Moved from 
WP:RS/P

I'm wondering about the status of RealClear media, IOW RealClearPolitics (RCP) and RealClearInvestigations (a redirect to RCP). My initial impression is that they are aggregators, but also with own, very biased, content. All I find is this thread opened by User:JzG in November 2019:

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_278#RealClear_media

Valjean ( talk) 17:00, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed this use at our conspiracy theory article Russia investigation origins counter-narrative:

Here we have a combination of types of sources. All content at Wikipedia (other than WP:ABOUTSELF) must come from RS, even to document the most ludicrous pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, etc. If something is not mentioned in RS, it does not have the due weight to be mentioned here. Period. That makes this use of RCP, if it is deemed unreliable, very dubious. The NYTimes and Salon should be enough. -- Valjean ( talk) 17:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• Definitely Unreliable. Doesn't clearly mark the difference between opinion and news content on the columns it publishes, and the rest is just aggregation (including a number of questionable sources like the Washington Examiner). For instance, "Donald the Dragon Slayer" [1] today is labeled as "Commentary" and not listed in its "Editorials" section. IHateAccounts ( talk) 18:43, 14 December 2020 (UTC) — IHateAccounts ( talk • contribs) has been blocked as a confirmed sock puppet of SkepticAnonymous ( talk • contribs). jp× g 04:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

  What's wrong with labeling an opinion piece as "Commentary"? Commentary literally means " expression of opinion". feminist (talk) 13:50, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

  Nothing, I guess. That piece also clearly introduces the author as "a columnist for RealClearPolitics". For example The Guardian (at least the British one) is considered generally reliable, but some times I have to squint if I want to quickly figure out whether something is labelled as opinion. Random example, this is in "News" section and more specifically in "Business" section, though below the article it is labelled as "Coronavirus / comment". If one wants to know more about the author, they would have to link the author's name to read a profile page where the author is described as "a columnist, author and small business owner". Politrukki ( talk) 17:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• If we're going to discuss RC's reliability, it should be done at WP:RSN rather than here unless there have been additional threads on the matter already. -- Calidum 19:28, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree. I'll move this there, so feel free to continue there. -- Valjean ( talk) 23:29, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally Reliable--RCP has a very strong editorial board, with many award-winning journalists and writers: [2], and the site has a rigours fact-checking process: [3]. They are most well-known for their robust polling, which is published in numerous high-quality sources: The Guardian, Reuters, CNBC, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal. Likewise, Real Clear Investigations also seems to be referenced by reliable sources such as The Washington Post and NPR. RCP & RCI aggregates from different sources, though they do seem to have their own columnists. News vs. opinion is always clearly marked. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d ( talk) 03:05, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
  • While it's an interesting offering, the RCP Fact Check Review is a review of fact checks done by other organisations. The existence of this review doesn't add a lot of credibility to their own content. — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:32, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Judge by WP:RSOPINION. RCP is mainly known as an American conservative-leaning news and poll aggregator. It is mainly used on Wikipedia for its election predictions, the same way we use the Daily Kos ( RSP entry) for its election predictions despite its unreliability. It also sees some use for its opinion pieces, which is usually appropriate depending on the identity of the opinion piece's author. Overall I don't think RCP publishes much straight news, if at all, so I would treat it as similar to Reason ( RSP entry), The Spectator ( RSP entry) or The Weekly Standard ( RSP entry). feminist (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
  • As for this specific page, it appears to simply include transcripts of a video. Authenticity is not in doubt when you can actually listen to the video. But why not just cite Fox News directly? feminist (talk) 13:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable - This is primarily an opinion site and partisan aggregator, not a reliable news source. It cannot reasonably be considered a RS. Go4thProsper ( talk) 03:28, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable - Original material is not factually reliable, and aggregated material may not be accurately attributed. The Wall Street Journal has reported that RealClearPolitics for two years has been a significant source of links to Russia Today stories, and the provenance of the RT headlines was obscured. While much of the aggregated material may be reliable, it should be cited to the reliable source, not to RealClear. John M Baker ( talk) 00:12, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable They have a gatekeeping process demonstrated by multiple contributors organized in an editorial hierarchy; a physical presence by which they can be held liable for libel; and RS consider them reliable as evidenced by the fact their original reporting has been sourced by Reuters [4], Government Executive [5], Albuquerque Journal [6], CBS News [7], TIME [8], CNN [9] etc., etc. Both the current executive editor and the current White House correspondent are separate recipients [10], [11] of the Aldo Beckman Award for Journalistic Excellence from the White House Correspondents Association which is pretty much the Oscar for White House coverage and its recipient is elected by WHCA member journalists. If RC is not reliable, we need to rethink our standards of reliability.
  That said, stories that are simply aggregated by RCP are not implicitly reliable, opinion / commentary columns are not reliable for anything other than the opinion of the writer per WP:RSOPINION, and extraordinary claims should be credited to the source and not presented in WP's voice regardless of the reliability of the source (at least when reported only by a single source). Chetsford ( talk) 04:44, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable. RealClear Media hosted (and may still host) a secret Facebook page promoting far-right memes and extremist conspiracy theories. This family of websites is mainly opinion pieces and aggregation of pieces published elsewhere. As for their sites that claim to do original reporting, their "RealClearInvestigations" site is backed by right-wing foundations and published an article supposedly revealing the identity of a protected whistleblower—something that reputable/mainstream news organizations chose not to do, because it would endanger the whistleblower and violate anti-retaliation principles. And as the Wall Street Journal reported in Oct. 2020, the aggregator has consistently funneled readers to Russian propaganda, while obscuring the source from browsing readers. All of this points to clear unreliability. Neutrality ^talk 19:33, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

The WSJ story you site describes RealClear as "mainstream" and their poll average as "famous." Furthermore, I am unaware of any requirement that an RS refrain from publishing the identity of a whistleblower. For comparison, is the NYT unreliable because they blew a CIA program to catch terrorists via their finances [12]? Obviously that put lives at risk. Meanwhile, the NYT, which routinely advocates for restrictions on oil drilling in the USA, is owned in considerable part by Carlos Slim, who obviously benefits from such restrictions. In sum, you are condemning RealClear for things we appear to accept from other sources. Adoring nanny ( talk) 03:37, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable for anything except perhaps its attributed polling averages (which seems to be the only thing it is really well-known for, looking over sources and usage, and which is probably better cited to a WP:SECONDARY source anyway.) Outside of that it is largely noteworthy as an aggregator; and there's no reason we would cite them rather than the sources they aggregate. For the (largely opinion) original stuff they do post, there seems to be little distinction between opinion and fact. More importantly, they have in particular been publishing false material about the 2020 election and surrounding events recently, which is a definite strike against their reliability. Generally speaking I don't think it makes sense to use a handful of passing mentions as an argument for WP:USEBYOTHERS when the NYT just wrote an entire in-depth teardown essentially saying how unreliable it has become. EDIT: I would say that per the NYT source it is particularly unreliable after 2017 because of this: Interviews with current and former Real Clear staff members, along with a review of its coverage and tax filings, point to a shift to the right within the organization in late 2017, when the bulk of its journalists who were responsible for straight-news reporting on Capitol Hill, the White House and national politics were suddenly laid off. The shift to the right would be fine on its own, but firing their reporting team isn't. And that led to the other issues the article identifies - inaccurate coverage of the 2020 election, unsubstantiated or false stories, stories that raise ethical concerns, and so on. None of this sounds like the write-up of a source we could use as an WP:RS; it appears they gutted their news team sometime in 2017 and switched to basically pumping out spin, with increasing disregard for fact-checking or accuracy. -- Aquillion ( talk) 10:48, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable for the reasons explained by John M Baker, Neutrality, and Aquillion. They do seem to be known for polling averages more than anything else, which also leads to a WP:DUE concern; how often is a poll average, of which there are many, actually worth writing about? In that case, we'd be turning to secondary sources anyway, as Aquillion suggested. Less-than-stellar publications are sometimes the ones to "break" a story (because it was leaked to them, or because they were listening to the police scanner, or whatever). When more solid reporting confirms the story and mentions where it first appeared, that doesn't necessarily count in favor of the marginal publication's reliability for our purposes. XOR'easter ( talk) 01:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Exactly this. The National Enquirer broke the John Edwards extramarital affair, but that doesn't mean the Enquirer is suddenly reliable either, all it means is a stopped clock happened to briefly coincide with the time of day. IHateAccounts ( talk) 15:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
  • How true. I subscribe to and follow over 4,000 journalists and media sources of all types, including the use of many Google Alerts, so I see what is written by the most unreliable of sources. For example, The Daily Caller often has "news" details that is cutting edge (IOW on the wrong side of the knife... ), but those details are not yet found elsewhere, so I do not use TDC as a source or even mention those details. I wait until RS pick up the story. TDC will usually frame these interesting details in a misleading story that misleads its readers, and we shouldn't send readers to such trash. When the details appear in RS, the setting is more neutral and factual, and we can then use those sources as documentation of those interesting details. They now have the needed due weight and proper sourcing. So be patient and wait for RS to cover such stuff. -- Valjean ( talk) 16:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable per User:Chetsford. Adoring nanny ( talk) 00:42, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable, completely, given their track record of demonstrably false claims, fringe opinion pieces and the like. One cannot even call it "reporting" anymore, given the mass layoffs of actual journalists in 2017. Zaathras ( talk) 01:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
• Comment We have a lot of people declaring "not factually reliable" as an undemonstrated assertion. The standards for RS are the same as our general standards; if RS consider them reliable, they are reliable. We have demonstrated that RS consider RC reliable by the fact that their original reporting is widely, and regularly cited by RS. We have demonstrated that RS consider RC reliable by the fact that their journalists have received some of the most significant awards given by and from the journalistic craft. Unless we have RS widely declaring RC to be unreliable, our individual assessments of RC is irrelevant. So far only one source has been offered which sort-of hints at that; we don't blacklist an entire media outlet because of one false positive - otherwise we'd be non-RS'ing the New York Times over the Caliphate podcast scandal that just broke or Rolling Stone for A Rape on Campus. All other arguments appear to rely on personal analysis. Content analysis is research and personal content analysis is OR. A policy-based argument, supported by sources, has been offered demonstrating reliability. The same has not been offered demonstrating unreliability. Chetsford ( talk) 05:54, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Is this really the standard? Then the assessment should also take into account reporting from the New York Times, which writes that, during the Trump administration, “Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents,” and that it ran “stories that most other news outlets, including some that lean conservative, would not touch because the details were unsubstantiated or publication of them would raise ethical concerns.” John M Baker ( talk) 04:47, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Yes, we definitely should take that into account. But taking a report about a source into account is different than giving that report veto power. As I said, above, the ability to find one or two instances of RS questioning a source should not be treated as some gotcha! reason to deprecate a source. If that were all it took, we would have no sources left. Here [13], WIRED reports "News organizations, including The New York Times, have reported the story without trying to get to the bottom of it, or even finding out basic information such as where or when the alleged party took place."; here [14] Rolling Stone is found liable for a demonstrably fake story; here [15] The Intercept writes that the Washington Post published a story about hacking that is "demonstrably false" . In each of these cases, we have far more evidence of RS considering the NYT, Rolling Stone, and WaPo reliable than unreliable. Similarly, as demonstrated in my !vote, the same applies to RCP. Chetsford ( talk) 14:45, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
      • But the New York Times article is not comparable to the claims that the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Washington Post published individual false stories (not that I think that the linked critiques of the NY Times and the Post are particularly compelling). Rather, the Times has provided an overall assessment of RCP's current reliability, and it has done so in terms that are utterly inconsistent with finding a source to be reliable. That should weigh far more heavily than individual examples where an established reliable source chose to refer to RCP uncritically. Nor do I think that the test of reliability should be the treatment given by reliable sources. If that were the case, we would certainly have to reinstate the Daily Mail, which just in the past few days has been cited by The Independent (Dec. 31, 2020), The Times (London) (Dec. 29, 2020), The Times (London) (Dec. 29, 2020, again), The Sunday Telegraph (Dec. 27, 2020), and the Kansas City Star (Dec. 24, 2020), among others (all examples from NewsBank). The test should be whether a source is in fact reliable, based on reported facts, and not on whether media sources sometimes choose to use it without further examination. John M Baker ( talk) 21:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
        • When sources considered reliable mention and provide an analysis of less reliable sources it's often useful to WP to support article content rather than using unreliable sources, but it doesn't mean that we should by extension consider those reliable (which is precisely why an independent interpretation of their claims is useful)... — Paleo Neonate – 00:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Generally discourage - especially if editors must determine the usable material from the obvious propaganda themselves. — Paleo Neonate – 00:32, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable per User:Chetsford with the RSOPINION restrictions feminist noted. I think I would consider much of their material analysis but absent a source directly contradicting them I would say it is usable in that capacity. Springee ( talk) 12:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• It's aggregation and partisan opinion content, so should be treated accordingly. So if we're talking about their original content then no, of course we shouldn't use it for statements of fact in Wikipedia's voice (i.e. unreliable), but there may be uses for attributed opinions of certain authors in exceptional cases (as usual, RSOPINION does not mean that every/any opinion carries WP:WEIGHT on its own, but it's possible there are uses for them). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable. There's been far too much of this fad for wholesale banning of sources via deprecation—it has the stench of political bias, smacks of censorship, and suggests editors are no longer able to judge reliability on a case-by-case basis. Deprecation is used to exclude purely factual, documented information. (Example: the NY Post and Daily Mail were the only two sources who saw fit to report details of the sexual assault charges against Jacob Blake, and the only ones linking to the official police report—claims they're not "RS" was used to censor factual information.) These deprecation debates are little more than referenda asking: "Would you personally prefer if the source couldn't be used?" Saying RCP is "unreliable" because it accurately identified a "whistleblower" or linked to Russian articles is absurd. As to the claim that the same company had a "secret Facebook group sharing right-wing memes" is disqualifying, see the professor's quote about WSJ/Fox—then ask if false claims made by Amazon mean Bezos' WaPo should be deprecated. Broadly agree with User:Chetsford on this, especially that RCP has not been shown to publish false information, let alone routinely. Additionally, Lee Smith and others have done some very solid original investigative reporting for RCP. Elle Kpyros ( talk) 18:43, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories about "something something conservatives are being silenced" aren't a rational argument. "NY Post and Daily Mail were the only two sources who saw fit to report details of the sexual assault charges against Jacob Blake" is pure lying hooey: it was fact-checked by reputable news agencies (such as USA Today [16] and Reuters [17]) that contradicted the lies the Daily Fail and NY Post were putting out. IHateAccounts ( talk) 18:51, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• Absolutely not. RealClearPolitics is described by reliable sources as "one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about (Trump's) political opponents". Specifically, RCP aggressively promoted the "stolen election" falsehood that fueled a failed attempt to overthrow the US government a week or so ago. So that's a hard no from me.

  It appears that the "serious news" staff of RCP was laid off en masse in 2017, and replaced by Republican political operatives ( [18]). Separately, of course, RCP has also published defamatory falsehoods (misidentifying the author of a high-profile anonymous op-ed), recycled and laundered Russian propaganda, outed a legally protected whistleblower, and so on—all in service of partisan ends, and all detailed here and elsewhere. Defending this source as reliable, in light of all this evidence to the contrary, is quite a stretch. Arguably, one could list it as "potentially reliable before 2017, unreliable afterwards", based on the staff turnover and shift in tone and focus.

  In any case, using a source known to publish defamatory falsehoods, reckless & unfounded partisan smears, election-related falsehoods, and foreign propaganda—as RCP is documented to do—is fundamentally a behavioral and competence issue. MastCell  ^Talk 20:11, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable. Much of the website's content is labeled as opinion, and it is an aggregator, as many previous users have said. Many previous editors have focused on the opinion content on the site and its role as a poll aggregator, and these should be judged by WP:RSOPINION. It should be noted, however, that the site publishes original polling data, that have been widely cited by other sources we trust as reliable, including NPR. Mikehawk10 ( talk) 04:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable Just another partisan source. I think Wikipedia would be a better place without too partisan and opinion based sources. I absolutely don't think those who look at things from one side's perspective tend to have reputation for fact checking. Hence, I don't think it's a WP:RS. Magnus Dominus ( talk) 15:02, 31 January 2021 (UTC)— Magnus Dominus ( talk • contribs) is a confirmed sock puppet of Lordpermaximum ( talk • contribs).
• Unreliable, and trying for deprecation - the conspiracy theory pushing suggests they've left tawdry conceptions of "factual reality" behind. Unfortunately, "factual reality" is where Wikipedia does its best to live, and so we can't follow RCP to where they're going - David Gerard ( talk) 22:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable. This subject is an opinion aggregator, mostly using reprints of articles which appeared in right-leaning sources. The NYT article linked above by User:MastCell demonstrates that whatever "non-partisan" credibility they tried to hold onto was lost in the "sudden right turn" after Trump's election. These days they are just another source parroting "stolen election" lies. BusterD ( talk) 23:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable - We can use WP:BIASEDSOURCES, as long as they are used in a neutral way or with attribution. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 19:39, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable - not a matter of bias one way or the other, it's a matter of uncritically reporting falsehoods. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 04:00, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable - as reliable in their political opinions as left-leaning sources like WaPo. We don't consider a source unreliable because we don't agree with their politics. Biased sources are acceptable. But like all online news sources in today's clickbait environment, we should exercise caution and use common sense. Atsme 💬 📧 00:10, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable now per MastCell et al, but I would probably say that pre-2017 content might be OK. Black Kite (talk) 00:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable for now. The source has published a few questionable stories relating to the 2020 elections, but its news offerings are on the whole reliable; it should be treated as a mainstream news source. This may change in the future if its bias gets more extreme and starts causing the facts to get distorted. Jancarcu ( talk) 20:38, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable now (since at least 2020, and apparently since 2017), or at least "use caution", in light of their decision to ditch their reporting staff and shift from mere bias (which is OK, per WP:BIASEDSOURCES) into conspiracy-theory inaccuracies about several recent events, which I've seen and which MastCell and Aquillion go over above and which other RS called out, as noted above. -sche ( talk) 11:09, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable for news, reliable for sourced opinion, if attributed to it clearly. It might at this point ib time be the best source for its particular place in the spectrum of far-right opinion. The problem with extreme right sources is there is nothing to balance them with, for there are no equally wide-read truly left wing US sources as some of those on the right. The fact that far right sources mostly tell falsehoods is important, and the best way to establish it, is to quote them, not ignore them. There is, for example, no left wing equivalent in readership or influence as Fox. I'm not sure what might correspond to this one on the other side. DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable – RealClear has frequently reported false information on many topics, usually in an effort to support the politics of Donald Trump. In the example citation given, it would make more sense for the cited source to be video or transcripts of Jeanine Pirro talking on Fox News. For example, " 'Criminal cabal' and Jeanine Pirro's other controversial statements". (It's preferable to obtain video directly from Fox News, rather than a montage of Pirro's comments edited together and posted on YouTube. This example shows that the video in question is available in some form and doesn't require the use of unreliable RealClear media.) -- Mr. Lance E Sloan ( talk) 20:15, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable RealClearInvestigations has boldly published stories where others refused to. They have been cited by other outlets and have high quality reporters. Nweil ( talk) 18:24, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable now. As others have noted, RealClearPolitics has made a big shift into the fringe and is now completely unreliable as a source. :bloodofox: ( talk) 05:06, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable per John M Baker, Neutrality, and Aquillion. starship .paint ( exalt) 09:56, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliabe per comments above. SlackingViceroy ( talk) 15:13, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• Unreliable propaganda vehicle funded by right-wing free market supporting billionaires and their ilk, via The Real Clear Foundation. Acousmana ( talk) 14:20, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable per Chetsford. — Wulf ( talk) 21:28, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Additionally, they are frequently cited even by FiveThirtyEight, their main competitor. — Wulf ( talk) 23:08, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable - I have seen no evidence of a systemic problem with facts presented by others commenting here. In fact, it appears a large portion of "unreliable" !votes are based on personal opinion as to the opinions - not the reporting. Unless concrete evidence of systematic fabrication is presented, there is no basis upon which to consider this unreliable. Not liking their opinions is not a reason to discount their facts. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez ( User/ say hi!) 22:03, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable particularly per Chetsford. A good indication of an unreliable conservative news source is how they approach medicine and science. RCP demonstrates that they are clearly following the scientific consensus on issues relating to the coronavirus [19]. Their criticism of Biden seems fair and appropriate [20] and backed up with statistics [21], and they even wrote an article quoting some Democrats in their defence against being labelled Socialist [22]. Just because it's "biased" or supports Trump, it doesn't make it unreliable. Kind regards, Willbb234 ^Talk (please {{ ping}} me in replies) 12:14, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

OurCampaigns is an internet community formed in 2002 to discuss politics and elections. It is a collaborative website which allows users to post messages and links, earn points by predicting the outcomes of future elections, and enter historical election information. The website is built by the members as they enter site content.

When you create an account, you are able to post messages. With good solid participation in this area, the website owner (Randy) or others with high enough access may increase your access to more functions of site creation. This will enable you to help make the website more comprehensive and useful for other people who are interested in politics. This is the true power of the website.

OurCampaigns (OC) is also a web community. The users become a small e-family, which means that family dynamics come into play in the discussions. Be quick to forgive, slow to take offense, and quick to admit an error. Most of all, enjoy your time at OC!

Previous discussions:

• Jan 2009: Post suggesting it be removed from all articles
• Sep 2010: "looks like an open Wiki"
• July 2014: points to request for blacklist, declined because "site is dead"
• Dec 2017: brief discussion
• May 2020: discussion that leans toward reliable for election results, but some reservations stated
• Feb 2021: RfC that elapsed; consensus seems to indicate generally unreliable, disagreement over blacklisting; archived without closure

To me, the site is clearly WP:UGC and I was challenging it as a reliable source for date of birth on a BLP, but then I looked and saw how often it's referenced in articles. I'd like to have a community consensus to point to before I keep fighting its use on that one article. Schazjmd  (talk) 23:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Ballotpedia (which is not an open wiki) is generally a better source for political information of this sort. Some of the Ourcampaigns content (specifically their potential candidates) appears to be speculation by unknown persons. Without more investigation, I won't support deprecating it completely (they do have some control over their content), but it should not be relied upon for BLP info such as a birthdate. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:04, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I see no reason why we should ever be citing OC. Perhaps it can be a resource to find primary sources, but there are much better sites to source election results to because it's UGC. Reywas92 ^Talk 02:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Ourcampaigns shouldn't be cited in articles - and ideally not used at all, but sadly, for sourcing some obscure detailed past election results (for county maps), they're the only realistically available source. At the risk of potentially inaccurate county maps, I feel like it should be allowed for that purpose. Otherwise, no. Elli ( talk | contribs) 10:16, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Schazjmd, I think this is basically a fansite, no better than a blog, and should be removed wherever it is seen. The long-standing issues suggest a mainspace edit filter, at least. Guy ( help! - typo?) 12:08, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Generally unreliable, but don't blacklist because county maps are useful information to link to that are often not found in other sources. Jackattack1597 ( talk) 21:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

•  Administrator note I am a neutral party in this and am not weighing in whatsoever. I am just noting in a clerical capacity that the Feb 2021 link has changed to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive 335#RfC - ourcampaigns.com as I have closed the discussion as having consensus that it is generally unreliable and re-archived the discussion per my latest timestamp. This result has also been listed at WP:Perennial sources. This closure was done per request at WP:ANRFC. -- TheSandDoctor ^Talk 03:40, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Which of the following best describes the reliability of The Federalist?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 03:07, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Survey (The Federalist)

• Option 4 - I wish to propose that The Federalist be formally deprecated as a source due to its ongoing and unretracted promotion of false and seditious conspiracy theories about the 2020 United States presidential election. In this article, published on November 4, 2020, the site's "political editor," John Daniel Davidson, wrote that As of this writing, it appears that Democratic Party machines in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are trying to steal the election. He goes on to uncritically republish and promote a wide array of false conspiracy theories about the election, claiming that "vote dumps" in Wisconsin were part of a Democratic plot and that In Pennsylvania, the Democratic scheme to steal the election is a bit different. Note that these are statements of fact - the site's political editor declared, as fact, that there was a Democratic scheme to steal the election. The article closes with the unequivocal declaration that the only possible conclusion one can come to right now is that Democrats are trying to steal the election in the Midwest. As of today, the article remains on the site unretracted, uncorrected, and without a shred of notice that literally every single thing in the story is a half-truth, demonstrable falsehood, distortion, or outright lie, and that Joe Biden won a free and fair election. The Federalist cannot possibly stand in this light as a reliable source for any purpose, and even the opinions of its writers should be closely scrutinized for due weight - the weight which should be accorded to a site which continues to claim that the 2020 election was stolen is quite arguably nil. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 03:07, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3: The Federalist is a bad source. There are fairly few cases, to say the least, where it should be used. However, the extreme step of deprecation should be reserved for the most extreme cases of abuse -- where a source is so blatantly awful that it doesn't even serve as reliable for self-descriptions or the most apolitical, anodyne statements of fact. The Daily Mail is deprecated because it actively lies about its own statements and its own writers; it would not hesitate to publish "SKY NOT BLUE" as the front-page headline if it saw the opportunity. Competence is required, and the sort of person who would need outright deprecation to avoid using the Federalist is quite likely a CIR failure in other respects. That said, it's certainly not anything above #3 -- its statements for things other than "self-descriptions or the most apolitical, anodyne statements of fact" are...wanting. Mark it as the bottom-tier rag it is, but I don't see the need for outright handholding. Vaticidalprophet ( talk) 11:08, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 The Election conspiracy theories are deliberate misinformation. This is worse than the bad fact checking you would expect fron a source in group 3. The Federalist shoul therefore be deprecated. Asmodea Oaktree ( talk) 15:09, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 The evidence just seems overwhelming. I can't see any good reason to use a source that repeatedly promotes conspiracy theories. Loki ( talk) 15:22, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 - Usable for attributed statements of opinion, but not for unattributed statements of fact. The situations in which it would be appropriate to use it for opinion will be few and far between, but in those situations we should allow it. Blueboar ( talk) 15:32, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 A willingness to publish blatant falsehoods about one of the biggest geopolitical stories in the world means they have absolutely no right to be trusted. Of course, in the spring they were merrily publishing dangerous nonsense about COVID-19, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. They'll publish anonymous opinions for clicks, and they will edit opinion columns to be more provocative, like changing "COVID-19" to "the Wuhan virus" [29]. That's not the kind of place we should go to even for published opinions. A year or two ago I might have been in the option 2 or 3 camp — the funding of the website was proverbially opaque (the question "Who funds The Federalist?" achieved meme status), the co-founder is a paid shill and plagiarist, etc. But now it's time to take a hard line. XOR'easter ( talk) 15:37, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Addendum I can understand the reluctance to deprecate a "source" that has only been invoked infrequently so far, but I can also see the value in nipping a problem in the bud. The point raised by Newslinger a few lines below about talk pages is a good one; why should we let the community's time be wasted? XOR'easter ( talk) 16:04, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• That doesn't seem like a trustworthy source but I see that the Federalist is cited exactly 12 times in Wikipedia, including as the source for a claim that someone is writing for it. Are we trying to solve the problem that doesn't exist? Alaexis _¿question? 16:04, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

  The Federalist's website has been linked from 195 article talk pages. Discussions such as Talk:GameStop short squeeze § Yellen, in which an editor insists that The Federalist is reliable for a controversial claim about a living person because consensus (such as the consensus that would result from this RfC) has not yet been documented, sap editor time and effort even if the source is ultimately excluded from the article. —  Newslinger  talk 20:03, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

  There were several more, but I already removed the worst and most obvious uses prior to opening this RfC - I realized there was nothing stopping anyone from coming along and reverting me on the grounds that there's "no consensus" it's unreliable. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 20:11, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't realise that simple search doesn't search in the source text. Alaexis _¿question? 20:57, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Make that over 200 in article space. – dlthewave ☎ 03:56, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4 Obvious pusher of conspiracy theories is obvious. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 16:19, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2- This is just a continuation of a crusade to block conservative opinions on wikipedia, nothing more. As of this writing, it appears (emphasis mine) hardly sounds like a statement of fact. As other have pointed out, the source is rarely used anyway, but I don't see any reason it can't be used with attribution.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 20:14, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
  • This fails to engage with the substance of the claims - that it has a history of fabrication and conspiracy theories. I asked below about these claims, and you're pretending they don't exist. This does not instill confidence (and doesn't address the deprecation). I most note that this is not a vote - if you can't provide a reason of substance why it's actually a good source, rather than claiming a conspiracy to suppress a poltical view, then your opinion doesn't address the question, and would properly be ignored in a policy-based assessment of consensus - David Gerard ( talk) 00:07, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
    • I stand by my previous statement "it appears" is not a statement of fact. The article in question also was written on November 4 when explanations for some of these oddities mentioned in the article still were not provided (ie. Antrim County) and when official explanations were provided the author noted them. The facts presented about Pennsylvania in this article about changing of election laws still remain true, although it has since been shown late mail-in ballots were not numerous enough to change the result of the election (something which was clearly unknown on Nov 4).-- Rusf10 ( talk) 05:21, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
      • The fact is that there are consequences for selling your soul to QAnon trollery in a bad-faith effort to gin up clicks with outright lies about the election. There are any number of conservative outlets which affirmatively chose a different path, and chose not to stoke the flames of sedition. The Federalist chose to feed credulous dupes a manufactured series of easily-discredited falsehoods specifically designed to cast doubt upon the results of a free and fair election. This could have had no other intended effect but to foment outrage and hatred, and it led to one of the most embarrassing and dangerous spectacles in modern American history. The Federalist chose poorly, and choices have consequences. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 07:38, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
        • @ NorthBySouthBaranof:That's just not true. The Federalist did not promote QANON, I am 100% sure of this. In fact, it called it a "conspiracy theory" here, here here, here and roughly 10 other articles.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 02:06, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
          • Then why did they pander to those same credulous dupes by publishing obvious falsehoods about the 2020 election, stoking irrational fear and hatred for the purpose of generating clicks and ultimately generating a violent insurrection? The answer is that like every other part of the Trumpist media ecosystem, they feared being insufficiently Trumpist. They could have simply explained the facts - that more people voted for Joe Biden than Donald Trump. They chose poorly, and again, choices have consequences. As I explained below, the Trumpist conspiracy ecosystem cannot be neatly separated - your party wove a tangled web of lies and is now caught in the trap. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 07:20, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
            • I'm trying to assume good faith here, but which your choice of language makes it very difficult. First, your party, really? You don't know if I'm a registered Republican or not (and I'm not). Second, raising questions oddities in election results is not the same thing as publishing obvious falsehoods and claiming that The Federalist was responsible for ultimately generating a violent insurrection is something you really should strike. Here's a interesting article about the election that as far as I know contains factual content, doesn't prove anything other than this election was one of the strangest in history (I hope we can at least agree on that point). Also, note that the article which has plenty of citations, mentions a correction which disproves another claim you made that The Federalist doesn't issue corrections. I think most reasonable people would wonder how these results occurred, though not necessarily reject them. Bottom line is you've made several false claims in this RFC (apparently because you did not do your research first) and The Federalist which is mostly an opinion source (see WP:BIASED is far more creditable than you have portrayed it.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 07:54, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
              • I never said The Federalist doesn't issue corrections, I said the article I linked above which falsely states that Democrats stole the election has neither been retracted nor corrected. Which is true.
              • That link is not an "interesting article" at all - indeed, it's a hilariously obvious dog whistle to the idea that the election was stolen. There was nothing particularly strange about this election, actually. Lots of people voted, all their votes were fairly and accurately counted, and 8 million more Americans voted for Joe Biden, flipping five states. The end. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 08:02, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
  • David Gerard is entirely correct here. It is inappropriate to use this page as a forum for speculating on the imagined motivations of other editors. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:32, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
    • To be clear, I am not questioning the motive of any particular editor (an I apologize if it was taken that way), but it seems to be a trend here. Just look at how many recent RFCs involve right-leaning sources.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 05:37, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
      • Again, it's not Wikipedia's problem that a number of "right-leaning sources" chose to openly and notoriously discredit themselves as reliable sources by publishing patently-obvious lies about the 2020 United States presidential election. Policy demands that we base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. If a source chooses to destroy its own reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, that choice has consequences. If you think there are any "left-leaning sources" which have published similar lies about the 2020 election, please point them out because they should be deprecated too. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 07:45, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
      • You say: To be clear, I am not questioning the motive of any particular editor - but this RFC was brought by an individual editor, and your own words above claim their action was a continuation of a crusade to block conservative opinions on wikipedia, nothing more. This is clearly and directly a claim about the motive of a particular editor, and it's nonsensical to claim you somehow didn't say what you literally said, right there, just above. And you still have not addressed the substance of the claims - David Gerard ( talk) 23:38, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
        • David, with all due respect, I have addressed the substance of the claims. If you disagree, that's fine, but don't tell me I haven't addressed them. In fact, the editor who brought the RFC made an easily disprovable claim that this source is pushing QANON conspiracy theories which he has neither responded to or retracted. Does that matter to you?-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:36, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
          • "The election was stolen by Democrats" is a conspiracy theory clearly linked to QAnon amid an atmosphere where Trump's base repeatedly rejected reality in favor of a constructed fantasyworld where Trump was actually popular, COVID was a hoax, racism no longer exists, a "deep state undercover agent" posting on an anonymous imageboard is giving you the real inside scoop, and the only way Republicans could lose elections is if Democrats cheat. All of this ridiculous nonsense is of a piece, and we don't have to pretend otherwise. Trump sold lies to credulous dupes, and The Federalist chose to pander to those credulous dupes rather than tell the harder truth that lawn signs and boat parades signify nothing. Your own house organs sabotaged their own credibility, and you have no one but yourselves to blame. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 07:09, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
            • You're still pushing the absolutely false claim that the Federalist promotes QANON, when I have proven that they've denounced it multiple times over a period of two years. Just stop, QANON has absolutely nothing to do with this source. I don't know where you get your news from, but you are so misinformed it is incredible. While, I do not have the time to fact check every claim you just made. I'll start with your first one. The very fact that 74 million people voted for Trump (more than the 68 million that voted for Obama) actually does prove he was popular. That was so easy, I'll do one more. COVID was a hoax Trump never said this and here's a fact check from PolitiFact (which is not a conservative source). Ask PolitiFact: Are you sure Donald Trump didn’t call the coronavirus a hoax? -- Rusf10 ( talk) 08:08, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

  Rusf10, Wikipedia rejects sources that publish nonsense, regardless of political leaning. We deprecated Occupy, for example. It is undoubteldy true that there is an asymmetric polarisation in US media, with right-wing sources more likely to weigh ideological Truth above objective fact, leading to the drift of previously centre-right sources to the extremes. There are entire books about this (e.g. Network Propaganda).

  The idea that this singles out conservative voices, though, is as false as the idea that banning racists targets conservatives. There's nothing conservative about racism or counterfactual bullshit. Rather the opposite, in fact. But the far right has stolen the label "conservative" for itself, and genuinely conservative voices are now drowned out by the chorus of howler monkeys and grifters.

  Just look at Fox, promoting Big Lie proponent Maria Bartiromo and firing Chris Stirewalt. It's not "Wikipedia that's "cancelling" conservative voices, it's the right-wing media, removing sincere conservatives and replacing them with extremists. Guy ( help! - typo?) 09:39, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not going to have this debate with you. You've made your political leanings very clear in the past and any objective person would classify you unmistakably left-of-center. The problem here isn't your political beliefs, its that you believe that your left-leaning views are actually centrist, so actual centrist/moderate views become conservative to you and conservatives are now the "far right".-- Rusf10 ( talk) 21:36, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4 per OP and XOR'easter. This seems like an uncontroversial call. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:30, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 I took a deep look at their early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic about six months ago and was appalled at the disinformation bilge that I found there. Their coverage of Trump's 2020 defeat was, if anything, worse. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:42, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

  If early coverage of COVID-19 is the barometer, then wouldn't we be depreciating CNN and Washpo, to name two? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:38, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 Has anyone shown the fact that this source isn't deprecated to be a problem? Where are the examples of editors coming to this board to argue for/against the use of a particular Federalist article? Unless we can show that not deprecating this source is harming Wikipedia we should not deprecate. Springee ( talk) 12:38, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 for historical articles, 3, or 4 for their recent pieces. Historically, the Federalist was fairly sane, and provided right-wing commentary that wasn't completely off the wall. However, their recent coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic was completely contrary to what scientific consensus was, and that alone should be worth relegating them to wp:SELFSOURCE to back up claims that conservatives have claimed X. BrxBrx( talk)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}})} 14:44, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Please be more specific - at what point was it good, and what is the evidence that it was good at this time? - David Gerard ( talk) 23:05, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Hi David Gerard, and thank you for replying. I was thinking mostly of descriptors like the following: [30], in 2014, Bloomberg spoke rather approvingly of the outlet as a right-wing source, or at least respectably. Then there's politico comparing it to a tory huffpo [31] - for what it's worth, the huffington post is considered reliable for non-political topics at wp:RSP. Naturally, this was well before they fell off the deep end with the Trump administration, IMHO. Warmest regards, BrxBrx( talk)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}})} 01:56, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4; according to NewsGuard, the site has no credibility whatsoever and scores a 12.5/100 for its false, misleading misinformation. Would probably even suggest blacklisting the URL while you are at it. Aasim ( talk) 21:48, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 for conspiracy theories, COVID misinformation and blithe willingness to lie for clicks. That even its supporters appear unable to refute these issues with the publication, and instead resort to claiming a conspiracy theory about Wikipedia editors who dare to bring the serious content issues to RSN, suggests there are in fact not satisfactory answers to these issues - David Gerard ( talk) 23:08, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 Routine conspiracy theories, false reporting, and other misrepresentation. SPECIFICO talk 02:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 Option 2 No corrections policy that I can find, and also no record of correcting stories that turn out to be wrong. But a grand total of 12 uses in Wikipedia is not worth deprecating. And I haven't seen anything from them as outrageous as something like this [32]. Adoring nanny ( talk) 02:31, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
  • @ Adoring nanny:They actually do make corrections. Here are a few examples: 1 2 3 4 5-- Rusf10 ( talk) 03:49, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Thanks for that. Moved my vote from option 3 to option 2 based on it. Adoring nanny ( talk) 09:36, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 I don't know about their Covid reporting, but the stuff i've researched on there seems factual. They have their spin of course and the titles aren't great. Just checked their site and it's good they are reporting about the lifesite youtube channel being banned. Earlier today i was looking for the story and it was only on the actual lifestyle site, so they might pick up stories otherwise missed. Fred ( talk) 23:11, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 just general hooey and unreliability. 777burger ^{user talk contribs} 02:01, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 Don't see the need for the drastic step of deprecation, but the falsehoods it has published is enough for it to be classified as generally unreliable. Zoozaz1 talk 03:59, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3, unfortunately. I do read them sometimes and do think there's a place for their contrarianism, despite being very far away from them on the political spectrum. They have done real reporting which has been better than the dead-eyed nihilism of Sean Davis's twitter feed (likely for many people their first exposure to the website) might indicate. However, that difference has declined and they're basically Radio Trump now. Blythwood ( talk) 11:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
• 4 or 3, given the repeated instances of publishing false and fabricated information, as noted by OP above and by David Gerard in the Discussion section below. -sche ( talk) 21:43, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4, just look at this stuff. This should be kept as far away from sourcing for articles as possible. Elliot321 ( talk | contribs) 06:09, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3. The source cannot be trusted for reliable information. I'm hesitant to fully deprecate, however, because there could be some value to their opinion pieces. -- Calidum 16:09, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 - let's be realistic - there were different conspiracy theories going back & forth on both sides throughout Trump's term - we've endured 4 years of clickbait media on steroids over party politics including 2 impeachments in a Democrat-controlled House, and 2 acquittals in a Republican-controlled Senate. Left-leaning sources sensationalized the impeachments while right leaning sources downplayed them. The side that downplayed it turned out to be correct - he was acquitted - and its the same song, second verse with the Russian collusion conspiracy theories, yet the conservative sources were downgraded, not liberal sources. We've endured boatloads of speculation, sensationalism, and just plain ole political rhetoric in all of our news sources - not one of them stayed in the dugout for that game. If you downgrade this source, then downgrade them all because they all played the same clickbait political game to their respective political demographics. As for the OP's reasons for wanting to deprecate - let's go back in time - read this article, and let's deprecate all of the sources who promoted the Democrat's belief that Bush stole the election. That's how silly it all looks with retrospect. Atsme 💬 📧 23:54, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

  Atsme, Trump was impeached the first time because he tried to shake down the Ukrainian government for electoral advantage, and the second time because he incited an insurrection because he could not tolerate the fact that he lost the election. Mitch McConnell voted to acquit, but only because Trump had already left office: he was entirely clear that Trump incited the insurrection. Russian collusion is extensively documented in the Mueller report, and calling it "conspiracy theories" undermines any claim on your part to be able to analyse or comment on this area. Read pages 4 and 5, for starters: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

  The comparison of 2016 and 2020 with 2004 is indeed informative. With Bush v. Gore, a conservative Supreme Court consciously picked a winner, but in 2004 Bush actually won the popular vote - the only Republican popular vote victory since 1988. A handful of people rejected that (and continue to do so). Compare that with a supermajority of Republicans in the House, and at least ten Senators, who reject the facts of the 2020 election. After 2004 no serious commentator on the left continued to promote the false claim that Kerry won. Find me popular Democratic publications that continued to claim Kerry won post 2004. It was a well understood rallying round the flag. After 2020, though, Fox started purging anyone who admitted that Biden won. Your own example disproves your point.

  All media does indeed try to attract eyeballs, but research shows that mainstream and partisan media do it in different ways. Mainstream media (remember, mainstream is the opposite of fringe, not of conservative) has a fact-checking dynamic and suffers reputationally if it leaves factual error uncorrected. Partisan media suffers if it contradicts the partisan narrative. If CNN publishes a false story that chimes with a Democratic narrative, they suffer a reputational hit, and if The Five promote a fact that contradicts conservative Truth they will suffer. We can see this in practice: if Maddow goes off the deep end, people switch to the more accurate CNN. If Fox broadcasts facts, people switch to the more extreme OANN or NewsMax. So the right-wing partisan media has moved further to the right over the last five years and has become less accurate as it has done so.

  There's significant academic study around this. It's been pointed out to you many times. Guy ( help! - typo?) 10:09, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  You have a very stong opinion about US politics, and have made that quite clear. You tend to side with left-leaning media & academia because they align with your POV, and that has been pointed out to you many times - nothing wrong with that, we're only human. But what concerns me most is the fact that you are not accepting that Trump was acquitted of the charges that led to his impeachment, and you keep bringing up unsubstantiated information about his guilt. Explain to me how your position now is not unlike what some people are doing who keep harping on and on that the 2020 election was rigged? It appears to me that you choose, inadvertently or otherwise, to read only those sources that agree with your opinion, rather than reading for the opposition, which is how we arrive at a NPOV. It's not easy to swallow material one doesn't believe in from a perspective one opposes, but we must remain neutral. I'm a pragmatist, Guy, regardless of how you see me. My concern is that you see any editor who doesn't agree with you as being wrong, and that is not how WP works relative to NPOV. I align very closely with Jimmy Wales in the following regard:

  1. in a BLP we "should not become focused on bolstering and subsequently refuting the subject's views or theories rather than actually defining the subject."
  2. Relative to US politics: "Dislike for the President, fear about things that are happening in the world, may make it emotionally harder to remain neutral, but remain neutral we must."
  3. And finally sources: "It is true that the Daily Mail is generally prohibited as a source, but in Wikipedia terminology that does not mean an absolute ban. Exceptions to the general rule can and do exist, per WP:IAR as well as general common sense in specific circumstances."

  I choose to base my findings on actual facts not opinions, and I tend to trust my 35+ years as a media professional when researching clickbait, sensationalism and propaganda vs factual news as presented to us by the various echo chambers, most of which is now owned by mega-corporations. It's not your father's or grandfather's 5:00 news anymore. My views on this matter are well supported in mainstream despite some of the attempts to sidestep the facts by spin masters. Most people use Google as their search engine, and so do I for the most part, but I also use different search engines, and various other methods to make sure my research is corroborated (verifiable), factual and well-covered by reliable sources. When biased RS are involved, I force myself to read all of what they publish - it's second nature with me because of my former profession. As a retiree, I have the time to dig deep enough to uncover the facts and corroborate them so I can make a sound determination that is compliant with NPOV, not a particular POV but NPOV. When two sources don't align with my POV, I don't jump up and declare that source to be unreliable based on it's political position or views. I subscribe to WaPo, NYTimes, and various other online news sources, and I follow academia - not just the ones who align with my POV, especially when dealing with politics.

  It is a straight-up fact that Trump was impeached twice by the House. What some tend to dismiss, or do not give proper weight to per NPOV is the fact that he was acquitted by the Senate both times. And in the grand scheme of things, the outcome of that impeachment is what carries the most weight, not the fact that the opposition is pissed over it. I will probably agree with alot of what you believe off-wiki, but my pragmatic approach while I'm here writing articles, and what WP expects of us is NPOV, and that is what guides me. It's just that simple. Atsme 💬 📧 15:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 or 2 as per Atsme and the usage mentioned in the discussion. I respectfully disagree with Atme's assertion that the second acquittal of Trump was in a Republican-controlled Senate, but that seems to be their own view and not The Federalists, so does not affect my vote. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 20:00, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 per Atsme. As explained, there have been other cases of similar theories of election stealing. This one doesn't require it's own special treatment. Willbb234 ^Talk (please {{ ping}} me in replies) 15:36, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

  Willbb234, for who among us has forgotten the Washington Riots of January 2004, when, after months of increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, John Kerry sent a mob of supporters to storm the Capitol and overturn the election he lost. That totally happened, right? Guy ( help! - typo?) 11:20, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

The harassment of users who dare defend a conservative source continues. Willbb234 ^Talk (please {{ ping}} me in replies) 11:42, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Unacceptable WP:ASPERSION and dispute personalization, — Paleo Neonate – 19:54, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4 their disinformation campaigns around COVID and election conspiracies are without a doubt enough to label them unreliable, and the intent behind them pushes it into deprecation territory. Shadybabs ( talk) 13:31, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 Agree the source should not be used but we don't need to deprecate every single unreliable source we stumble upon. Considering it's cited so infrequently as stated above I do not think we need to deprecate it. funplussmart ( talk) 19:39, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4. Saying that it appears is plainly a statement of fact and is unambiguously false, and sources publish unambiguously false things - especially such high-profile ones - should be depreciated, especially given that this is part of a longer history of posting similarly false things about eg. COVID-19. Atsme's assertion that there are comparable WP:RSes that spread conspiracy theories in 2004 is breathtakingly wrong - if found, any such sources should absolutely and unequivocally be depreciated (unless there is substantial reason to think they have changed since then, and even then we'd need to be cautious of anything from that era), but I note that Atsme has not named a single such source. "Everyone posts conspiracy theories about elections sometimes" is an unthinkably terrible thing to use in an WP:RS discussion - and if it's true, then we need to stop using all such sources, rather than using it as an argument to use sources that publish false or fabricated material. @ Atsme:, please provide specific sources that are currently considered WP:RS (or at least ambiguous) that you feel have advocated similar conspiracy theories, or strike your comment. I note that the one source you linked roundly rejects them and characterizes them as WP:FRINGE, which disproves your own assertion. It directly says ”And those who believed that the election had been stolen got no help from the mainstream press, where even left-leaning outlets wouldn’t take up the idea of a vast web of fraud. In The Nation, Alexander Cockburn was caustically dismissive: “As usual, the conspiracy nuts think plans of inconceivable complexity worked at 100 percent efficiency, that Murphy’s law was once again in suspense and that 10,000 co-conspirators are all going to keep their mouths shut.” Of course there's a constant political haze of misinformation surrounding elections, but we don't rely on "conspiracy nuts" that are known for pushing it, and depreciate them if people insist on trying to use them - Steven Freeman, who felt in his bones that the 2004 election was stolen, is not a reliable source for anything. The Federalist has similarly placed itself in that category. -- Aquillion ( talk) 23:15, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
  • • well... Steven Freeman is reliable as a primary source for the views of Steven Freeman. NOW, whether any given article should mention Freeman’s views is a valid question... but it is one of DUE WEIGHT, not reliability. A primary source is ALWAYS reliable for itself. Blueboar ( talk) 23:37, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Aquillion - first of all, saying that it appears is not a statement of fact. There is a big difference between it appears and it is. Things can take on an appearance and that is not a false statement. Keep in mind, every conspiracy begins with a theory, and circumstantial evidence is based on what things appear to be. Your accusations against me speak volumes, particularly the ridiculous statement that comparable WP:RSes that spread conspiracy theories in 2004 is breathtakingly wrong. You were joking, right? Start here and do your own research. I simply don't have the time or the inclination to do it for you. There are also plenty of sources for you to examine at 2004 United States election voting controversies. Happy editing! Atsme 💬 📧 00:29, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The piece ends with the only possible conclusion one can come to right now is that Democrats are trying to steal the election in the Midwest - this is obviously, patiently false. And it is equally absolutely, unequivocally false that there were WP:RSes advocating conspiracy theories about the 2004 (I'm baffled that you continue to double down on such a plainly unsupportable point despite failing to turn up even the slightest shred of evidence to back your claim.) In fact, did you even read the paper you linked me to? This paper specifically says that mainstream coverage, even on the left, immediately accepted the outcome as legitimate; the only conspiracy theories it cites are from random contacts with individuals and unnamed websites on the fringes (implied further down to be blogs) - obviously not WP:RSes. If you disagree, then be specific, don't keep linking to vague sources that disprove your point - you implied that there were sources we now consider WP:RS that advocated conspiracy theories about the 2004 election. Well, give me a specific source, and link me to a specific situation where they said something comparable to this. I would love to mark those sources as depreciated or unreliable; we shouldn't be using sources that publish outright falsehoods. But what we absolutely cannot do is allow WP:RS to become a race to the bottom, especially with vague handwavy "everybody does it!" statements like yours. It would be bad enough to have a reliability race to the bottom against actual, concrete examples, but to do it against this vaguely-defined cloud of conspiratorial thinking is plainly a recipe for disaster. -- Aquillion ( talk) 02:54, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4 - The fabricated election fraud claims and spurious COVID-19 information are enough to deprecate this source. – dlthewave ☎ 04:00, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 - The promotion of COVID-19 conspiracy theories is particularly concerning, to me, as that is specifically a type of medical misinformation. Here is a tag they use on their website to flag such articles. A couple examples I have noticed under the tag are: Why I Think The Wuhan Virus Was Likely Man-Made But Escaped By Accident, and Mask Fanatics Have Officially Abandoned Science To Control Your Life. EDIT: Here are some more tags they use on their website to flag COVID-19 related articles: "Pandemic", "masks", "vaccines", "World Health Organization", "COVID-19", "coronavirus", CDC, and "Wuhan Virus". Just in case somebody wants to take a wider sample of what content they publish relating to these matters. -- Chillabit ( talk) 14:01, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Are you going to suggest deprecating New York Magazine and the Washington Post for saying the same things? — Wulf ( talk) 21:28, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Would not surprise me with how this noticeboard is turning out. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 18:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 i.e. oppose deprecation. The Federalist is a significant voice on the Republican right and is therefore usable as opinion. But it is a source for opinion, not for fact. As far as I know, the Daily Mail publishes minimal opinion. feminist (talk) 17:10, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 with reluctance and surprise. I came in here ready to !vote Option 3, however, my standard first check is to see if RS reference the source. As I've repeatedly said here, we cannot undertake independent textual analysis of any source to determine its reliability. Our only standard (with a small number of exceptions) is if RS think the source is reliable. The most cursory of checks finds its original reporting recently sourced by FactCheck.org [33] , KIRO-TV [34], The Guardian [35], NBC News [36], and others. Since it also has a physical personality by which it can be held legally liable for what it publishes and the appearance of a gatekeeping process, I am only left with my personal, independent analysis to justify a !vote below Option 2, and Wikipedians - including me - are not competent to undertake independent textual analysis of sources. Obviously WP:RSOPINION applies. Chetsford ( talk) 20:30, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

  I clicked through the examples and they're trivial--the sort of thing where the Federalist was the first to report something that happened on the right (like Hawley's new book deal), so sources reporting on it are obliged to credit the Federalist. Against that are the examples above of the Federalist trading in election and COVID conspiracy theories. There's a real difference in magnitude here that requires further explication. Mackensen (talk) 21:31, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, comments like The Tyranny of Big Tech will now be published by Regnery, a conservative press, in a deal first reported by the Federalist, a rightwing outlet (from the Guardian) are typical when a low-quality source is technically the first to "break" a story. They don't really contribute to the respectability of the low-quality source; for example, they could be first because it was deliberately leaked to them in order to reach their audience for PR purposes. XOR'easter ( talk) 20:33, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4. It has got markedly worse since the runup to the 2020 US election, and now peddles the Big Lie with abandon. It'sa important to draw a distinction between factual sources with some opinion content, and opinion sources. The Federalist is not a factual source. Its content is all opinion - either a straight retelling of opinion from elsewhere (e.g. the repetition of the lies told from the Odal Rune Stage at CPAC this week) or opinion by its own contributors. We should never be using The Federalist as a source of fact. With the current levels of COVID and election conspiraciost nonsense, we should also raise a very high bar to its use as a primary source for comment: if we want to describe the opinions they publish, then do it based on third party reporting. Guy ( help! - typo?) 09:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 - The promotion of COVID-19 conspiracy theories does it for me. Sorry, it's one thing to be biased, but this is medical information that could save lives. Any source has to be reliable for what it says, it what it says can't be trusted as a matte of course it is not an RS. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:24, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3, leaning 4 Pure opinion that frequently veers into literal fake news, especially with health care and election topics. Zaathras ( talk) 22:19, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4: I've thought this was missing from RSP for a while as an obvious "red or worse" listing. I would have initially thought option 3 but the conspiracy theories around the 2020 U.S. election and COVID-19 pandemic are completely disqualifying from taking this website seriously on anything. — Bilorv ( talk) 00:08, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 Peddling falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the two biggest issues of the past year in the US (COVID-19 and the election) should totally disqualify a source as RS. NightHeron ( talk) 17:02, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3. You can find good and bad in it, but as far as The Federalist is concerned we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 08:52, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3. It certainly shouldn't be used for factual claims, but no one has presented any evidence that the Federalist falsifies the opinions of its contributors. If a person's opinion is relevant to the article, and that opinion has been published in the Federalist, then the Federalist is an acceptable source to report that opinion. The extra step of complete deprecation is unnecessary. Red Rock Canyon ( talk) 22:29, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4. Seems like a clear call. :bloodofox: ( talk) 22:36, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 The conspiracy theories around the covid-19 and the election fraud says it all. Sea Ane ( talk) 22:27, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4. The Federalist has repeatedly promoted both the stolen election conspiracy theory (see articles with the "election fraud" tag, per Elliot321) and COVID-19 conspiracy theories (per XOR'easter, Chillabit, and others), thus crossing the threshold for deprecation. —  Newslinger  talk 06:05, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 per NorthBySouthBaranof, XOR'easter and David Gerard. starship .paint ( exalt) 09:23, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 a partisan organ of opinion that is widely noted for its conspiracy theories. Coretheapple ( talk) 17:49, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 per its publication of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of the 2020 US presidential election. Grnrchst ( talk) 21:45, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4. The evidence presented clearly shows that this source repeatedly published false and fabricated information and promotes conspiracy theories. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:30, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 per Newslinger. Chompy Ace 21:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 propaganda vehicle funded by right-wing free market supporting billionaires and their ilk, via FDRLST Media Foundation. Acousmana ( talk) 14:15, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 per Atsme and Chetsford. RS:OPINION definitely applies here, as the source does not differentiate between news and opinion articles. See, for example, three articles about Edward Snowden all published in December: Edward Snowden Is A Hero Who Deserves a Full Pardon by Jordan Schachtel, Edward Snowden Isn’t A Hero And Doesn’t Deserve A Presidential Pardon by Alex Plitsas, and Rand Paul: President Trump Should Pardon Edward Snowden by… Senator Rand Paul). Additionally, their content is frequently featured in the Wall Street Journal’s Notable & Quotable and Best of the Web sections. — Wulf ( talk) 21:28, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 - I grew up with The Federalist being a standard conservative publication that I read fairly often, but their readership and standards have long since changed and the willingness to publish mistruths and conspiracies. Those preferring option 1 or 2 above have not convinced me of that at all. That said, I don't know that this rises to the Daily Mail level and my reading of the relevant policies/the DM RfC doesn't get me there. Alyo ( chat· edits) 19:35, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4, not terribly opposed to #3. They have outed themselves by perpetuating knowingly-false election fraud propaganda. Whatever past credibility they once had as classic conservatives with at least a reputation for honesty has ben shot. ValarianB ( talk) 19:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  Is this an option 4 then, or an option 1 for historical content and option 3 for more recent content? Your vote says one thing, but your reasoning says another. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 20:23, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  Um, no, I said nothing of the sort. Don't project your own biases upon me, please. The Federalist has become a dumpster fire of purposefully fake news of late, I only have a slight hesitation of putting them all the way down at the bottom of said dumpster alongside the Daily Mail. ValarianB ( talk) 03:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

  past credibility they once had as classic conservatives with at least a reputation for honesty -- Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 22:45, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2 and acknowledge its bias. If we deprecate every source that praises President Trump and what he stands for, challenges COVID germophobia, and/or questions the legitimacy of the 2020 election, but fail to deprecate all of the left wing sources, it's time to deprecate WP:NPOV as well because nearly all right wing sources do those three things. That said, there's certain things it should be used for, because it is biased in favor of the right. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 20:33, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4, but as has been said, kind of okay with option 3 as well. I go back and forth, because it certainly used to be a reliable source, and took a recent decided nosedive. I predict it will pull itself back together, but as it stands right now there's little evidence of that. Cheers, all. Dumuzid ( talk) 20:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 has there been any left-leaning sources rated as unreliable by RS/N yet? Or is this a personal collection of left-leaning activists that dominate this site anyways. Wp:Cabals is totally a conspiracy theory. 205.175.106.86 ( talk) 22:16, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Left-leaning sources are rated as unreliable when they are, for example The Canary was rated as unreliable a few days ago, the Daily Star was deprecated last year, Occupy Democrats was deprecated in 2018. Thryduulf ( talk) 23:04, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Also Alternet, Daily Kos, and the Palmer Report are not acceptabe sources. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 23:12, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, but irrelevant. The issue is not political lean, but reliability. The Federalist is not a reliable source of fact, it is a political activist site designed and intended to sway opinion. Guy ( help! - typo?) 12:06, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

  Of course it involves political lean but not always. I don't want want to bust anybody's bubble but no news source in today's clickbait enviroment is flawless - they took a little more care when it involved printing. It's easy to find the mistakes and misinformation reported by MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC and you'll see plenty, not counting that which was whisked away from public view after they got caught; most was simply ignored. You can start with this list, Rachel Maddow, oh, and Bob Dylan is still alive, and so is Tom Petty, MSNBC misidentifies the race of a suspect, Joy Reid under fire for false election claims, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell retracts and apologizes for thinly sourced Trump finances story. CBS fired 4 executives, and most recent is is the 60 minutes controversy. Hopefully, my point has been made so I don't have to go back and add the links to demonstrate how The NYTimes kept a fake reporter employed for 4 years and had to return a Pulitzer, and also WaPo had to return a Pulitzer for a different fake story. Atsme 💬 📧 17:13, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2 per Atsme and Chetsford. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 02:38, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (The Federalist)

• Previous discussion from 2019 indicates similar problems with deliberate promotion of conspiracy theories by the Federalist. Here's some 2018 promotion of conspiracy theories: [37]. The site has promoted COVID-19 conspiracy theories [38]; a former contributor called the Federalist a "conspiracy-mongering partisan rag that has now become a menace to public health" [39]. If advocates have any excuses to offer for this history of fabrication and deliberate misinformation, that would be useful to hear - otherwise this looks very deprecable - David Gerard ( talk) 12:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the Covid conspiracy theory, how is it different from all the newspapers that said that masks are mostly needed for people working with patients [40]? This was an article from April 2020 when we knew little about covid and even expert opinion fluctuated a lot. Do you have other examples (I haven't voted yet)? Alaexis _¿question? 21:19, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

The Federalist is political, thus their takes will draw ire from the opposing side and will definitely lead to comments like found in the New Yorker. One cannot make a good judgement based on those alone, otherwise it were possible to kill the 'reliable source' stateus of any smaller media by an astroturfing campaign. It is also important to separate opinion from reporting - the New Yorker source is based on pieces in the Federalist that appear as opinion to me. You should not use opinion as a reliable source of anything else than the opinion itself, but it cannot overtly be used to discredit a publication. The better publications sometimes publish disclaimers stating the opinion they publish is not the official one of the publication. It would be odd, though to require this method for any take that somebody could consider controversial. -- 91.153.156.132 ( talk) 12:21, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

This is actually a good point: The Federalist is a political opinion publication. That alone is sufficient for it to be unreliable as a source of fact, and this is reinforced when the political opinions are so often counterfactual (as with their views on COVID and the 2020 election). We should never use it. Guy ( help! - typo?) 11:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• David Gerard, "It’s worth considering, however, whether the Trumpiest intellectuals are about to face their reckoning with the novel coronavirus."

  Predictably, no they didn't. They will roll out of the pandemic with their delusions entirely unshaken, like creationists faced with a tiktaalik and still demanding a crocoduck. Guy ( help! - typo?) 11:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• There is this usage of the editor by the BBC, alongside usage of university professors. [41] -- -- Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 21:11, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't see how the "political editor" being on a podcast translates to the website being reliable. People get chosen for panels, interviewed on TV, etc., for all sorts of reasons, sometimes just because they're visible. XOR'easter ( talk) 22:29, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

    They were picked by the professional journalist " Ritula Shah", presumably as one of the experts. I have not actually listened to it, so there is a small chance that Davidson was not actually on the expert panel. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 19:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

    Emir of Wikipedia, the BBC has also interviewed David Icke. Guy ( help! - typo?) 11:33, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

    Was he put on the same level as university professors though? Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 19:16, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Similar can be said about every single news source at one time or another. We should not be downgrading entire sources based on biased views during a small window of time based on political biases. It is unacceptable from both my perspective and that of WP:RS, and yes, RS and NPOV are where views align closest. Atsme 💬 📧 15:31, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• Per the link to our own article on this source which XOR'easter provided earlier up-thread, I'd like to note one sort of information The Federalist was publishing last spring: "It published a piece by someone identified as a physician in Oregon who recommended that people hold "chickenpox"-style parties for the coronavirus to build herd immunity, but the recommendations were contrary to those of public health experts, and the author in question did not have a medical license...". One source mentioning this: NYT. I would venture to say this was even worse misinformation than more recent insinuations regarding masks, vaccines, and the origins of COVID-19, as it specifically advised people to go out and get infected. I actually would not have expected this level of misinfo, but there it is in black and white. -- Chillabit ( talk) 19:51, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

You are using the term misinformation is an inappropriate way. The author is question is indeed an experienced (yet retired) physician and his recommendations were rooted in established methods of treatment (Controlled Voluntary Infection). Experts can disagree and ultimately the CDC or whatever agency produces recommendations. But proposing alternative methods of treatment, especially in such a chaotic and unprecedented health crisis, is not to be frowned upon. Nweil ( talk) 19:56, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

This paper seems to do with the ethical considerations, not the empirical ones. The official recommendations from the time don't exactly come out of nowhere, it's out of an abundance of caution in reaction to a situation you recognize as chaotic, and one which we didn't quite have the data yet to fully understand. -- Chillabit ( talk) 07:37, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

That piece did not actually recommend “that people hold ‘chickenpox’-style parties for the coronavirus”. Rather, it suggested that the government consider establishing controlled infection and quarantine centers. It is not true that it “specifically advised people to go out and get infected”. — Wulf ( talk) 21:28, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• Just curious...how many of these types of articles are needed to substantiate the fact that there are plenty of mainstream news sources that consensus has determined to be RS despite the skeletons in their closets? Just wondering... Atsme 💬 📧 01:29, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

  Just look at the below RFC about the Canary, which is more biased and more false, yet on Wikipedia, it's not as evil as a conservative news source. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:41, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

  The Canary is certainly biased. It's difficult to say more biased than The Federalist given the sources have very different biases and primarily cover different markets, but they are certainly both more biased than average. On the basis of the evidence provided though, "more false" is certainly incorrect - The Canary has not been proven to repeatedly promote completely debunked conspiracy theories after they have been debunked. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:29, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

• I just read the article that NorthbySouthBaronof cited in his iVote - and yes, the headline is sensationalistism but they all do it, and there's bias mixed with spin but they all do it. The article ended with the following: Unless election officials in Michigan and Wisconsin can explain the overnight vote-dumps and, in Michigan, the “typo” that appeared to benefit Biden, and Pennsylvania officials can explain their rationale for counting ballots with no postmark, the only possible conclusion one can come to right now is that Democrats are trying to steal the election in the Midwest. Was there a follow-up? Regardless, that article is opinion journalism mixed with facts and they all do it. If that's the reason for downgrading this source, then downgrade them all because they all do the same thing except with a different bias and spin because they are writing for their demographics. The main difference is whether they spin right or left. I think people who align with the left can readily see the bias in articles that lean right and vice versa. Bias is not a reason to deprecate or downgrade a RS. That is an IDONTLIKEIT reason, and has nothing to do with CONTEXT or the reliability of a source. The author John Daniel Davidson is a credible journalist, and has had his work published in the WSJ, National Review, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, etc. Here is his January 2021 article which speaks to the same topic. Our job is to include such material per DUE using in-text attribution cited to that source. We don't bury it because we don't like what he's saying. We provide ALL significant views, but if we keep downgraded sources just because we don't like what they say and don't align with political perspectives, then we're going to run out of the kinds of sources we need to maintain NPOV, and that would be a travesty. Atsme 💬 📧 00:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
• It seems to me that several of the support votes are suggesting that, while the Federalist may have posted deliberately misleading information about COVID-19 and the aftermath of the 2020 US elections, the site shouldn't be deprecated because so many right-wing sites published that type of information that to deprecate all of them would introduce bias. One obvious solution is that we should prefer secondary sources published after-the-fact instead of contemporaneous news which may contain what people hope rather than what is fact. I feel the views of those who insist in April 2021 that Donald Trump is currently serving as President of the United States can be ignored. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 21:25, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Indeed. As everybody knows, the current US president is Teddy Roosevelt.^{[ Citation Need ed} -- Guy Macon ( talk) 22:05, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Washington Post have its rating downgraded like Fox News

 – —  Newslinger  talk 03:07, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-call-georgia-investigator/2021/01/09/7a55c7fa-51cf-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html

WaPo has retracted a massive controversial story around the election. It's extremely unusual for a news source to retract a news story fo this caliber. It's not the first time supposedly reliable sources have been forced to retract stories ( first hit after a 30 sec search). I doubt the wikiactivist cabal will actually care, but if outlets like Fox News have been given a lower rating, I don't see how WaPo can be objectively be given full trust by a website that is supposed to be encyclopedic. 205.175.106.86 ( talk) 04:11, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

That's a correction, not a retraction, and it's what reputable organizations do when they publish things that turn out to be wrong. Unlike, say, The Federalist, which still proudly declares that "Democrats are trying to steal the election". The material difference between Trump saying "find the fraud" and asserting that there was "dishonesty" in the vote, and between Trump saying the official would be "a national hero" and saying she had "the most important job in the country right now" is negligible at best. Several quotes were incorrect, but the thrust of the story is still true, and in fact proven by the release of the tape - Trump attempted to personally pressure a state election official into doing what he wanted her to do. NorthBySouthBaranof ( talk) 04:24, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Was this even a massive controversial story? I'm not an American but I've never heard of this before even though I had heard a lot about this before. There seem to be 2 factors of significance here. One is that the request to find votes (not "find the votes" which AFAICT, no reputable source has ever said was said) was much more controversial. That story came out before this one on "find the fraud". Two is that this story only came out of the Capitol Hill riots. So while I'm sure it gained a reasonable interest, I don't think it was as massive as you suggest. As further evidence quite a few crazy sources and forums an the like are incorrectly reporting that the Washington Post retracted the story on finding votes even though that's just silly as the audio has been there for them to listen to all this time. Nil Einne ( talk) 12:02, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Agree, WaPo has been consistently inaccurate for a long period of time. The Covington affair is one example. It's russian propaganda article is another. Should be unreliable. Nweil ( talk) 06:20, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Nweil, what do you propose? Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 15:04, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

There was a recent noticeboard discussion at WP:RSN § Washington Post and CNN that was closed with consensus against your position. —  Newslinger  talk 15:53, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The January 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation is a single instance for which there was a specific outcome. The other is an explanatory note after some websites complained following WaPo's coverage of a third parties investigation, and that third party subsequently removed those sites from the list unrelated to WaPo. Other instances brought up during the recent RSN were tiny proportion of their overall output when compared with the repeated regular issues with Fox and affiliates. Koncorde ( talk) 17:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Consensus can change, Newslinger. WaPo has gone so far left I barely recognize it. I didn't renew my subscription when it came due, and it appears that maybe I wasn't the only one because WaPo came back with an offer too cheap to refuse. I subscribed but only because WP needs the diversity. I've already made my position known about the current rating system and provided plenty of valid criticism - they reflect a strong political bias. Leftist opinion sources, regardless of how far left, are more readily accepted as reliable whereas right leaning opinion sources are constantly challenged and downgraded for all the wrong reasons, most of which are based on aspersions and opinion, not actual facts, and certainly nothing that doesn't apply equally to sources on other sides of the political spectrum. We're shooting ourselves in the foot, and to avoid totally crippling ourselves, it's probably going to require an ArbCom case to get these issues resolved. For one thing, the current rating system has not been vetted by the wider community and is nothing more than an essay but is treated like policy. I'd like to see a more reliable rating system overall - one that doesn't favor one ideology over another, and that will require a pragmatic review of the current ratings from a NPOV. As things are now, I see a clear and present danger to WP's neutrality because this process is homogenizing the encyclopedia to the point of reflecting a single POV. An article that was published back in December 2016 by Bloomberg speaks volumes, keeping in mind things weren't nearly as bad as they are now: ”The encyclopedia’s reliance on outside sources, primarily newspapers, means it will be only as diverse as the rest of the media—which is to say, not very.” Atsme 💬 📧 18:55, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any reliable source that describes The Washington Post as "far left". Based on this discussion and the March discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 334 § Washington Post and CNN, the consensus is that The Washington Post is still considered generally reliable. If you have new information about this source that leads you to believe otherwise, you are welcome to start a new discussion about The Washington Post on the reliable sources noticeboard.

If an editor does not like this list, they are not obligated to use it. However, consensus is a Wikipedia policy, and the consensus found in past discussions on the reliable sources noticeboard still applies regardless of whether the editor chooses to refer to this list. —  Newslinger  talk 07:35, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Is the discussion here or on RSN? I thought that is what we were doing here - discussing them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atsme ( talk • contribs) 23:43, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Since this discussion does not focus on the analysis of previous noticeboard discussions, I've moved it from WT:RSP to this noticeboard. If you have any new information to share, please go ahead. —  Newslinger  talk 03:09, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Newslinger, well, up to a point. The Overton Window in US politics has shifted to the point that policies promoted by centre-right parties in Europe are denigrated as socialism in America.

WaPo's image among the right is an unfortunate corollary of Colbert's Law: Reality has a well known liberal bias.

I'm amused, though, by the idea that we should deprecate the Washington Post, a widely trusted source, based on a story in the Washington Times, which is... not that. Guy ( help! - typo?) 10:41, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

You are most definitely correct that, indeed, consensus can change. However the previous consensus, at the time of this discussion, was under a month old. Policy states, and I quote (see WP:CCC), "On the other hand, proposing to change a recently established consensus can be disruptive." -- TheSandDoctor ^Talk 21:33, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Sources like WaPo publish massive volumes of information, and statistically any such source will make occasional errors, and sometimes big ones. The hallmark of a good source is whether they publish corrections, which WaPo has. This is how good journalism has always worked. soibangla ( talk) 19:27, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to regard WaPo as other than one of the most reliable news outlets. Their willingness to correct a story on the basis of new information received months later enhances their reputation for integrity and reliability. How many news outlets which also published the original story later published corrections? Comparing WaPo to Fox is ridiculous. Zero ^talk 01:43, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, and this is an important point. Compare to Fox, where side shows are voluntarily mixed in to clearly push propaganda including science denialism that will not be retracted or corrected (false equivalence to compare them and this explains why Fox has a different assessment). — Paleo Neonate – 08:56, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• Surely we're not forgetting WaPo's shoddy reporting of Nicholas Sandman, and how they settled out of court. CNN was right there on the shoddy reporting list, too. It is inexcusable - he was a kid. That did it for me. Better sources are available. Has this discussion ended or was it moved? Atsme 💬 📧 23:36, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Atsme, did you read the source you cited? The family contended in a suit filed last year that The Post defamed Sandmann in seven articles and via tweets promoting the articles. The Post has maintained that its reporting was accurate and fair. Out of court settlements are a way of avoiding expensive litigation, no fault was admitted. All news organisations make errors, what distinguishes a reliable source form an unreliable one is the willingness to retract a false story. WaPo does that. Fox's feedback loops punish it for ideological heresy, not factual inaccuracy, and that is why over the last five or six years Fox has become significantly more biased, significantly less accurate, and has eroded the distinctions between its factual reporting and opinion content. You already know this.

After the election they fired Chris Stirewalt, who accurately called election results, and promoted Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Calrson, who promote the Big Lie. Fox is currently ground zero for GOP disinformation. They devoted more time over several weeks to denigrating the Seuss estate's decision to remove some books with racist imagery than they did defending actual doctors who were being sidelined by the Trump regime over their annoying tendency to tell the truth about the pandemic. They did this because the GOP's leading message, from the Odal rune stage at CPAC to its floor speaches in Congress, is "cancel culture" and white grievance. I've got the emails form the GOP asking for feedback onmt heir platform. Not one actual policy, just paraphrases of "own the libs", and Fox is at the heart of this through its news broadcasting as well as the Tucker Carlson White Power Hour, where he echoes "great replacement" talking points as seen in mass shooter "manifestos".

Their news viewers will be blissfully unaware that Matt Gaetz is going through some things. They will also be unaware of the bombshell dropped yesterday about Kilimnik's role in passing polling data from Manafort to the GRU in 2016, or his involvement in Russian disinformation efforts around Ukraine. A search of Fox News' website this morning gives no mentions of Kilimnik at all during the entire period from the start of the election campaign in 2020, apart from one dismissive reference by Gutfeld on a talk show.

Hewre's a litmus test. See if you can find stories on Fox News that discuss how Georgia's new voter suppression laws will differentially impact Black Americans, and what the inference is of allowing the state legislature to intervene in actual vote tallying. You'll find lots of Republican talking heads spouting outrage at the mere suggestion that this is racist, and plenty of talk about "concerns" over election fraud in what Trump's own appointee called the most secure election in American history. But if you can find any story that says the Georgia laws are bad and the proposed For The People Act anything other than pure evil, you'll be doign better than me. And yes, that;'s within the news sections of their website. Their opinion shows are 100% on board with the GOP message that any vote other than for a Republican is presumptively fraudulent, because the most historically unpopular president in US history was defeated in an election where people got to vote despite a raging pandemic. Guy ( help! - typo?) 10:17, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Not in disagreement on JzG's point here related to the original question, but I would say the situation around Sandmann and the media is a reason we need to be more careful on "breaking" news coverage of disputes, particularly around contentious situations, beyond laying down the established facts, per NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM, a trait that applies to all RSes equally. We can cover facts but should avoid opinions and analysis until the situation has calmed down enough (which may take weeks or month) to be able to a clearer view of the situation. But fully agree that this specific case does not affect these sources reliability: WaPost issued its correction about a month and a half later. -- Masem ( t) 16:38, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• Guy, I disagree with your POV and perspective of what actually took place but I'm sure that's no surprise. In fact, your reasoning for WaPo settling could be applied to all civil cases that are settled out of court. In this particular case, there is clear evidence of what took place. I didn't read past the Stirewalt comment and what appears to be a rant over Fox News. This discussion is focused on the reliability of WaPo. Moving on, I will provide further indisputable evidence that will prove a level of unreliability that surpasses Fox News.

  WaPo's unreliability is not simply because of their political bias, which can be a bit extreme at times. What concerns me more is their inconsistency and failure to conduct proper and ethical journalistic investigation prior to publishing controversial material in their articles. They also spin articles to appease their left-leaning demographics, not unlike what Fox News does to appease their right-leaning demographics, but that's expected. They also appear to be reluctant to admit their mistakes - and it may very well be purposeful. There is indisputable evidence of prejudice or a strong dislike, possibly even hatred, for Trump by Jeff Bezos, which would most likely trickle down to political news staff; therefore, whenever Trump is involved, WaPo as a source is unquestionably unreliable. Another issue is that WaPo appears too willing to accept unverified material from anonymous sources, and will publish it without further investigation, as the following demonstrates.

  Let's not pretend that capitalists aren't in control of mainstream media or that they don't influence what gets published; after all, they have a lot at stake. And WaPo is conveniently located in D.C., quite convenient for Bezos. I'm not aware of any news source that is above spinning a story, publishing a theory (aka speculation) which may or may not involve a conspiracy, sensationalizing a headline (clickbait), creating montage artwork from different photographs to fit an online page or story, or publishing a potential lie disguised as an unproven/unsubstantiated statement - journalists are wordsmiths, and yes, it's all about semantics. There are quality journalists out there but I'm not seeing any sign of such high quality at WaPo (compared to say, academic, science, & medical journals), especially when it involves politics.

  WaPo obviously wasn't too concerned that what they published may not have been true. See the following: WaPo correction - it took 2 months for them to correct the misinformation they published, but only after they were under pressure to do so; i.e., the actual recording had been released. They did not conduct due diligence. Worse yet, the following news sources in the echo chamber repeated that same misinformation citing WaPo:

1. CNN,
2. MSNBC,
3. ABC,
4. NBC,
5. PBS, etc.

It's not just WaPo - even The NYTimes and WSJ have smudge on their hands, although if my memory serves, only WaPo returned a Pulitzer and the NYTimes had to bear the shame of 4 years of Jayson_Blair, and most recently this fallout. WaPo reported Many news organizations have suffered major embarrassments over the last two decades. The Post returned a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 over reporter Janet Cooke's invention of an 8-year-old heroin addict. The Wall Street Journal's R. Foster Winans was convicted of selling advance information from his column. NBC staged a fiery truck crash on "Dateline." The New Republic published 27 fabricated articles by Stephen Glass, and the Boston Globe several bogus columns by Patricia Smith. And then added But in scope, breadth, pathos and sheer human inventiveness for covering his fictional tracks, Jayson Blair may have no equal, especially considering that his transgressions occurred at one of the nation's most prestigious and carefully edited newspapers.

Another example, just last year the NYTimes broke a story provided to them by an anonymous source that Russians put bounties on US troops, (anonymous source is the 1st red flag). It went viral in mainstream media. A recent update providing a more accurate account of the story was published by the Daily Beast, April 15, 2021 - nearly a year after the story broke. There was rampant misinformation by multiple news sources. This is one of many reasons we should adhere more closely to RECENTISM and BREAKINGNEWS. There's always Wikinews for the impatient. Beware WP:POV creep based on plausible deniability and material that is spread by the echo chamber, which is not unlike a news wire; therefore, a single source, not to be confused with multiple independent RS in compliance with WP:V.

Following is what's left in the wake of WaPo's false reporting:

1. Jan. 9, 2021 original false information (no correction);
2. March 11, 2021 the corrected version - two months apart.
3. CNN updated March 15th.

You can hunt down the other corrections, if there are any. I also disagree to some aspects of the belief that correcting mistakes demonstrates a source's credibility. While I agree that correcting honest mistakes is an ethical practice, I take issue when media publishes questionable material and assumes the position that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than waste time gathering facts when a deadline is pressing, or my candidate needs to win. We expect career journalists to defend a forgive me, but we all make mistakes position, which explains this Poynter article, but notice how often WaPo is mentioned in that article, and also notice the Fox News retraction so to say one publisher's retraction is a sign of credibility while another's is not, well...got resource bias? Here are a few more WaPo "oops". All totaled, I'd say it deserves more than a meh, or other form of dismissal.

1. Politico 2015
2. Correction 2019
3. Intercept #8: On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing “more than 200 websites” of being “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans.” It added: “stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times.”
4. Intercept #9: On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that “Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont,” causing predictable outrage and panic, along with threats from U.S. political leaders.

Happy editing! Atsme 💬 📧 22:58, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

To deal with one particular case you bring up: the difference being while Trump did not say the specific words attributed to him... he still said some words. It wasn't whole cloth. The call took place. There was pressure. Things were inferred. To then suggest they did not conduct "due diligence" is misleading. Raffensberger said he knew of the call but not the content. Trump and the White House said nothing. The call was reportedly not recorded and it took an FOI to find. Then when it was found the contents turn out to be not too dissimilar as summaries go. A bit Chinese whispers maybe, but readily cleared up by anyone if they spoke to the WaPo - and they didn't. Koncorde ( talk) 23:28, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I personally think the false quote is a really big deal. Think about a legal case. If you are before a judge and you say, I have a recording where Mr X says [thing]. Then on cross you admit you don't have the recording and you only have a summary of what Mr X was reported to have said. You just lied to the court. You said you had something that you didn't. We can argue that the bigger picture wasn't changed but it means you were willing to lie to tell the story you wanted to sell. Once you are willing to start to lie to your readers how can we know the lies are material or not (BTW, I used the word "you" as a generalized person, please don't take it to mean you personally). This is like a relationship who's trust is broke when someone gets caught lying about something that may not be that big a deal but the lie is. If the WP offered a summary of what their source claimed Trump said, that would have been fine. Offering a direct, yet false quote? I would have hoped someone would have been fired for that. Springee ( talk) 03:09, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

They never claimed to have the quote on tape. This was not a legal case. They were not before a judge. They were given the information by someone directly informed by the person involved in the conversation with Trump. If she misled the second party, or the second party inferred their own meaning to the WaPo and when the WaPo reached out they refused to speak to them... fuck'em, publish anyway. It is clearly in the public interest. That WaPo gives the context The Washington Post reported on the substance of Trump’s Dec. 23 call in January, describing him saying that Watson should “find the fraud” and that she would be a “national hero,” based on an account from Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state, whom Watson briefed on his comments. If someone is given opportunity to refute and they don't take it... fuck'em, publish anyway. It is clearly in the public interest. Repeat, wash, repeat. Would it have been better to not attribute inaccurate quotes, but imply the content? It wouldn't make much difference, and it certainly isn't lying (unless the lying was done by Fuchs purposely changed the words to be more inflammatory). Newspapers literally publish thousands of articles per year relying on inside sources. Dozens upon dozens about things people have said or done. This is de rigueur. Koncorde ( talk) 19:19, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• Meh. What distinguishes a reliable source from an unreliable one would be timely corrections on stories with factually inaccurate content. News organisations will make mistakes. Timely is relative and arguable. And also what matters is how much effort had to be put in to have a correction published. An organisation that needs to be dragged through independent regulators / experience a media circus before publishing a retraction may have its reliability more questioned, verses one that publishes a very visible correction once it becomes aware of and verifies an inaccuracy. That's not to say there's no valid assertion being raised here, but these points do have to be remembered. My overall impression is that WAPO maintains high standards and is reliable. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 10:58, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Looking closer: the correction in that WAPO article is very visible and right at the top of the article, with no qualifications. And it's also relatively minor for the story being made. Compare that to this or this, where you have a news organisation pushing not to correct factual inaccuracies and repeatedly engaging in, IMO, deceptive journalism, with full knowledge of what they're doing. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 11:13, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• "The rare error which is promptly corrected" is very different from "frequent errors that are rarely corrected". FN, DM and the like have a fundamentally different editorial process from real news sources, resulting in a vastly different standard of "truth". François Robere ( talk) 11:45, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• I think the WP has showed strong partisan bias while Trump was in office and between the falsely attributed Trump quote, the Sandman incident and some others which I recall but don't have at have. I suspect Fox gets a lot more scrutiny simply because Fox wasn't walking in step with the rest. It's harder to say when the WP gets it wrong since so many other sources seem to be in agreement with them (look at how many sources took their Trump quotes to be golden). However, I'm less certain there is a practical reason to do this. Fox was often a contrarian view point thus if we can have Fox declared not reliable then we don't have to worry about including that pesky other POV. When it comes to things said by the WP, well we are still likely to find other news sites that will say basically the same thing. Even if we were to say the WP is deprecated (note: I'm saying this to set up a logical argument only), how often would that force a true change to an article? How often would the same facts/statements be solely found in the WP? I don't think the evidence presented to downgrade Fox was sufficient. I think that was as much a personal opinion vote as anything. I think the evidence here is also "not good" but not enough to make me down grade the overall "reliable" ranking. Really, if we wanted to do something better for overall quality and neutrality of our articles we should probably think about standards for how things should be summarized or when we should/should not use "soundbite" quotes from articles or when we should distinguish between a reporter stating facts vs a reporter adding their own analysis or worse, their own out right opinions. Springee ( talk) 02:50, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with the popularity vote comment about some RSN discussions in general (not saying it happened to Fox, but it happens on here). What might be good is establishing a guideline on what makes a source unreliable and/or deprecated. That way, editors will have a base to evidence from, and closers can chuck out arguments that aren't in step with the guideline. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 11:21, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• Why is this even being discussed like it is a serious observation? What a waste of time. The two sources (if Fox can actually be called "news") are poles apart in terms of serious journalism. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 03:03, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Bad discussion. This reads more like reasons to upgrade Fox News to the same rating as Washington Post more than anything else. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 15:26, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Once again corrections and retractions are indicators of a reliable source not an unreliable one. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 15:50, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
  • While I generally agree, attributing a controversial direct quote to a president and correcting only when an actual recording of the discussion, something the WP didn't have when claiming the exact quote, turns up is more than just "new information". That is lying to your spouse then saying, "well the truth is" once the lie is obvious. That's the sort of screwup that says your editorial standards should be questioned. We have deprecated other sources for fabricating quotes. The WP did exactly that here. Integrity is they redact when they internally know something was wrong. When an external source shows that you are wrong its rather late to say, "we issued a correction". Springee ( talk) 16:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

I disagree, that is the appropriate time to issue a correction. I think your argument is also slipping into hyperbole, unless theres more to this story than I’ve seen reported. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 16:39, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Of course they should issue a correction. The problem is that it happened at all. It's one thing to get something wrong when you shouldn't have known better. It's quite another to get it wrong when you should know better as in this case. If a medical expert tells you that 50% of cases they see are X then it's understandable to assume that expert is correct. If a source who might be biased tells you "the President said X" perhaps you should not treat it like a reliably sourced quote. Springee ( talk) 17:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• Useless false equivalency trying to redeem the unredeemable propaganda outlet that is Fox News. oknazevad ( talk) 16:29, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not so much concerned about the particular quote from Trump's phone call to the Georgia election official. The Washington Post got the exact quote wrong, but it appears that it got the gist of the conversation correct. There's another story that I find far more troubling: the alleged Russian bounty program in Afghanistan. Many news agencies reported uncritically on US intelligence claims that Russia had paid the Taliban bounties to attack US troops. If you read the Washington Post's articles carefully, they almost always attribute the claims about the supposed bounty program to US intelligence or anonymous senior officials, but there are also ambiguous passages in the Washington Post's reporting that could give the impression that the newspaper is endorsing the veracity of the claims. Here are a few examples:

• " Russian operation targeted coalition troops in Afghanistan, intelligence finds":

  A Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan, including U.S. and British troops, in a striking escalation of the Kremlin’s hostility toward the United States, American intelligence has found. The Russian operation, first reported by the New York Times, has generated an intense debate within the Trump administration about how best to respond to a troubling new tactic by a nation that most U.S. officials regard as a potential foe but that President Trump has frequently embraced as a friend, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive intelligence matter.

• " Timeline: What we know about the Russia bounties intelligence and Trump":

  The New York Times first reported — with The Washington Post and others confirming — that U.S. intelligence has assessed that a Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan to kill coalition troops, including American ones. The Post further reported that the bounties have indeed been linked to U.S. troop deaths.

• " Russian bounties to Taliban-linked militants resulted in deaths of U.S. troops, according to intelligence assessments":

  Russian bounties offered to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several U.S. service members, according to intelligence gleaned from U.S. military interrogations of captured militants in recent months.

• I'll add in an example from the New York Times, just to show that the problem extends beyond the Washington Post. " Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops":

  United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the matter. They believed at least one U.S. troop death was the result of the bounties, two of the officials said. The crucial information that led the spies and commandos to focus on the bounties included the recovery of a large amount of American cash from a raid on a Taliban outpost that prompted suspicions. [...] The details added to the picture of the classified intelligence assessment [...]

Now, I'm sure that some editors will jump in and say that the Washington Post does not unambiguously state that the bounty program actually exists. But in my experience, editors often use articles exactly like those above, in which newspapers report uncritically on claims by US intelligence, in order to argue that those intelligence claims are true, and should be put in Wikivoice. The argument goes something like this: the Washington Post treats these reports as credible, and does not express any doubt. An editor arguing for treating the reports as true might also point to the Washington Post's statement, The Post further reported that the bounties have indeed been linked to U.S. troop deaths. That could be spun as a definitive statement by any editor who wanted to claim, in Wikivoice, that there was indeed a Russian bounty program.

As many editors are probably now aware, it recently emerged that US intelligence only has "low to moderate" confidence in the story about Russian bounties. In intelligence jargon, that means the story is very likely to be complete nonsense. Yet the Washington Post wrote several news articles treating this story as if it were credible, and a casual reader of the newspaper would come away with a strong impression that the program existed. The Washington Post isn't alone here - much of the American media jumped in and published the same sorts of uncritical articles.

What implications does this have for WP:RS policy? I'd say that we have to emphasize two things:

1. Be extremely careful about attributing claims like this. If a news article says, "US intelligence has assessed that ...", "... according to intelligence", or "... are believed to have resulted in ...", then editors must attribute the claims. They cannot argue that the Washington Post's credulity means we can put a claim in Wikivoice. We can be fairly certain that the Washington Post is not making up the existence of the intelligence reports, or that it is not making up the fact that "senior officials" have said X, but whether those intelligence reports or those senior officials are correct is an entirely different matter.
2. Recognize that even reliable sources have biases, and seek out sources with different perspectives. In particular, strive to present a global perspective. American media is likely to be overly credulous about the claims of US intelligence agencies or the US government. We've seen this over and over again, with the alleged Russian bounty program, with Iraqi WMD, etc. Who ended up being correct about the Russian bounty program? Some international newspapers (such as the Moscow Times) and some smaller outlets (including the deprecated Grayzone, which called the reports "dubious").

I don't know exactly how we should make the two above points clearer in the pages describing RS policy, but I think they're important to emphasize. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 17:08, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Hindsight is 20/20. It could have easily been the case that these reports got confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt (as is the case with most NYT/WaPo story), in which case Wikipedia's voice stating According to The Washington Post would be casting an undue doubt on the veracity of the story. A story that is reported in matter-of-fact language by multiple highly reliable sources should not be attributed in Wikipedia's voice. If the reporting by such highly reliable sources changes, we should then - and only then - change or alter the Wikipedia article. But before that, the attribution of a story to the highly reliable source that are reporting it in matter-of-fact language would give WP:UNDUE weight to the niche, heterodox sources that dispute it. JBchrch ( talk) 19:07, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

I think you've missed the point I'm making. The "Russian bounty program" is a story in which there never was actually any confirmation beyond a reasonable doubt. There were numerous unsubstantiated claims, based on statements from US intelligence, that were related uncritically by the Washington Post, the New York Times and many other American news outlets. Most of the time, news outlets attributed these claims to US intelligence (meaning that WP:INTEXT should technically apply), though sometimes attribution was ambiguous or missing. There were outlets that were appropriately skeptical, given the lack of publicly available evidence to back up the claims (above, I noted the Moscow Times and the deprecated Grayzone), but WaPo and NYT were not. My basic point is that in such situations,

1. We have to be extremely careful about attribution. If news agencies are relating claims by intelligence agencies, for example, treat them as claims. Don't put them in Wikivoice.
2. American media is overly credulous about claims of US intelligence agencies and the US government. We have to be aware of this bias, and make sure that we are presenting a global view.

The alternative, which I often hear, is that if sources like the Washington Post or New York Times uncritically report on claims by US intelligence, then we should then drop in-text attribution and treat those claims as fact. There are enough examples of major stories in which this would have been a terrible idea (such as the "Russian bounty program"), that I think we need to emphasize in-text attribution and the fact that even sources like WaPo and NYT have biases and blindspots. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 20:03, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

I think I got your point, my point being that if highly reliable sources report some news stories in matter-of-fact language (or "uncritically" as you say it), who are we to cast a doubt on their reporting? That would be a form of WP:OR (or, considering the sources you brought up, WP:UNDUE weight). When you say American media is overly credulous about claims of US intelligence agencies and the US government, you are making a very broad generalisation which I would expect to be backed by a large amount of very serious sources, as it would have a substantial effect on Wiki-policy. In any case, — all things being equal and provided that we are speaking of stories reported in matter-of-fact language by several high-quality sources — we can change articles when the reporting changes, so I don't really see the point of putting so much burden on the shoulder of editors. JBchrch ( talk) 20:43, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

There are two problems:

1. What to do when what you're calling "highly reliable sources" report on unsubstantiated claims in ambiguous language? In this case, the Washington Post did, for the most part, attribute claims of the existence of a Russian bounty program to "US intelligence officials", "anonymous officials", "reports", etc. But in some cases, the Washington Post appeared to drop attribution, though the wording was sometimes ambiguous. And some outlets, like Vox, went way over the line and appeared to state definitively that the program existed.
2. Can we continue to maintain that sources that repeatedly report overly credulously on unsubstantiated claims by US intelligence are always, in every case, highly reliable?

I would expect to be backed by a large amount of very serious sources: In the run-up to the Iraq War, the Washington Post, the New York Times and many other American media outlets reported largely uncritically on US government assertions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It has now just come out that a major story that these very same outlets reported on uncritically - the Russian bounty program - is also likely bogus. There is a certain point at which we have to recognize that there is a systemic problem here, and that we have to be particularly careful when these outlets relate unsubstantiated claims by US intelligence. I think the way to address the problem is to be scrupulous about attribution (if there's any ambiguity, attribute the claim) and to use a broader array of global media (particularly for stories with an international element). - Thucydides411 ( talk) 09:46, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Looking now at how different American media organizations covered the "Russian bounty program" that likely didn't exist, I have to say that it's bad. If one looks at news articles from June and July 2020, when the story broke, there is a lot of credulous coverage. As an example, take this Vox article. Some quotes from the article:

The Associated Press reported on Monday night that in March 2019, then-National Security Adviser John Bolton personally briefed Trump on the Russian scheme.

Experts on Russia and Afghanistan say the underlying claim — that Russia paid bounties to Afghan militants to kill US troops — is quite plausible.

Initially, it wasn’t particularly clear how this Russian program worked or how solid the US intelligence about it was. But in the past day, the strength of the intelligence in question become disturbingly clear.

Both the Russian government and the Taliban have denied the allegations, and the militants pointed out in a statement to the Times that they don’t need any incentives from the Russians to want to kill Americans.

At this point, I know there will be people who will cite Mandy Rice-Davies Applies, to argue that Russian denials should not be presented on Wikipedia. After all, they would deny it, wouldn't they? Maybe, but the Russian denials now appear to have been correct. More from the Vox article:

But experts find the claim fairly credible, noting that such schemes are broadly consistent with how Russia operates these days.

This isn’t just a more violent extension of the 2016 election hacking campaign, in short. It’s a reflection of the way in which, under Putin, Russian foreign policy has become a project of attaining a particular vision of national greatness — a tool for avenging historical humiliations and restoring the Kremlin to its rightful place as one of the world’s great powers. To do that, America must be punished.

This is really bad. Vox is listed as "generally reliable" at WP:RSP. It's easy to find these sorts of terribly credulous articles in other "generally reliable" sources from the time. I don't think this lapse in multiple reliable sources should be brushed off, and it should have consequences for how we use and view reliable sources. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 20:32, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Your claims are without merit, and this seems to be just you taking jabs at a source you do not like. Being wrong about a story does not make a reliable source less reliable; it is what the reliable source actually does if a story turns out to be wrong (or in this particular instance, not yet corroborated). Unreliable sources double-down and scream "FAKE NEWS!", while the good sources report that the story is now unverified, and then self-reflect on their editorial practices. Zaathras ( talk) 20:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

You are correct that being wrong about a particular story does not necessarily make a source unreliable. However, presenting unsubstantiated claims as if they were facts is journalistic malpractice, and does make a source less reliable. I'm not "taking jabs" at a source because I "do not like" it. I don't have any particular dislike for Vox. I'm pointing out that they acted irresponsibly here - that they failed to uphold the basic journalistic practice of not presenting unconfirmed claims as true. I don't think anyone can look at the Vox article I linked above and claim that that was good journalism, and I don't think we should just say, "Well, it could happen to any newspaper." No, it wouldn't happen to a newspaper that was careful about separating facts from unsubstantiated claims. Vox failed to do so here. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 08:48, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

A problem with that would be resulting in the type of uncertainty discourse that divisive propagandists are trying to seed: it's all just opposing opinions and narratives without sound basis, in such confusion, believe whatever you want, etc. Which can be mitigated with policies like WP:RS, WP:YESPOV, WP:GEVAL and ultimately WP:NOTNEWS to determine what's worth covering. This doesn't mean that everything is perfect and that even the best sources don't err, of course. Also, encyclopedia summary style is different to journalism reporting style... — Paleo Neonate – 08:55, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think expressing uncertainty in situations in which there actually is uncertainty is something that only "divisive propagandists" should want. I raise the "Russian bounty program" because it shows that perceptions around here about how to use sources are somewhat out-of-touch with reality. The Washington Post objectively did a bad job of reporting this story, and was overly credulous about claims that were never actually substantiated. The Washington Post was just careful enough in attributing claims that one could plausibly argue that they never claimed that a Russian bounty program existed. But they were also just ambiguous enough that any Wikipedia editor who wanted to could have written, in Wikivoice, that the Russian bounty program existed. I think one way to address this problem is to be much more careful about attribution (especially with these types of stories that rely heavily on unsubstantiated claims by anonymous officials). We may actually have to be more careful about attribution than some individual articles. It's often the case that many news sources do properly hedge and attribute unsubstantiated claims, but that a few articles (such as the Vox article I quoted from above) do not. In such circumstances, we should not use the most assertive (or reckless) news source as an excuse to ignore the hedging in other news sources. I think that that would already go a long way towards remedying the problem. The other way to address these sorts of problems is to make more of an effort to use global sources, especially for stories with an international (i.e., non-US) component. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 09:56, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

This. National press is notoriously reflective of national moods and sentiment. Ideally when reporting on controversial subjects there should be both very specific attribution to the source, and it should always be corroborated where possible with additional sources that are one step removed where possible.

However I disagree about the coverage of the Bounty program. Intelligence stated low to moderate confidence, but the significance of the story was latterly the denial by Trump of being briefed (despite evidence to the contrary) and that he failed to raise the matter or make any further inroads towards clearing it up. The habit by any press will be to lend more credence to the intelligence where there is reticence to respond to it, or a wall of silence. In short: sometimes the press release played like a fiddle, but that doesn't mean they should stop playing the tune. Koncorde ( talk) 10:06, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Intelligence stated low to moderate confidence: But readers of the Washington Post could easily have gotten the impression that existence of the bounty program was essentially proven. WaPo did tend to attribute the claims about the supposed bounty program, but it wasn't always careful to do so. Vox was even less careful, declaring the evidence to be strong: But in the past day, the strength of the intelligence in question become disturbingly clear. The impression given by these outlets was that the program existed, and knowing how Wikipedia works, that could easily turn into unjustified statements in Wikivoice. Any editor who wanted to make the claim, in Wikivoice, that the bounty program definitely existed could have found enough individual passages from the Washington Post's reporting to justify the claim.

the significance of the story was latterly the denial by Trump of being briefed (despite evidence to the contrary) and that he failed to raise the matter or make any further inroads towards clearing it up: Yes, that was one reason why the story received so much attention. I'm loathe to bring this up, because it will give some people the impression that I'm somehow trying to defend Trump, but I do think that a desire to nail Trump also clouded reporting on the Russian bounty program. We all know that the Washington Post and Vox are not favorably disposed towards Trump, and if the Russian bounty program were real and Trump didn't respond to it, that would make Trump look very bad. So there were partisan reasons to believe in the story, even if the usual credulity towards intelligence agencies also played a large role here. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 12:03, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

To iterate what I've said above, WaPost has shown the necessary journalistic integrity to fix mistakes they make, and there is no need to downgrade it due to these rush-to-press stories. What this should imply on WP is reitation of WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:RECENTISM, that if a story breaks that seems incredulous and there's only one or few sources reporting on it (as the case of the Trump GA call or the cases the Intercept pointed out) -- where WaPost later corrected themselves - we should not be rushing to include these claims in WP until we ourselves have assurance the claims are backed up. If that means we may not cover something for a day or three, that's appropriate in the context of WP:NOT (Instead, those that really want to provide crowd-sourced news should feel free to use Wikinews to write up coverage which potentially can be integrated back to en.wiki). This is different from when there's breaking factual reporting with reasonable corrobation - eg the events of Jan 6's Capitol riots, for example, which we can cover immediately as long as we stay close to fact and not speculation. If we followed that principle when WaPost broke these stories, we likely would not be having to revise and rework after the corrections came out. But this also is why the same applies to Fox or other biased sources; it gives us some breathing time to see where the story is falling and how it is being backed up before we ourselves commit. -- Masem ( t) 20:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

I disagree, Masem - and I'm a paid subscriber to WaPo. They are not the old WaPo - they're the new internet WaPo, and you just don't make that many major mistakes that close together, one of which took 2 months to issue a correction - that's shoddy journalism, not an innocent mistake. They are purposely publishing unverified material for clickbait and they won't hesitate to blame it on an anonymous source - and who can prove otherwise? Read the other links I've added because WaPo leads the pack in corrections - at least, those are the ones we know about. I have not taken the time to see if they have any stories they might have buried but I wouldn't put it past them. Don't forget, they had to return a Pulitzer which tells us their editorial oversight is questionable at best. Too many fumbles for far too long. Atsme 💬 📧 03:36, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

They couldn't issue a correction any sooner when nobody would correct the record until the phone call was released. That's like saying the coverage of the Ukraine Call shouldn't have never been discussed prior to the release of the call... which it still hasn't been. That is neither reasonable nor the norm for any news reporting. Koncorde ( talk) 10:06, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

They knew they didn't have the evidence to support claims of direct quotes yet they did anyway. That is a failure on their editorial standards. If they couldn't confirm the direct quotes they should have stuck with summaries. Of course they waited until it was clear the quotes were false as they had no reason to retract before that and after the fact they basically had no choice. Again, the proper way to handle this would have been to emphasize a summary of what the source said not promote a word for word, damning quote with no hard evidence. It suggests they were more interested in a shocking quote driving the story vs reporting only what they could reasonably confirm. Springee ( talk) 12:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The "Russian bounties" story was not a rush-to-press situation. The story broke in June 2020, and it has taken until April 2021 for it to emerge that the story was most likely bogus. In the meantime, many American news outlets reported the claims of intelligence officials uncritically. The Washington Post most often attributed the claims, but it sometimes dropped attribution and appeared to claim, in its own authoritative voice, that the bounties really existed.

The problem here is that the claims of "Russian bounties" were never actually backed up by solid evidence. They never moved beyond claims by anonymous US intelligence officials. Yet they were repeated ad nauseam by the Washington Post, and a reader of the Post could easily have gotten the impression that the existence of the Russian bounty program had been confirmed.

I don't think it's enough to say that every newspaper makes some occasional mistakes. A basic principle of good journalism is to separate unsubstantiated claims from established facts. The reporting by the Washington Post and other major American news outlets on the probably-nonexistent Russian bounty program blurred this line, and sometimes (as with the Vox article I linked above) obliterated it. That's just bad journalism.

I think we have to draw two conclusions here:

1. We have to be very careful about giving in-text attribution when we're relating unsubstantiated claims. It's not enough to say, "The Washington Post hasn't expressed skepticism, so we can treat it as true."
2. We have to try harder to give a global perspective, and to not rely solely on American media, which has its own systematic biases (being overly credulous about claims by US intelligence, for example). In the case of Russian bounties, that could mean looking at Russian media, to see what it is saying about the same story.

- Thucydides411 ( talk) 09:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Statements like is also likely bogus and the story was most likely bogus are as much a rush to judgement as the rush you lambast the Washington Post for doing. At present, the bounty story is simply uncorroborated, that is NOT a synonym for bogus. Second, looking at Russian media, to see what it is saying about the same story ? There's virtually no independent media in the current state of Russia, and they consistently rank near the bottom of global press freedoms rankings. This project never should not and hopefully never will use a scrap of sourcing from Russian media unless it is to attribute the simplest of facts. ValarianB ( talk) 11:58, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

At present, the bounty story is simply uncorroborated: Which means that news agencies that gave the impression that it was strongly corroborated did not do their job. If you look at the Vox (RSP: generally reliable) piece I quoted from above, it essentially treats existence of the bounty program as a fact. The Washington Post was not as bad as Vox on this (although the Washington Post's Outlook section was as bad as Vox here: [42]), but it did repeat the intelligence claims credulously, and made somewhat ambiguous statements that could be interpreted as definitive claims that the bounty program exists. And it's difficult to defend the New York Times' initial article, which broke the story, which claims: American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan [...] according to officials briefed on the matter. As we now know, the intelligence agencies actually considered the claims about the existence of a bounty program to be only weakly supported.

This project never should not and hopefully never will use a scrap of sourcing from Russian media unless it is to attribute the simplest of facts. This is a terrible attitude to take, and it will lead us to have very skewed coverage of issues related to Russia. Vedomosti and Kommersant quoted skeptical opinions on the US intelligence claims: [43]. The Moscow Times also published a skeptical opinion about the story. Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia, and we can't just rule out coverage from wide swaths of the globe. In this case, Russian media turned out to be appropriately skeptical, and American media turned out to be overly credulous. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 12:45, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Both of Thucydides' points are spot on, but we also should be careful on giving such stories undue coverage as long as they remain uncorroborated as well. I have no idea what actually happened, editing wise, on WP with that WaPost story, but I would think that that WaPost story could merit an attributed sentence or two in some larger article ("According to the WaPost...") but it would not be appropriate to just to make a wholly new article based on that WaPost article and likely dozens of other sources that ride it. That's still a RECENTISM issue, that until we have a better grasp of the validity of a single-source RS claim that seems incredulous, we should tiptoe carefully; we are absolutely not required to include such breaking information and it is better to wait to make sure we include the right information than highly speculative info from sources. But this applies to all RSes, even NYTimes and BBC, and doesn't change how we use the WaPost. -- Masem ( t) 12:53, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Masem, from your perspective what is the primary difference between Fox pundit opinions errors and WaPo news journalist errors? Isn't the latter a great deal more to be concerned about since it's news not opinion? Fox News is reliable for news but their pundits are not - and I don't have an issue with that as long as all sources with pundits are treated with the same consideration, but that's not what I'm seeing. The problem I see is that WaPo journalists are acting more like political pundits and publishing misinformation but they can issue a correction 2 months later and we say atta boy, you're forgiven. Who cares if you had to return a Pulitzer? In that same breath we say to Fox you suck because you never won a Pulitzer, and you cater to right-wing audiences and that's unforgivable on WP, and we don't care how many times you retract/correct your errors. Your pundit opinions are not allowed! Is that the thinking? In case you haven't noticed, we're running out of all types of right leaning sources to cite in order to provide all significant views, and that includes articles about right wing topics - it's kinda funny. It reminds me of how some universities refused to allow conservative speakers onto their campuses (some of whom I wouldn't allow, either) but what about free speech and open dialogue? Is that what we're doing; not allowing conservative opinion on WP? How is that the sum of all knowledge? I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I've had a long & successful career in media and I am dumbfounded by the way we're treating sources - it is so obviously partisan. The system we're using is flawed because it's primarily opinion based. Oh they made errors and don't bother to correct them!! Really? Show me the errors they didn't correct, or are you referring to opinions? They cast aspersions and downgrade a source, and all I've ever asked for is evidence to support the allegations, the same way I presented evidence throughout this discussion. I think WaPo definitely deserves the same consideration that Fox received with a 3 or 5 panel close of politically neutral admins. I would just like to understand why it's not being allowed, and we're simply dismissing any discussion about it, and those of us who do discuss it become targets if we dare advise editors to excercise caution when citing WaPo, and use in-text attribution. Atsme 💬 📧 04:04, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

It is an unfortunate reality that right-wing sources are by-and-large less reliable, and right-wing people are more likely to share fake news ( "Conservatives were more likely to share articles from fake news domains, which in 2016 were largely pro-Trump in orientation, than liberals or moderates"). As Guy pointed out, Colbert's statement that "reality has a well-known liberal bias" is sadly rather accurate. Extremists on both sides of the isle are prone to succumbing to journalistic excess and promoting fake news, but the fact is that much right-wing media was created as a reaction to a purported left-wing bias in mainstream media, and many of these outlets, such as Fox News, are intentionally much much further to the right (and closer to fitting the definition of extremist) than WaPo and NYT are to the left. There is much less daylight between Fox News and the Daily Caller than there is between the WaPo and the Daily Kos. It is a false equivalency to compare Fox News and the WaPo or NYT as though they were both similar outlets who are similarly far to one side of the political spectrum, and similarly lax in journalistic integrity. A better comparison would be Fox News and something like Huffington Post, which has an RSP entry that largely includes the same caveats as Fox News'. When there actually is equivalency, we treat them equivalently. NonReproBlue ( talk) 06:17, 20 April 2021 (UTC)