Talk:Raw Story

Trim content section?

Due to frequent requests by TRS' editorial staff, the content section is running afoul of WP:EXCESSDETAIL and is turning into an exhaustive index of TRS' past articles. Most of these are sourced to a single outlet aggregating a TRS story and providing a link credit to TRS. Using this as a standard, the Content section will quickly spin wildly out of control; this is a level of detail we provide to no other media outlet. Should we remove mention of articles in which the article itself (versus the content of the article) is not the subject of a story? By my count, using a very generous interpretation, that would preclude inclusion of these:

• "In 2011, Raw Story was among the first outlets..."
• "In 2014, Jennifer Mascia published a column ..."
• "The same year, the outlet broke news of the connection..."
• "On February 15, 2021, Raw Story reported ..."
• "In 2023, Raw Story was the first outlet to report ..."

Chetsford (talk) 20:05, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm too tired to go into any great lengths or depths today, so I'm responding off the cuff, here. And I'm not interested in arguing for each and every entry under "Content" (though I could be goaded). I referred to WP:EXCESSDETAIL in my edit summary because you had used it before, so I figured you had some familiarity with it. I have no great plans for the article, nor the section, but your recent addition [1] was out of line.

The state of the article when I first encountered it (around 6 months ago?) was atrocious. It seems an activist had deliberately googled "raw story" and added an enormous list of anything that was ever said bad about Raw Story that filled 2/3rds of the page. The content was a "list of incidents"; no source covered any such trends. That's not how we write articles in Wikipedia. I'd found a wiki policy on it at the time; can't think of it this minute, but I likely mentioned it in an earlier talk page discussion. I spent an enormous amount of effort trying to put the article at least in some sort of neutral POV. I researched and removed all the ridiculous paragraphs made by that one editor (Brandolini's law in play). The remaining 3 under "false claims" are from a different editor; I just never dug into those because of the tedium involved in such work.

Your new addition to the section was way off and fits the pattern of the earlier activist-added content in the article. Your rendition of the source was a misinterpretation, skewed to infer things about Raw Story that the source didn't even suggest. That is WP:SYNTH.

There's a large difference between mentioning content that a news outlet publishes especially if it was lauded or mentioned favorably by a third party, compared to mentioning individual digs or criticisms about individual incidents. Note: In most of the cases, the 'false claims' were content from syndicated sources and were corrected or removed from servers after discovery of falseness; a standard industry action. The only reason Raw Story was called out was because it was one of the outlets with far-reach, like most clicks or shares or similar, and the studies were analyzing reach and trends so of course they used examples drawn from Raw Story instead of one of the lesser-reach outlets who had published the same exact articles. But that editor tried to make it seem like Raw Story was making false claims deliberately and negligently, neither of which was true, and none of the sources cited had alleged that, either.

Your recent addition was in the same vein. You took some content where the authors used an example of a Raw Story article to illustrate how something could potentially be misleading, and wrote it like Raw Story deliberately did something bad. That's not what the source said.

I will leave you with this. No one is going to subscribe to or read Raw Story because of a Wikipedia article. However, people could be convinced not to subscribe or read Raw Story because of Wikipedia's article blowing all out of proportion individual incidents to give the impression of such 'false claims' happening all the time. Wikipedia requires us to source what we write and mandates it is verifiable and reliable. Unless one has a source (several, actually) indicating the negative reputation like that activist tried to paint, it's just not going to fly. Controversies and criticism need more reliable sources than praise or neutral content does. Grorp (talk) 03:47, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

That's not correct. Chetsford (talk) 07:06, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Chetsford. I was thinking to chime in on possible content but first wanted to take up the conversation here because I agree with you, particularly when looking at other pages. I think as @Grorp noted, part of the reason there were a lot of requests on the page for additions was to try and balance the page after it swung in an one-sidedly critical direction, without note to Raw Story's reporting.

While I'm wary of suggesting deletions, I think that some of the content is somewhat random and not necessarily useful for a Wikipedia reader. We may disagree on some of what we think is important to include, but of those that you mention I would say that it would be reasonable to remove:

• "In 2012, then-executive editor..." I'm not sure why this is included. I suppose Raw Story is the subject of the story, but it doesn't seem relevant to Raw Story's reporting coverage as a whole. The source story about the article is pretty thin, as well.
• "In 2014, Jennifer Mascia published a column ..." I agree. This is sort of just what someone did on a particular day. It is already referenced in the awards section with the Columbia Journalism Review mention.
• "The same year, the outlet..." I agree. I note that Adam Muema doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, and so I'm not sure he's notable enough to have reporting about him included.

Other thoughts:

• Regarding the "On February 15, 2021" entry, this was one for which Raw Story won an award and was cited by AP in breaking the story, so that seemed more notable.
• Regarding the "in 2023, Raw Story was the first to report" entry, these stories were part of a group of other stories Raw Story did about theft of money from politicians and political action committees. I believe there are additional references to this work, so let me look at that as homework.

False claim thought:

• Something I recently noticed about one of the claims is that the false claim "In December 2017..." is that it is factually accurate but confusing for the reader, because it implies CNN's mistake was Raw Story's. It's factually accurate that "In December 2017, Raw Story published an article based on a CNN report which mistakenly stated that on September 4, 2016..." But Raw Story never reported the incorrect date of the email. This is the story: https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/don-jr-and-other-trump-campaign-officials-were-offered-secret-link-to-wikileaks-hacks-report/ I went back in archive.org to be safe, and found this as the earliest version, in October 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20171209041612/https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/don-jr-and-other-trump-campaign-officials-were-offered-secret-link-to-wikileaks-hacks-report/ Raw Story had nothing to correct because its story was correct. The authors seem to have made an assumption about the date of the email being included. I suppose it can't be corrected because Raw Story is not a Wikipedia trusted source? But it's written in a way almost to be deliberately misleading to a Wikipedia reader, who would assume Raw Story erred on the date. Here's the top-level archive.org search where you can see what was published in 2017, prior to the date of the Oxford article: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/don-jr-and-other-trump-campaign-officials-were-offered-secret-link-to-wikileaks-hacks-report/

Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. Hope you are well. JByrne404 (talk) 20:47, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Rollback explanation

Editor 98.46.111.30, who remarks he/she is a "disinterested but professional academic editor/writer (retired prof); only concern here is rigor/verifiability", left the article a mess of half-done research and research notes (which don't belong in the article itself).

There was some original research added, especially phrases or sentences to which the user tagged as 'citation needed' -- so why add those at all?

Wikipedia does not need to record a blow-by-blow account of every action related to company acquisitions. That would be WP:UNDUE. Just state that something was bought, maybe a reason given why, record a date, and be done with it.

Edit summary complaint about no citation for people in infobox -- turns out it was in the body under section "Staff", but another editor had removed all the other people except for two. Current staff are found in the masthead which is cited in the body.

Edit summary complaint about naming a reference "HIV1"; I refer user to the domain name of the URL of the citation. There was probably an HIV2 which subsequently was deleted. Keep in mind the company owner advocates for HIV prevention so 'shivers up thy spine'... I refer editor to Wikipedia is not censored.

I will look at some of the complaints and fix a few, but if editor feels the need to add huge chunks of content, then I suggest approaching it with smaller bites. For example, fix citation formats in one edit (they'll probably be just fine), and add content in a separate edit. I hate to remove a series of a new editor's good faith edits, but I cannot fix this mess. Rollback it is. Grorp (talk) 08:43, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

New awards

• Specific text to be added or removed: In 2024, Raw Story won a SABEW Best in Business reporting award for its “Lawmakers, Law Breakers” series, which exposed Democratic and Republican lawmakers who violated U.S. conflict of interest and insider trading laws. It received honorable mentions in two other categories. The series also won the first place inaugural ION Award in 2023, which called the nonpartisan investigation “fair, bold, specific, and thoroughly documented.”
• Reason for the change: It's important for readers to understand that Raw Story has increasing authority in its Congressional coverage to better judge Raw Story as a journalistic outlet. These awards are valuable for readers' understanding because the series was notably nonpartisan; it reported on both Democrats and Republicans who violated the STOCK Act. The Best in Business awards are very competitive and the New York Times, Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal were also among the winners. Raw Story also won the Illinois Women's Press Association Award for the Lawmakers, Lawbreakers series, but it seemed superfluous to add to Wikipedia. A link to that, though, is included in the references section.
• References supporting change: https://sabew.org/contestsawards/best-in-business/ https://www.rawstory.com/congress-stock-act-violations/ https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/10/announcing-winners-of-the-inaugural-ion-awards/ https://www.iwpa.org/iwpa-announces-2024-mate-e-palmer-professional-communications-contest-winners/

JByrne404 (talk) 22:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 06:10, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Grorp! One quick additional request, since it falls in the same section. Raw Story also won an EPPY Award for best/news political blog in 2023 -- link here: https://www.eppyawards.com/ . Perhaps a note might also be included in the section to indicate the EPPY Award is an Editor & Publisher award, so "EPPY (Editor & Publisher) Award," when it's first mentioned? Thanks for any help you can provide. JByrne404 (talk) 20:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:39, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

History addition?

Editor & Publisher recently did a long profile of Raw Story, the type of trade publication article that can be useful in building a Wikipedia history section. https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/raw-story-exploring-new-ways-to-build-audience-with-investigative-news-paywalls-and-partnerships,248337

Here are two ideas, though any editor can take a look and see what merits inclusion.

Top of history section:

• Specific text to be added or removed: Raw Story was founded as a counterpoint to the right-leaning Drudge Report.
• Reason for the change: This seems particularly relevant in evaluating Raw Story's bias and original direction.
• References supporting change: https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/raw-story-exploring-new-ways-to-build-audience-with-investigative-news-paywalls-and-partnerships,248337

Possibly following first paragraph in history:

• Specific text to be added or removed: In its early days, Raw Story was known for scooping larger media outlets on their own stories and breaking them before publication. During the presidential administration of George W. Bush, Raw Story identified a secret CIA black site in Poland that was used for renditions.
• Reason for the change: The entry is missing any history between 2004 and 2017. This detail fills in some of that background.

References supporting change: https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/raw-story-exploring-new-ways-to-build-audience-with-investigative-news-paywalls-and-partnerships,248337 https://www.rawstory.com/2007/03/soviet-era-compound-in-northern-poland-was-site-of-secret-cia-interrogation-detentions/

Thanks for your consideration! JByrne404 (talk) 13:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

 Partly done: I think this was more appropriate for the "Coverage" section since it talks about what type of stories it does/has cover[ed]. Implemented here with a slight change to the first sentence to avoid any copyright concerns. CNMall41 (talk) 23:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi CNMall41. Thank you for considering this request! I'm wondering if you might reconsider adding it to the History section. I understand that this content reflects coverage, but there is also a big gap in History. It jumps from 2004 to 2017. I thought that "in its early days" would be a useful addition, since there is no information about the website prior to 2017. The Drudge Report element also seems germane to the History section, since it reflects why the website was started and its early creation.

Either way, I completely understand why you'd want to add it to Coverage and I thank you for your consideration. It just seemed that Coverage is already quite long and I think the History section is lacking, particularly in the 2004-2017 period. Hope you're having a nice weekend. JByrne404 (talk) 21:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: Thanks for the ping. I do think it fits better where it is but you are welcome to ask for other opinions. Also, the size of one section has no bearing on where to put information that may belong in another. It is all about WP:WEIGHT. CNMall41 (talk) 02:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)