
I'll look into the "T" thing some more, but it seems like an unnecessary confusion, the problem is it began a sentence in the other guys article, but in the phrase here it's mid-sentence.
I appreciate that something is "getting annoying already."
Yes, one newspaper article uses the term "more likely to be contaminated" -- that's an acceptable way to say it but just because someone says it that way doesn't mean we have to accept one article's phrasing as the last word. When you look at the report itself, and what ABC News says, they said the stuff was contaminated, not "more likely to be" contaminated. We are trying to synthesize and "boil down" a long and complex dispute into a few sentences, so we can't just pick and choose phrases that we happen to like. I guess we'll have to look at it some more and come up with the best way to put it.
Speaking of E. coli, why not wiki link that? Why keep removing the wiki link for E. coli? We linked the EWG, we presume the reader might want to know more about this group, why wouldn't the reader want to know what "E. coli" is? Not every reader is some kind of scientist!
The statement that Stossel rebroadcast the report "after being told of the error" is also silly. Are we implying that if some guy calls up the news station and tells them something, they should change their story? Like, when Stossel said the organic stuff was infested with bacteria, I'm sure some people didn't "like" that. They wrote to him and told him to remove that. However, he didn't, because that's what the testing showed. Do you want the news people to just print anything someone says? If that were the case, then they should have said the organic food was great "because someone called me and told me it was."
That's not how the news business works. You can't just call up the newspaper and "tell them" to change something, no matter how much you don't like something. They have to research it, they have to determine if their original story was correct or if it was wrong. If it was correct they don't change it, if it's wrong they issue a correction or a retraction.
So it's silly to have a statement in there that says Stossel re-broadcast it "even after being told by the environmental club/group that they thought it was wrong." From putting together the information in all the sources, it seems that Stossel did double check that fact, and was told that's what the testing showed. The way it is now, we are implying that Stossel knew it was wrong and said it anyway. That's casting "false light" and is libelous.
That's what the producer was diciplined for, he repeated to Stossel that the testing was done, that's what all the sources imply.
I'm trying to go through the sources to try to find any justification for saying that the error was fixed because the N Y Times ran some story. So far, no luck, so at this point it's "pure speculation."
Please stop adding libelous material to this article. SecretaryNotSure 09:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, fantastic, now we're making some progress. You've supported the idea that the EWG was the first one to complain. You've also partly supported that there seemed to be some connection between the NY Times article and ABC's investigation. The NY Times says it was the NY Times that fixed things, just like EWG says it was the EWG that fixed things, and of course, ABC News says ABC News fixed things... they all seem to put themselves at the center of things.
Note, however, we can't change the article to indicate there's an absolutely known causation between the article and finding the error. Notice that even the NY Times dances around the issue, they say it was after they noted it ABC News (not Stossel) started looking into it again, they never assert it was because of the media bits. And it was not an "article" it was a thing in "media bits" which is their way of saying it's not as highly reliable as an article. So, we should not change the wording to "article." Unless it would be confusing to the reader, in which case it would be like the damn "t" dispute, where we would be better off going with what is simpler.
OK, so far we've determined we have to change the article so that:
Now some other issues. The sources say Stossel was reprimanded in a letter. The article cuts out the part "in a letter." Those are two different things, being reprimanded and being reprimanded in a letter, the former being much less serious. So, since the sources say "reprimanded in a letter" we must not change that to "was reprimanded."
Next, the source says "Then we made things worse. In July, I repeated the report! And the error." And we changed that to "the story was rebroadcast months later with not only the inaccurate statement uncorrected,..." Why did we change "error" to "inaccurate statement?" We are implying that Stossel knew the statement was "inaccurate" because we're saying that, in those words, he said "an inaccurate statement"
Also, why did we add the "he said" and "he asserted" to some of Stossel's direct statements. OK, he said is probably fine, but then at the end we changed "he said" to "he asserted" ... sort of a none neutral POV dig meaning "we don't really believe him." So we should change "he asserted" should be just changed to "he said" or he "repeated" or "he reiterated..." that the gist of the report was accurate.
The other issue is we shouldn't confabulate ABC News, the producer and 20/20 and Stossel and pretend they are all "Stossel." Obviously, from all we've read, Stossel was assured, each time it was questioned that the tests were done and they were fine. I know some people don't like that, and would love to just change history and make it Stossel's fault, but we are an encyclopedia. More about that some other time if you have any questions.
That's probably enough to think about right now. Good luck and thanks for looking into the matter. SecretaryNotSure 20:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Interesting. Now back to the question under discussion. As you can see, every time we add some other extraneous detail, another line of detail has to be added to clarify it. We agree that we "can" justify talk about the nytimes and the ewg and such, but, as someone else noted in the above section -- why is this simple paragraph getting so long and complicated? Well, I'll tell you.
As we agree, surprisingly, that Stossel made a mistake, what one called "a boner." Fine business! That's one or two lines. Something like "Stossel gave a report... included a statement... statement was an error... Stossel corrected error and apologized." Tell me, what more is there to this story? What are we all missing?
Instead it's being spun into a tale of intrigue and subterfuge and conspiracy. We're being told this by the activists. The simpler explanation is that the error wasn't really that significant. Which it wasn't so far as I can tell and no one has disputed.
So far we have:
There's only one problem, this is the biography of John Stossel, it's not the Da Vinci Code of organic farming and all of the various actors and their complaints. Call it "straw men" all you wish, but rather than just call it "straw man," explain to us how this, what all agree was a mistake complicated by a delay in fixing it, requires three paragraphs and all this discussion of what people who aren't John Stossel said or did? SecretaryNotSure 22:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Although I'd love to accept your nomination to "the throne" I usually say the article is written by "us." "We" write the wikipedia. I don't write the wikipedia, you don't -- we do. That "we" means me, you, and everyone and anyone reading. SecretaryNotSure 00:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
p.s. What was Stossel reprimanded for? And by whom? We don't know, do we? Its seems to me the reprimand was for the error of not fixing the error in a timely manner.
Next, what is it we're trying to "illuminate?" One man's "illumination" is another man's propaganda. Lets stick to what we know, not what we'd "like to tell people." I.e, if we just tell the story, Stossel made a mistake, but instead, you suggest we "illuminate" the reader that .... what? Fill in the blank there? SecretaryNotSure 00:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
First, before I forget, lemme add to the list above:
Back to the issue under discussion. Actually, that's exactly what the "reprimand" was for, so far as we know. Not correcting the error fast enough is something measureable, viewable, knowable, whereas "being arrogant" is someone's opinion. Unless someone produces a copy of this "reprimand" and it says "Dear John: You are hereby reprimanded because you are arrogant...." it's just speculation or opinion. But OK, lets just say for sake of saying it that we need to tell the reader "some people think Stossel was arrogant." Fine, now we are up to three sentences:
Is there anything else the reader needs to be illuminated about? SecretaryNotSure 02:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, if you insist. If we have to include "he was reprimanded" we can't cut out that it was "in a letter" and we can't cut out the fact that it was the producer responsible for the reprimands. But fine. Lets revisit the list:
Anything else we need to illuminate? SecretaryNotSure 04:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
No, we can leave out "in a letter", and we can't say the producer was responsible for [actions or inaction leading to] the reprimands because Stossel was also responsible, and we cannot say ABC chastised Stossel because of the delay because that's not what they chastised him for, and Shelly Ross (who was in a position to know) didn't say he was arrogant but rather that he was reprimanded for having been arrogant. Mostly stuff that his been pointed out to you previously, repeatedly, and to which you have proved impervious. Andyvphil 04:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. You're making a choice of which facts to include based on some rationale. We could draw a table and list the "facts" you suggest we include on the left side and the "facts" you suggest leaving out on the right side. On the include side would be things like "stossel was reprimanded" and "it wasn't the error, it was his arrogance" and on the other side then list the facts you want to leave out, things like the reprimand was minor (in a letter) and the producer was primarily blamed not Stossel, and it was one person who said he was "arrogant" and not ABC. If we make that chart, we see the rationale being used is "if it casts Stossel in a bad light, include it; if it explains Stossels actions or ascribes them to human error, leave that out." That is what we call casting a false light.
You see, something that's libelous doesn't have to consist of falsehoods. Everything listed can be a "true fact" and it can still be libelous if the "true facts" are being "cherry picked" in order to cast a false impression (and other "true facts" that cast a better light are cut out).
I think the above discussion has pretty well established that the current version is libelous. SecretaryNotSure 16:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
What "positions" am I supposed to have? Maybe that's the source of misunderstanding, I'm supposed to be neutral.
Regarding your claim that I'm making up this stuff about "the letter" here's what the sources say:
...even though Stossel had already been reprimanded in a letter and Fitzpatrick had been suspended for a month without pay. Stossel escaped suspension himself because he had forwarded mail disputing the segment’s accuracy onto Fitzpatrick for investigation...
OK, what did I get wrong there, it was in a letter, right? In other words, the head guy sent a note that said something like "I think you made a mistake John, you should correct that and be more careful!" Something like that. That's being "reprimanded in a letter." It is not some formal quad-part form with the words "OFFICIAL REPRIMAND" at the top and you keep the canary copy for own records or anything like that. And it's not when he stands at attention in the colonel of ABC's office where he yells "Son, your ego is writting checks your body can't catch...!" Simply saying "he was reprimanded" leaves all that up to the imagination, where the actual "reprimand" was more likely as described.
Actually I notice that while I've been arguing (and notice the word "I" there) other editors have already added the changes I've been arguing for.
At least, most of them. The only little tweak we need to make is we can't say in that rebroadcast Stossel knew it was false and said it anyway. The reader can be confused by saying "EWG notified him" and "he reported the error anyway" -- That might be confusing to someone not familiar with how the news media journalism business works. Because it sounds like "he was notified" when actually, what happened is this group said it was wrong, Stossel checked it out, the producer re-affirmed it, vetted the statement, then he repeated it. That is, Stossels was aware that EWG questioned the statement, and he checked it out and was told that the statement was correct, so he repeated it in the next broadcast. Since a journalist's reputation is so closely related to his honesty, it's probably libelous to imply he knowingly lied, when all the evidence, and the other sources support, that it was a mistake.
By the way, I know the whole story with the rebroadcast, the producer, the EWG what they said, what the producer said and why stossel did this or that is cumbersome and overly long. It would be better to just leave that whole thing out since it doesn't really illuminate anything. However, if the other editors insist we include those details, we can not selectively just report part of the truth (half-truths) and leave out the parts favorable to Stossel. So don't blame me. SecretaryNotSure 05:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
hmm. Just looking over the history list I see over 25 edits by 10 different editors, depending on how we count "when I started arguing."
Regarding the issue at hand, the edits have implemented most of the needed changes. There's still a tilt against Stossel but I don't know if it rises to the level of libelous. So, it depends if our goal is to make an article that is "just over the line" of not being bad enough to get in trouble, or, on the other hand to make an excellent article that tells the story in a neutral way. Those are two different things.
I recognize the problems with relying too heavily on lew rockwell, but I've found them to be more reliable than the other opinion groups like "fair" and "mmfa" because lew rockwell has to be more careful with facts because they are attacked by from all sides if they misstate something. But if the story is going to be built on half-baked comments from those other political groups, there's nothing wrong with including facts uncovered by lew rockwell .
I'm reviewing if there's justification for saying Stossel relied on "his memory" to assure himself that the tests were done before the 2nd broadcast. The sources say he checked with the producer and passed on the concerns and the producer verified that it was correct. That's not simply relying on memory. The phrase implies carelessness by implying Stossel relied on his bad memory instead of checking notes or re-checking with the staff, which is what the sources say he did.
The sources also say ABC could never determine how the error occured. (or if they did, they aren't saying) Obviously they think the producer was careless in some way, and that Stossel should have been more careful in some way. I'm not sure how to phrase that without adding "too much fat."
I'm not sure it's fair to say it was the EWG and no one else. Mentioning the various interest groups make it clearer that the issue was not as clear cut as one group of self professed experts claiming something, when actually the issue was confused by various competing claims and counter-claims and Stossel had to rely on the ABC news staff as his primary source.
I don't know what the issue with the "in a letter" phrase is. It may not be as documented as well as we might like, but in the same way, the fact that he was reprimanded isn't all that well documented either. (also, we are taking at face value nearly all the statements from the interest groups as if they were gospels) Because it's a biography of a living person, we should err on the side of something that doesn't sound as sinister vs. something sounds worse than it may have been, since we really don't have all the papers available. SecretaryNotSure 19:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course it's "pointy" -- it's too long an explanation for a simple event. That's the whole point. So why don't we simplify it, that way we won't have to explain why this detail isn't quite right and this other detail isn't quite right.
You haven't given any reason why you don't think some of the comments are "dubious." You should check out wp:blp.
By the way if you notice I didn't say lew rockwell was neutral I said they are generally reliable. In fact, understanding the difference between something being "true" vs. "neutral" is the whole point of this pointy talk. SecretaryNotSure 03:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the Shults attack, I tagged the line regarding Stossel suing and winning a settlement from the WWF as needing a citation (on Sept 30th). I've looked and haven't found anything other than mentions of an "alleged" settlement. That's not confidence-inspiring, if ya know what I mean. I'll remove that line on the 30th if there's no cite to a reliable source by then. Ossified 18:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Someone wrote in one of the changes: Praise - identified politics of each individual cited in the section. We shouldn't do it only for 'liberals', 'progressives', and 'leftists'
Fine. What label do we plan to give the EWG, FAIR,MMFA, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Rachel Carson, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore? I notice Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is called an "environmentalist." Is that a poltical label? Or do only conservatives get a label? Oh, and the libertarians, they get a label too. The other people are all "normal people" and don't need a label. ??? SecretaryNotSure 06:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no evidence or cited sources claiming that:
Not only are there no sources for these assertions, but they do not appear later in the article. Per WP:LEAD, the introduction is supposed to summarize the article, not exist independently from it. If these "tarted up" statements can not be sourced, then they must be removed per WP:V. 209.77.205.2 18:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
This makes him a "contrarian" in American media
What does this even mean? I want to revise it, but I'm not sure where to go with it. Thought about deleting it, but then the second half of the sentence (which is actually source) makes even less sense. Help! Unschool 01:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Thoughts on submitting this article for WP:GA... It could use a little cleanup on refs and such but it appears to be a close to a GA just glancing at it. I haven't read through it recently to see if we have any glaring POV issues... thoughts? Should we submit it? Morphh (talk) 14:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Where did John F. Stossel come from? His name is Richard John Stossel. When younger, his nicknames were "Rick-John" and later "Rick". Link2dan ( talk) 19:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
wtf john stossel is not encyclopedic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.207.101 ( talk) 16:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Stossel is Jewish. He lives in New York City with his wife and their two children. Max is attending Haverford College near Philadelphia.
Neither before nor after do we learn who Max is. Kidigus ( talk) 03:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
My sources for Stossel's birth name being Richard John Stossel are as follows: I was a friend, colleague at WCBS-TV and summer housemate of his for years and during that period knew directly from him that his name was Richard John Stossel, he wished to be and was called Rick, I saw his Princeton diploma on the wall of his apartment and it read Richard John Stossel, and the friend he moved to New York from Seattle with to work at WCBS-TV called him Rick John. Mutual friends all called him Rick for many years. Link2dan ( talk)
It is a strange name for this section which seems to be accounts of his journalistic career. If these really are controversies, what is/are the opposing view/views, who holds that view/those views, and why? patsw ( talk) 04:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Can we mention somewhere in the article that he provides free educational materials for teachers? The organization is based in New York, on Spring St. Gautam Discuss 15:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Please people, no straw man arguments about FAIR being some kind of totalitarian communist organization or whatever. Here's the thing. Go to the FAIR website. Look at the John Stossel criticisms. We need to be totally clear here. The criticisms ARE NOT saying "We disagree with John Stossel." I WOULD agree, it's not notable if a group just happens to disagree with Stossel. BUT, that is NOT what they're doing. What they ARE doing is giving CLEAR evidence that Stossel is falsifying evidence or otherwise being a very shoddy journalist. In some cases, Stossel even admits and corrects it. Look at the one about the factory wages "rising"! He didn't adjust for inflation? How does "an Emmy winning journalist" not make such an obvious and simple calculation? I am on a high school newspaper staff, and believe me, I'd get my ass kicked out if I did something like that. Now I understand that bios of living people are supposed to slant positively. But there is no way to slant that - and numerous other examples - positively. Either he deliberately manipulated evidence and lied to the public OR he made a very obvious (and very suspicious) error and is guilty of extreme confirmation bias. Please, someone set the record straight here. I'm not very liberal myself and I'm not just disagreeing with Stossel's views. This is not about Stossel being a libertarian. This is about him being either a bad journalist or an inveterate liar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.151.45.242 ( talk) 22:35, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Mr./Miss Anonymous Editor, you seem to be using the term " straw man argument" incorrectly. In fact, your very first sentence is a straw man argument, since no one has accused FAIR of being a "totalitarian communist organization". What we have accused FAIR of is not being a reliable source. These faux media watchdog groups— Media Matters and FAIR on the far left, and Accuracy in Media and Media Research Center on the far right—purport to be "media watchdog groups" when in reality they are just arms of left-wing and right-wing political movements, intent on assailing journalism and journalists with which they disagree.
Regarding the factory wages issue, while Stossel was wrong not to adjust for inflation, journalists usually don't adjust for inflation. I'm not excusing Stossel here, but you seem to be suggesting that he somehow violated standard industry practice. All journalists need to do a better job of adjusting for inflation.
Finally, let me just express my personal belief that these criticism and controversy sections that pervade Wikipedia are unencyclopedic. Try reading Britannica or World Book sometime. They never have criticism and controversy sections. Only Wikipedia does. Why? I believe they exist in Wikipedia because they attract editors who either (a) love scandal, or (b) have an agenda they want to push in an encyclopedia. -- JHP ( talk) 05:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Well I'm a Wikipedia reader and I spend a lot of time looking at criticism sections. In fact, I find them some of the most useful sections of Wikipedia. For example, I just caught a very suspicious report by Stossel suggesting that global warming is not man-made. I immediately looked him up on Wikipedia to see if this was a one-off or if this journalist has a track-record of questionable reporting. The criticism section is very useful for this purpose. Pexise ( talk) 21:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
The controversy section is bordering on NPOV issues with article structure. Consider merging the sections or placing headers (using bold) so that they are not listed in the TOC. Morphh (talk) 13:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
100% agreed. It's just another attempt by the left wing admins here to distort the truth. Quite sad and pathetic, really, something you would expect from a second grader. 64.53.136.29 ( talk) 16:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I am not a vandal, really. This edit was the result of my attempt to edit from a mobile phone, something new for me this week which I think I shall not do again. (I still can't figure out how that happened.) Un sch ool 03:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
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![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I've reverted a portion of the derogatory information, and asked for edit protection.
Although I believe all five of the most contentious paragraphs need to go, I am only removing the two most appropriate at this time that are not covered by WP:3RR. This would only be my third removal of the material in 24 hours, but I don't even want to get close to 3RR. In fact, I shouldn't have to deal with this kind of material even once, much less three times. As per WP:BLP, "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material...about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles" and "the three-revert rule does not apply to its removal." We're not even supposed to be talking bout this, much less edit warring over it. If anyone cannot see why this press release by a partisan organization is a bogus source for impugning the integrity of a living journalist, it seems to be time for administrators to step in.
People are not taking BLP seriously. I have been trying to help as a neutral party who is not interested in the outcome other than to maintain Wikipedia policy standards. However, it appears that there is no middle ground. For me to continue insisting on BLP compliance I would have to get sucked into an edit war on an issue that I have no stake in. I am therefore going to bow out for the moment and let Wikipedia's dispute-related procedures take their course. Wikidemo 14:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Maybe someone will suggest we should list something like this:
SecretaryNotSure 19:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with several aspects of this edit by SecretaryNotSure as it relates to pesticides.
In sum, I don't agree with the view that a Wikipedia bio article should adopt spin in favor of the subject. JamesMLane t c 17:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for falling into the brouhaha. I didn't ask for locking the page or know it was going to be. If I knew my words were going to be enshrined like the placard on the Voyager spaceship, I would have choosen them more carefully. But here's the thinking behind the wording for of the "organic food" kafuffle.
"The doctors' denials were first brought to light by the Environmental Working Group, which supports the consumption of organic produce. Members talked to the doctors after the report. In a letter to Mr. Stossel, the group asked for an explanation." They "talked to" the doctor; they "asked for" an explanation from ABC News. To me that's sounds like "questioning" because that's what they did, they questioned the doctor and then asked ABC news a question. Yes, I'm trying to avoid the term "discovered" because of it's sinister implications. That makes it sound like they barged into the lab and took samples or dug through the dumpster at ABC and found a memo that said "hey john, here's those fake test results you ask for..."
Not only that, the 2nd broadcast sounds like it was part of the routine schedule, so it doesn't seem that significant. It seems like it was a case of the investigation going on (and it took too long) and the broadcast schedule going on also.
We do know that he was told to issue an apology, I guess. So did ABC news. But we don't know if Stossel would have apologized with or without being told to, so all we can say is they both (ABC news and Stossel) apologized and that they corrected the error. SecretaryNotSure 00:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks.
Let me just add to the kafuffle one little thought. I'll probably regret saying this, but from reading all that stuff about this issue, it looks to me like the main point of Stossel's report was basically true and the error about the testing didn't really matter much. So I say "give him a break!" SecretaryNotSure 18:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I hate to risk igniting the tempest in the teapot. I thought the bullet points was better and we've got to let go of the idea that we have make it sound like Stossel did something wrong just because there was some mistake in that "organic food" story. Anyone who knows anything about the news business knows that "mistakes happen." That's why newspapers are always issuing "corrections" to things. Maybe some of the more objective types will make some better edits. SecretaryNotSure 22:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that's exactly what we do, we use our wisdom to decide if something was a mistake or if it showed some kind of bad faith. That what "neutrality" is, we don't simply list everything every crackpot claims about something. I would dispute that readers think would think it's all that significant that the testing wasn't done properly especially since the main point of the report was sound.
Yes, we do presuppose the criticism is false. We have to because anyone can claim anything. They have to prove it, otherwise we consider it false.
I'm thinking of a better edit, it would say something like this:
"In a story on organic food, Stossel showed organic food could kill you because it was infested with bacteria, and the regular food didn't have any more pesticides. However, the EWG bitterly disputed the pesticide tests. Further tests confirmed little pesticides in either sample, and concluded that the organic food would only kill you because of the bacteria. Stossel apologized...."
SecretaryNotSure 15:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I figured we should probably start some examples to discuss.
In a story on pesticides and organic food, Stossel claimed that ABC News tests had shown that neither organic nor conventional produce samples contained any pesticide residue. [1] The Environmental Working Group discovered that the produce samples had been tested only for bacteria; even after 20/20 received that information, the story was rebroadcast uncorrected. [2] [3] [4] Stossel was reprimanded by ABC and issued an apology over the incident. [5] In a story on laissez-faire economics, liberal economist James K. Galbraith said Stossel took a short interview clip out of context and that he was making the opposite point. [6] Stossel defended the overall work but acknowledged the possibility of error. Todd Seavey, the associate producer who conducted the interview, denied that there was any distortion. [7] In a segment that investigated the extravagant finances and lifestyles of certain televangelists, ABC aired a misleading clip of TV preacher Frederick Price originally used (misleadingly) by the Discovery Channel. Price sued ABC for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. ABC News has twice aired apologies for the error. [8] [9] Stossel produced and hosted a story on health care where he described the case of Tracy and Julie Pierce that was explored in Michael Moore's film, Sicko. [10] Julie criticized Stossel's comments saying they were distortions and factual inaccuracies, and that he didn't interview her before writing his opinion piece "Sick Sob Stories". [11] Stossel expressed sympathy and responded to some of her criticisms. [12] Politically progressive organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), [13] Media Matters for America (MMfA), [14] and others [15] have criticized Stossel over his political positions, [16] alleged distortion of facts, [17] [18] [19] [20] and balance of coverage. [21] [22] Critics also claim a conflict of interest for Stossel donating profits from his public speaking engagements (as per by his ABC contract) to, among others, a charity that produces a program that features him. [23] [24] [25] [26] Stossel has responded to some of the criticism. [27] [28] [29]
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So here is a very quick and rough sample of what I'm thinking. Could be expanded and reworded but the idea is a few paragraphs focusing on the major controversies, with references to smaller criticism in a final paragraph. Let me have it... (cringing).. Morphh (talk) 15:17, 03 October 2007 (UTC)
I updated the Example with wikilinks and references so you get a better idea. This includes the changes suggested by Acct4 above, but does not include the changes suggested by SecretaryNotSure debated in the prior section. It is not that I disagree with SecretaryNotSure, I haven't even looked at it.. but since it is being debated, I thought it best to leave it out for now and adjust later after we reach some agreement on the base content and format. Morphh (talk) 21:39, 04 October 2007 (UTC)
The page lock will be removed tomorrow if we have come to some agreement. Is everyone ok with the above example as a replacement for the current Controversies list? We can make little tweaks here and there once it is in but if everyone is good with this as a base compromise, we can move forward. Morphh (talk) 20:13, 05 October 2007 (UTC)
I too have been on the sidelines. In response to this version: it's good to see people have (mostly) worked this out, and I think the new section is a good improvement. It is actually just as strong or stronger in establishing that Stossel is a controversial figure with credible complaints about his journalism, yet it doesn't read like a litany of partisan complaints. Good job. A few comments / critiques:
I see it's not edit protected so I'll make a few of the less controversial changes myself. Wikidemo 22:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
It's about 99.44% there. Has anyone else noticed the plethora of references? Do we really need so many? It's a virtual web link directory of everything someone has written who disagrees with Stossel. Like, do we really need 7 links to support the the idea they ran a clip of the preacher and his cars and houses? The basic facts aren't even in dispute. p.s. was that Stossels fault or was that some error made by ABC news? SecretaryNotSure 00:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes -- The sentence seems to say the story on TV on health care criticised the couple that's featured in the film Sicko, then talks about the thing Stossel wrote called "Sick Sob Stories." I thought those were two separate things. I thought "FAIR" criticised the TV show because they didn't like the experts he chose to interview and that the written thing by Stossel was criticised by the woman from "Sicko." And Stossel responded to the criticism by the woman from "Sicko" but not, so far as I know, the "criticism" from "FAIR." I could be mistaken of course so feel free to fix it or remove the tag if it's correct. SecretaryNotSure 14:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm sad. So many completely different subjects, all in the same paragraphs. It's just really poor prose, no matter how you look at it.
1of3
22:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this statement "ABC news found the producer to be at fault and suspended him for a month, and also reprimanded Stossel". Like Andyvphil, I also have some concern with this. Does the source say who's at fault? Obviously the producer is more at fault but Stossel was reprimanded, so this implies some fault I would think. However, I don't know that saying the producer was most at fault solves the problem either - same issue as we're assigning fault. Perhaps it should just be written "ABC News suspended the producer for a month and reprimanded Stossel...". That way we're not saying who was at fault and letting the reader decide... unless we have the source saying so (which we can repeat), I think this borders on original research. Morphh (talk) 13:18, 09 October 2007 (UTC)
SecretaryNotSure has made quite a few changes to the article and particularly to the controversy section under discussion. I'm not sure what the best course of action is at this point, we could leave it to the normal editing process where others will review and modify or we could revert it and move all the changes here for discussion. I haven't had time to review the content but I'm probably for the normal editing process unless it looks like it is moving toward edit waring. Morphh (talk) 13:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
this is the second caution I'm forwarding to Andyvphil. This one is a strong caution to be followed by reporting. (Point taken, and warning has been moved to Andyvphil's user page, but warning still stands). -- Maniwar ( talk) 19:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been doing some edits, trying to make jazz the article up a little. (I noticed the WP:TPA talks about it should be written as an interesting thing to read, not just a list of facts and figures.
Thanks for the help, I'm trying to maintain npov, not all my edits have been accepted, that's fine. But can I ask why we are giving so much weight to these "crazy groups" who say Stossel did this or that or lied or made up things or he's fake, etc etc etc? Why not just mention such groups exist and list their websites. Maybe briefly mention what they say.
There are certain groups that are not neutral. They have some axe to grind. god knows why, but they are "watching" only certain people and criticise them all the time. These are not neutral press outlets, they are interest groups or reverse-fan clubs or whatever. I would favor not being the co-enablers for these crazy groups. SecretaryNotSure 01:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm not sure what the gradual approach is. I guess you mean justify each change here. OK. Not sure what "edit entropy" is either, but it sounds bad so we'll try to avoid that.
Yes, I see there's a peripheral involvement with Stossel and the preacher's comments. If your expertise says it should be included, that's fine. But as you say, you recognize it's a minor mistake and doesn't really tell us much about Stossel -- So I say, then write it that way. Instead, you're telling us you have to make it sound worse because this is wikipedia and if we don't make it worse, someone else will?" Do I understand that rationale correctly?
By the way, the newspaper says they made the error -- it was pretty careless especially since they know this guy makes his living based on his personality and casting him in a bad light was pretty serious -- However, I think it's an open legal case (wikipedia problems alert!) and all we know if that ABC 20/20 broadcast the mistake, they issued two retractions, the guy is still suing saying that's not enough... we don't know who's right here. We especially have to be careful not to do exactly the same mistake and say something that sounds like "Stossel was sitting around with this videotape and said lets cut out this part and make that guy sound like he's bragging about his riches..." We agree that would be a bad thing to do, we also agree it would be bad if we did the same thing to Stossel.
The same with the comment about the lettuce. Somewhere way above, a while ago you even noted that it was a minor error, and it got blown out of proportion. I think what you remarked was that sure, ABC News must get thousands of crazy letters from this group, and by god, they got lucky this time and were right, and so "scored a point" of some sort. This was made worse by the producer who ignored most of these complaints, etc etc ... without retrying the case here... you expressed the same idea that I agree with, that it wasn't that big a deal, just a mistake, but it was a PR coup for some interest group.... correct me if I'm wrong. So, I say the same as above -- write it that way!
I don't buy into this defeatist notion that "well, this is wikipedia and even if we write it correctly, someone will come along and change it to something bad, so we might as well make it sound bad to begin with." What kind of philosophy is that? I say write it the way you believe it to be true as best you can.
Getting back to what I was asking above... what's the rationale for including any or every group or person with an axe to grind? If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying they aren't reliable or good sources, or they are nuts, but because this is wikipedia, we know someone will add this bad information -- so therefore we should add the bad information first?
hmmm...
Well lemme get back the content here:
Thanks. We'll eventually get it. If you can, give me some guidance on why we should quote the crazy groups. That was the original question. SecretaryNotSure 21:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the commentary. Now I understand what you mean by entropy. I'm going to ponder. Well, two things: First, why we "can't" write things that we believe to be the closest to the truth ...
And 2nd, I'm going to ponder the comment that it doesn't make any difference if a guy is told some test results, and he reports what the lab told him Vs. A guy makes up things and says some tests were done when they weren't. Those are two different things. We'll go with version 1 unless someone has evidence for version 2. We shouldn't "libel" anyone.
You're right about the word "retraction" (kinda) the source says he's upset by the "two retractions" but the reporter says they broadcast the retraction twice. Yes, technically you can only "retract" a story, you can't retract it twice... whatever.. And where did they get "Discovery Channel" involved? The source says it was from "Lifetime." SecretaryNotSure 00:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. First, it's not the "John Stossel Show" so we aren't here to decide who runs the show. We can only go by what they (ABC News) tell us. It's produced by some guy we're not going to mention, not John Stossel. Presumably he is synthesizing, analyzing. I think we basically agree, that no matter what caused the error, it was an error and Stossel corrected that and apologized. And, we agree the error wasn't even that important. We all agree there's no basis to say "he lied" - because the term "lied" implies something more, we would be saying he knew something to be false and said it anyway, etc. OK fine, we agree. So lets write it that way.
The 2nd point I have to disagree that we "can't say he didn't lie." Yes we can. Not only can we, we must not say he lied because we don't have any evidence he lied. Some group said that, that's not a reason to repeat anything. What if someone said he was a child molester? Should we include that because "we can't say he didn't molest children" because we don't know... Well, yes we do, unless there's reason to believe he molested children then it's not true and we don't say it. Same with someone saying "he lied."
One last thing, there's no need for the [t]hey. He spoke those words, he didn't write them. Well actually he may have written that also somewhere else but I don't know. It doesn't matter, we're not quoting the editor at newsmax we're saying what Stossel said, we aren't "bound" by the way the newsmax guy decided to punctuate it. Also, it's trivial and just makes it harder to read for no good reason. The only time we would worry about something like that is if he dropped a word and maybe we know what he meant and that was added for clarity, that sort of thing. We would add the [t] or [they] for clarity if he said it and made some mistake. Like, for example if he said "hey don't like me" and we know what he meant to say we could write it as "[t]hey don't like me." SecretaryNotSure 14:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
There were some edits today, something about "logrolling" and "lawyering" or something. I don't know what that is. From all I can tell, it seems to be "lets rephrase this to make it seem like it was stossels fault and what some group says is true and what stossel says is false.. etc etc. And then it goes on to say how groups like "MMfA" is some kind of neutral "watchdog group" and leave out even the implication that they have some poltical leanings or motives ... nah! The reader doesn't need to know that... nah! Just leave it out... SecretaryNotSure 01:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Except that the bullet list was a vey brief phenomenon. What we're actually reverting to is the pre-bullet-list form, slightly improved by chronological ordering. The question is what lesson you draw from this. Andyvphil 22:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I was hoping you'd reconsider your image of what a Wikipedia article ought to be in the light of this experience. If you are more tolerant of letting it go the way it wants to go you'll find you have less entropy to fight, I think. Quoting self, 2 September: ...it is guaranteed that the criticisms will be reinserted time and time again, usually in unbalanced form, if an adequate NPOV treatment is not present. Andyvphil 07:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
This section needs some work I think - should have dates in the text and be in date order, and shorter. I'm removing speculation - encyclopedia should never include the phrase "but this is pure speculation"! Also not sure the wrestling item is really notable enough for inclusion. The guy is an investigative reporter - of course his subjects say he's not telling the truth. We need to be careful what we include here because of BLP concerns. Tvoz | talk 06:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, where's the evidence that only the "Environmental Working Group" complained, and no one else? So then why is the story about them? SecretaryNotSure 22:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, where's the evidence that the error being corrected is somehow related to an article in the New York Times? (i.e. it says "after the new york times took notice, then ABC news did something)? SecretaryNotSure 22:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
No hurry. We can wait. When you find that evidence, let us know. 'Till then we'll just remove the parts that aren't supported by evidence, when you get time to let us know where the evidence is, we'll put it back, if warranted. Thanks for your help. SecretaryNotSure 00:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
That wasn't the question. We know EWG wrote or did something. The question is where is the evidence that EWG and no one else looked into the story? SecretaryNotSure 07:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
The text implies that the EWG was the only one. It's not explicit, if we must include reference to the particular group, it shouldn't falsely imply they did something more than they did, also, the point of the whole thing isn't what some group did, it's what Stossel did. The article is about Stossel, not everyone who disagrees with Stossel.
Where's the evidence that EWG were "the first ones" to question the statement? That's what EWG says, that's what EWG told the NY Times, but that's not proof of anything. We would have to ask ABC news or Stossel or the producer how many letters or calls did they get, and how where were they from? There's nothing about that published, the sources are simply statements from EWG that "they" were the ones who found this error. Isn't it possible that other members of the organic food industry complained? It seems likely, and one source does talk about complaints from "the organic farmers." Are the environmentalist also farmers? If not, then someone else complained.
I'll look into the "T" thing some more, but it seems like an unnecessary confusion, the problem is it began a sentence in the other guys article, but in the phrase here it's mid-sentence.
I appreciate that something is "getting annoying already."
Yes, one newspaper article uses the term "more likely to be contaminated" -- that's an acceptable way to say it but just because someone says it that way doesn't mean we have to accept one article's phrasing as the last word. When you look at the report itself, and what ABC News says, they said the stuff was contaminated, not "more likely to be" contaminated. We are trying to synthesize and "boil down" a long and complex dispute into a few sentences, so we can't just pick and choose phrases that we happen to like. I guess we'll have to look at it some more and come up with the best way to put it.
Speaking of E. coli, why not wiki link that? Why keep removing the wiki link for E. coli? We linked the EWG, we presume the reader might want to know more about this group, why wouldn't the reader want to know what "E. coli" is? Not every reader is some kind of scientist!
The statement that Stossel rebroadcast the report "after being told of the error" is also silly. Are we implying that if some guy calls up the news station and tells them something, they should change their story? Like, when Stossel said the organic stuff was infested with bacteria, I'm sure some people didn't "like" that. They wrote to him and told him to remove that. However, he didn't, because that's what the testing showed. Do you want the news people to just print anything someone says? If that were the case, then they should have said the organic food was great "because someone called me and told me it was."
That's not how the news business works. You can't just call up the newspaper and "tell them" to change something, no matter how much you don't like something. They have to research it, they have to determine if their original story was correct or if it was wrong. If it was correct they don't change it, if it's wrong they issue a correction or a retraction.
So it's silly to have a statement in there that says Stossel re-broadcast it "even after being told by the environmental club/group that they thought it was wrong." From putting together the information in all the sources, it seems that Stossel did double check that fact, and was told that's what the testing showed. The way it is now, we are implying that Stossel knew it was wrong and said it anyway. That's casting "false light" and is libelous.
That's what the producer was diciplined for, he repeated to Stossel that the testing was done, that's what all the sources imply.
I'm trying to go through the sources to try to find any justification for saying that the error was fixed because the N Y Times ran some story. So far, no luck, so at this point it's "pure speculation."
Please stop adding libelous material to this article. SecretaryNotSure 09:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, fantastic, now we're making some progress. You've supported the idea that the EWG was the first one to complain. You've also partly supported that there seemed to be some connection between the NY Times article and ABC's investigation. The NY Times says it was the NY Times that fixed things, just like EWG says it was the EWG that fixed things, and of course, ABC News says ABC News fixed things... they all seem to put themselves at the center of things.
Note, however, we can't change the article to indicate there's an absolutely known causation between the article and finding the error. Notice that even the NY Times dances around the issue, they say it was after they noted it ABC News (not Stossel) started looking into it again, they never assert it was because of the media bits. And it was not an "article" it was a thing in "media bits" which is their way of saying it's not as highly reliable as an article. So, we should not change the wording to "article." Unless it would be confusing to the reader, in which case it would be like the damn "t" dispute, where we would be better off going with what is simpler.
OK, so far we've determined we have to change the article so that:
Now some other issues. The sources say Stossel was reprimanded in a letter. The article cuts out the part "in a letter." Those are two different things, being reprimanded and being reprimanded in a letter, the former being much less serious. So, since the sources say "reprimanded in a letter" we must not change that to "was reprimanded."
Next, the source says "Then we made things worse. In July, I repeated the report! And the error." And we changed that to "the story was rebroadcast months later with not only the inaccurate statement uncorrected,..." Why did we change "error" to "inaccurate statement?" We are implying that Stossel knew the statement was "inaccurate" because we're saying that, in those words, he said "an inaccurate statement"
Also, why did we add the "he said" and "he asserted" to some of Stossel's direct statements. OK, he said is probably fine, but then at the end we changed "he said" to "he asserted" ... sort of a none neutral POV dig meaning "we don't really believe him." So we should change "he asserted" should be just changed to "he said" or he "repeated" or "he reiterated..." that the gist of the report was accurate.
The other issue is we shouldn't confabulate ABC News, the producer and 20/20 and Stossel and pretend they are all "Stossel." Obviously, from all we've read, Stossel was assured, each time it was questioned that the tests were done and they were fine. I know some people don't like that, and would love to just change history and make it Stossel's fault, but we are an encyclopedia. More about that some other time if you have any questions.
That's probably enough to think about right now. Good luck and thanks for looking into the matter. SecretaryNotSure 20:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Interesting. Now back to the question under discussion. As you can see, every time we add some other extraneous detail, another line of detail has to be added to clarify it. We agree that we "can" justify talk about the nytimes and the ewg and such, but, as someone else noted in the above section -- why is this simple paragraph getting so long and complicated? Well, I'll tell you.
As we agree, surprisingly, that Stossel made a mistake, what one called "a boner." Fine business! That's one or two lines. Something like "Stossel gave a report... included a statement... statement was an error... Stossel corrected error and apologized." Tell me, what more is there to this story? What are we all missing?
Instead it's being spun into a tale of intrigue and subterfuge and conspiracy. We're being told this by the activists. The simpler explanation is that the error wasn't really that significant. Which it wasn't so far as I can tell and no one has disputed.
So far we have:
There's only one problem, this is the biography of John Stossel, it's not the Da Vinci Code of organic farming and all of the various actors and their complaints. Call it "straw men" all you wish, but rather than just call it "straw man," explain to us how this, what all agree was a mistake complicated by a delay in fixing it, requires three paragraphs and all this discussion of what people who aren't John Stossel said or did? SecretaryNotSure 22:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Although I'd love to accept your nomination to "the throne" I usually say the article is written by "us." "We" write the wikipedia. I don't write the wikipedia, you don't -- we do. That "we" means me, you, and everyone and anyone reading. SecretaryNotSure 00:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
p.s. What was Stossel reprimanded for? And by whom? We don't know, do we? Its seems to me the reprimand was for the error of not fixing the error in a timely manner.
Next, what is it we're trying to "illuminate?" One man's "illumination" is another man's propaganda. Lets stick to what we know, not what we'd "like to tell people." I.e, if we just tell the story, Stossel made a mistake, but instead, you suggest we "illuminate" the reader that .... what? Fill in the blank there? SecretaryNotSure 00:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
First, before I forget, lemme add to the list above:
Back to the issue under discussion. Actually, that's exactly what the "reprimand" was for, so far as we know. Not correcting the error fast enough is something measureable, viewable, knowable, whereas "being arrogant" is someone's opinion. Unless someone produces a copy of this "reprimand" and it says "Dear John: You are hereby reprimanded because you are arrogant...." it's just speculation or opinion. But OK, lets just say for sake of saying it that we need to tell the reader "some people think Stossel was arrogant." Fine, now we are up to three sentences:
Is there anything else the reader needs to be illuminated about? SecretaryNotSure 02:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, if you insist. If we have to include "he was reprimanded" we can't cut out that it was "in a letter" and we can't cut out the fact that it was the producer responsible for the reprimands. But fine. Lets revisit the list:
Anything else we need to illuminate? SecretaryNotSure 04:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
No, we can leave out "in a letter", and we can't say the producer was responsible for [actions or inaction leading to] the reprimands because Stossel was also responsible, and we cannot say ABC chastised Stossel because of the delay because that's not what they chastised him for, and Shelly Ross (who was in a position to know) didn't say he was arrogant but rather that he was reprimanded for having been arrogant. Mostly stuff that his been pointed out to you previously, repeatedly, and to which you have proved impervious. Andyvphil 04:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. You're making a choice of which facts to include based on some rationale. We could draw a table and list the "facts" you suggest we include on the left side and the "facts" you suggest leaving out on the right side. On the include side would be things like "stossel was reprimanded" and "it wasn't the error, it was his arrogance" and on the other side then list the facts you want to leave out, things like the reprimand was minor (in a letter) and the producer was primarily blamed not Stossel, and it was one person who said he was "arrogant" and not ABC. If we make that chart, we see the rationale being used is "if it casts Stossel in a bad light, include it; if it explains Stossels actions or ascribes them to human error, leave that out." That is what we call casting a false light.
You see, something that's libelous doesn't have to consist of falsehoods. Everything listed can be a "true fact" and it can still be libelous if the "true facts" are being "cherry picked" in order to cast a false impression (and other "true facts" that cast a better light are cut out).
I think the above discussion has pretty well established that the current version is libelous. SecretaryNotSure 16:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
What "positions" am I supposed to have? Maybe that's the source of misunderstanding, I'm supposed to be neutral.
Regarding your claim that I'm making up this stuff about "the letter" here's what the sources say:
...even though Stossel had already been reprimanded in a letter and Fitzpatrick had been suspended for a month without pay. Stossel escaped suspension himself because he had forwarded mail disputing the segment’s accuracy onto Fitzpatrick for investigation...
OK, what did I get wrong there, it was in a letter, right? In other words, the head guy sent a note that said something like "I think you made a mistake John, you should correct that and be more careful!" Something like that. That's being "reprimanded in a letter." It is not some formal quad-part form with the words "OFFICIAL REPRIMAND" at the top and you keep the canary copy for own records or anything like that. And it's not when he stands at attention in the colonel of ABC's office where he yells "Son, your ego is writting checks your body can't catch...!" Simply saying "he was reprimanded" leaves all that up to the imagination, where the actual "reprimand" was more likely as described.
Actually I notice that while I've been arguing (and notice the word "I" there) other editors have already added the changes I've been arguing for.
At least, most of them. The only little tweak we need to make is we can't say in that rebroadcast Stossel knew it was false and said it anyway. The reader can be confused by saying "EWG notified him" and "he reported the error anyway" -- That might be confusing to someone not familiar with how the news media journalism business works. Because it sounds like "he was notified" when actually, what happened is this group said it was wrong, Stossel checked it out, the producer re-affirmed it, vetted the statement, then he repeated it. That is, Stossels was aware that EWG questioned the statement, and he checked it out and was told that the statement was correct, so he repeated it in the next broadcast. Since a journalist's reputation is so closely related to his honesty, it's probably libelous to imply he knowingly lied, when all the evidence, and the other sources support, that it was a mistake.
By the way, I know the whole story with the rebroadcast, the producer, the EWG what they said, what the producer said and why stossel did this or that is cumbersome and overly long. It would be better to just leave that whole thing out since it doesn't really illuminate anything. However, if the other editors insist we include those details, we can not selectively just report part of the truth (half-truths) and leave out the parts favorable to Stossel. So don't blame me. SecretaryNotSure 05:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
hmm. Just looking over the history list I see over 25 edits by 10 different editors, depending on how we count "when I started arguing."
Regarding the issue at hand, the edits have implemented most of the needed changes. There's still a tilt against Stossel but I don't know if it rises to the level of libelous. So, it depends if our goal is to make an article that is "just over the line" of not being bad enough to get in trouble, or, on the other hand to make an excellent article that tells the story in a neutral way. Those are two different things.
I recognize the problems with relying too heavily on lew rockwell, but I've found them to be more reliable than the other opinion groups like "fair" and "mmfa" because lew rockwell has to be more careful with facts because they are attacked by from all sides if they misstate something. But if the story is going to be built on half-baked comments from those other political groups, there's nothing wrong with including facts uncovered by lew rockwell .
I'm reviewing if there's justification for saying Stossel relied on "his memory" to assure himself that the tests were done before the 2nd broadcast. The sources say he checked with the producer and passed on the concerns and the producer verified that it was correct. That's not simply relying on memory. The phrase implies carelessness by implying Stossel relied on his bad memory instead of checking notes or re-checking with the staff, which is what the sources say he did.
The sources also say ABC could never determine how the error occured. (or if they did, they aren't saying) Obviously they think the producer was careless in some way, and that Stossel should have been more careful in some way. I'm not sure how to phrase that without adding "too much fat."
I'm not sure it's fair to say it was the EWG and no one else. Mentioning the various interest groups make it clearer that the issue was not as clear cut as one group of self professed experts claiming something, when actually the issue was confused by various competing claims and counter-claims and Stossel had to rely on the ABC news staff as his primary source.
I don't know what the issue with the "in a letter" phrase is. It may not be as documented as well as we might like, but in the same way, the fact that he was reprimanded isn't all that well documented either. (also, we are taking at face value nearly all the statements from the interest groups as if they were gospels) Because it's a biography of a living person, we should err on the side of something that doesn't sound as sinister vs. something sounds worse than it may have been, since we really don't have all the papers available. SecretaryNotSure 19:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course it's "pointy" -- it's too long an explanation for a simple event. That's the whole point. So why don't we simplify it, that way we won't have to explain why this detail isn't quite right and this other detail isn't quite right.
You haven't given any reason why you don't think some of the comments are "dubious." You should check out wp:blp.
By the way if you notice I didn't say lew rockwell was neutral I said they are generally reliable. In fact, understanding the difference between something being "true" vs. "neutral" is the whole point of this pointy talk. SecretaryNotSure 03:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the Shults attack, I tagged the line regarding Stossel suing and winning a settlement from the WWF as needing a citation (on Sept 30th). I've looked and haven't found anything other than mentions of an "alleged" settlement. That's not confidence-inspiring, if ya know what I mean. I'll remove that line on the 30th if there's no cite to a reliable source by then. Ossified 18:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Someone wrote in one of the changes: Praise - identified politics of each individual cited in the section. We shouldn't do it only for 'liberals', 'progressives', and 'leftists'
Fine. What label do we plan to give the EWG, FAIR,MMFA, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Rachel Carson, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore? I notice Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is called an "environmentalist." Is that a poltical label? Or do only conservatives get a label? Oh, and the libertarians, they get a label too. The other people are all "normal people" and don't need a label. ??? SecretaryNotSure 06:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no evidence or cited sources claiming that:
Not only are there no sources for these assertions, but they do not appear later in the article. Per WP:LEAD, the introduction is supposed to summarize the article, not exist independently from it. If these "tarted up" statements can not be sourced, then they must be removed per WP:V. 209.77.205.2 18:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
This makes him a "contrarian" in American media
What does this even mean? I want to revise it, but I'm not sure where to go with it. Thought about deleting it, but then the second half of the sentence (which is actually source) makes even less sense. Help! Unschool 01:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Thoughts on submitting this article for WP:GA... It could use a little cleanup on refs and such but it appears to be a close to a GA just glancing at it. I haven't read through it recently to see if we have any glaring POV issues... thoughts? Should we submit it? Morphh (talk) 14:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Where did John F. Stossel come from? His name is Richard John Stossel. When younger, his nicknames were "Rick-John" and later "Rick". Link2dan ( talk) 19:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
wtf john stossel is not encyclopedic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.207.101 ( talk) 16:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Stossel is Jewish. He lives in New York City with his wife and their two children. Max is attending Haverford College near Philadelphia.
Neither before nor after do we learn who Max is. Kidigus ( talk) 03:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
My sources for Stossel's birth name being Richard John Stossel are as follows: I was a friend, colleague at WCBS-TV and summer housemate of his for years and during that period knew directly from him that his name was Richard John Stossel, he wished to be and was called Rick, I saw his Princeton diploma on the wall of his apartment and it read Richard John Stossel, and the friend he moved to New York from Seattle with to work at WCBS-TV called him Rick John. Mutual friends all called him Rick for many years. Link2dan ( talk)
It is a strange name for this section which seems to be accounts of his journalistic career. If these really are controversies, what is/are the opposing view/views, who holds that view/those views, and why? patsw ( talk) 04:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Can we mention somewhere in the article that he provides free educational materials for teachers? The organization is based in New York, on Spring St. Gautam Discuss 15:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Please people, no straw man arguments about FAIR being some kind of totalitarian communist organization or whatever. Here's the thing. Go to the FAIR website. Look at the John Stossel criticisms. We need to be totally clear here. The criticisms ARE NOT saying "We disagree with John Stossel." I WOULD agree, it's not notable if a group just happens to disagree with Stossel. BUT, that is NOT what they're doing. What they ARE doing is giving CLEAR evidence that Stossel is falsifying evidence or otherwise being a very shoddy journalist. In some cases, Stossel even admits and corrects it. Look at the one about the factory wages "rising"! He didn't adjust for inflation? How does "an Emmy winning journalist" not make such an obvious and simple calculation? I am on a high school newspaper staff, and believe me, I'd get my ass kicked out if I did something like that. Now I understand that bios of living people are supposed to slant positively. But there is no way to slant that - and numerous other examples - positively. Either he deliberately manipulated evidence and lied to the public OR he made a very obvious (and very suspicious) error and is guilty of extreme confirmation bias. Please, someone set the record straight here. I'm not very liberal myself and I'm not just disagreeing with Stossel's views. This is not about Stossel being a libertarian. This is about him being either a bad journalist or an inveterate liar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.151.45.242 ( talk) 22:35, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Mr./Miss Anonymous Editor, you seem to be using the term " straw man argument" incorrectly. In fact, your very first sentence is a straw man argument, since no one has accused FAIR of being a "totalitarian communist organization". What we have accused FAIR of is not being a reliable source. These faux media watchdog groups— Media Matters and FAIR on the far left, and Accuracy in Media and Media Research Center on the far right—purport to be "media watchdog groups" when in reality they are just arms of left-wing and right-wing political movements, intent on assailing journalism and journalists with which they disagree.
Regarding the factory wages issue, while Stossel was wrong not to adjust for inflation, journalists usually don't adjust for inflation. I'm not excusing Stossel here, but you seem to be suggesting that he somehow violated standard industry practice. All journalists need to do a better job of adjusting for inflation.
Finally, let me just express my personal belief that these criticism and controversy sections that pervade Wikipedia are unencyclopedic. Try reading Britannica or World Book sometime. They never have criticism and controversy sections. Only Wikipedia does. Why? I believe they exist in Wikipedia because they attract editors who either (a) love scandal, or (b) have an agenda they want to push in an encyclopedia. -- JHP ( talk) 05:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Well I'm a Wikipedia reader and I spend a lot of time looking at criticism sections. In fact, I find them some of the most useful sections of Wikipedia. For example, I just caught a very suspicious report by Stossel suggesting that global warming is not man-made. I immediately looked him up on Wikipedia to see if this was a one-off or if this journalist has a track-record of questionable reporting. The criticism section is very useful for this purpose. Pexise ( talk) 21:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
The controversy section is bordering on NPOV issues with article structure. Consider merging the sections or placing headers (using bold) so that they are not listed in the TOC. Morphh (talk) 13:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
100% agreed. It's just another attempt by the left wing admins here to distort the truth. Quite sad and pathetic, really, something you would expect from a second grader. 64.53.136.29 ( talk) 16:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I am not a vandal, really. This edit was the result of my attempt to edit from a mobile phone, something new for me this week which I think I shall not do again. (I still can't figure out how that happened.) Un sch ool 03:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
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