Talk:Breitbart News

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 December 2017

Remove the "far right" from this entry. The use of the phrase is subjective, opinion, and misleading. The purpose and reason for continued support of this sit depends on impartial and consistent facts....not opinion. Thanks. 104.129.196.155 (talk) 20:20, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

 Not done - Consensus is to maintain the far right description. See previous discussions.- MrX 20:41, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

This is why I and many others no longer actively participate in this site and nobody takes this place's political articles seriously anymore. Its devolved into just a handful of rabid partisans squatting on their own personal fiefdoms. No rational person can think systematically going around frontloading the intros of rightwing organizations and people with labels from their opponents and negative info is 'neutrality' just because they got a few of their buddies together to agree and selectively googled a few 'citations' saying what they want to hear. Enjoy your 'victory while WP goes further down the toilet. Jarwulf (talk) 01:21, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

No one's going to force you to understand how Wikipedia works. You are free to wallow in ignorant self-righteousness. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the 5th most visited web site in the world. You might want to re-think your critiques a bit. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 December 2017

Remove the biased and opinion from this entry. Saying that the sight has been called bigoted and racist is deceptive to uninformed and those that are truly interested in reading, understanding, and learning something. In this day of social media and armchair reporting, anyone can be called any anything by anyone. The founder of Wikileaks has been called a rapist...yet he is innocent until proven guilty. 104.129.196.155 (talk) 20:25, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

 Not done - You did not specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it.- MrX 20:45, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Leftist political goggles

It's ridiculous that I even have to be here writing this. After reading this article, I skipped over to the Wikipedia entry for CNN, which cites objectively who founded it, and the history of the news network. It goes on to detail controversies, but is at least fair. This article starts out defaming the legitimacy of the news outlet based on partisan opinion, and continues as though it is some kind of leftist "snopes" debunk of everything they have accomplished or reported. I am frankly disgusted that whoever wrote it thought this was an objective description. I'm an educated scientist that spends time writing objective HONEST scientific papers and opinions, and there is NOTHING objective about how this article is written. It should be completely deleted and rewritten. The Wikipedia description of CNN doesn't open with how Donna Brazile unfairly fed Hillary Clinton debate questions, or how the network continually advances the totally unproven conspiracy theory about Russian collusion to win the 2016 presidential election, and the Breitbart article shouldn't lead with: "The site has published a number of falsehoods and conspiracy theories,[9][10][11][12] as well as intentionally misleading stories.[13] Its journalists are ideologically driven, and some of its content has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist.[14]". REALLY!? CNN's description doesn't describe them as "intentionally misleading", "ideologically driven", and "xenophobic and racist", although from the point of view of the right, THEY CERTAINLY ARE! Let's keep encyclopedia journals objective. This one is frankly insulting to anyone with any amount of intelligence, and anyone who defends its supposed objectivity is a partisan fascist by the literal description. The term alt-right should only be used with quotations "alt-right" as everyone seems to have a different opinion about what it means.

If Wikipedia wants to inform people that Andrew Breitbart founded the news outlet to provide a voice to the pro-Israel movement, that is fine, and accurate. Labeling the entire organization as "intentionally misleading" is definitely partisan rather than objective. CNN is certainly intentionally misleading, and ideologically driven, and it is NOT stated in the opening of their description. Lets keep the punches above the belt. If you want to rant about Breitbart on political forums, that is fine, but the "encyclopedia" articles should be objective and devoid of opinions. Whoever wrote this needs to clean it up to have a clean conscience about their objectivity, or admit they are a partisan fascist.

Xlaziox (talk) 21:04, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia new editor! CNN and Breitbart are not remotely in the same league, so trying to compare the two articles is not useful. You claim that the entire organization is labeled as "intentionally misleading", but that's not true is it? What the article actually says is that "The site has published... intentionally misleading stories." which is a different thing altogether. The lead rightfully highlights the things for which Breitbart is most notable.- MrX 21:18, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

CNN is an enormous news organization which protects itself from revenue loss by maintaining a rigid adherence to a certain minimum standard of journalistic ethics; in doing so, they ensure that their news coverage remains in demand to a wide audience, and thus reduce the incentive of any of their customers to pull advertisements from CNN. This reputation allowed them to grow to a size where a single advertiser pulling their business out would not have any appreciable impact upon their annual earnings. As a result of that growth, CNN faces no appreciable political pressures from their customer base. Their news programming is allowed to stand, even when it offends their customers. This reputation also stands as a powerful incentive to maintain their standards of journalistic ethics; as their entire business model is based upon the trust shown to them by the public, the loss of said trust is one thing that could quickly bankrupt the business.

Breitbart, on the other hand, operates on such a small budget (in comparison to CNN), that a single advertiser pulling out could cause them to experience a loss of revenue. This loss of revenue could drive down prices, resulting in further losses of revenue, and possibly even bankruptcy. However, they were established as having a specific political view, and as such tend to attract advertisers who share their political view, or who wish to advertise to people who share their political view. This served as a sort of filter; Breitbart could never get too large (they would never achieve any appreciable market share in large cities), but ensured that they enjoyed a cozy relationship with their customers. This severely reduces the incentive for advertisers to pull ads from Breitbart, but drastically increases pressures upon Breitbart to misrepresent the truth in order to maintain said political ideology. It provides no incentives whatsoever to maintain any journalistic standards.

These differences had the utterly predictable result of a neutral, non-partisan encyclopedia such as Wikipedia thus describing these two organizations in vastly different ways. CNN is notable for being a news outlet. Breitbart is notable for publishing numerous falsehoods. There is little we can do about this difference without sacrificing our own set of ethics, because the difference between the two articles is reflective of the difference between the two groups, and not of the politics of this wide open organization which anyone can contribute to, even without joining (namely, Wikipedia).

In summary, if you think Breitbart and CNN are the same sorts of groups, only with different political stances, then I'm afraid you have no business editing articles such as this one. I would suggest you start editing articles which are less controversial, and stick to that until you feel you have a solid understanding of our policies and guidelines before returning to edit political articles. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:11, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Please add direct quote from 2017 book on birtherism

This edit contradicts the NYT[1]. There is no way for any of us to check the source without buying the book. Could user:Iselilja send a picture of the page in question or post direct quotes from the book that substantiate that Breitbart never promoted birtherism? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Luckily, there is a way to check it without buying the book. Direct quote "they have never advocated 'birtherism' ". Iselilja (talk) 22:11, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

User:DrFleischman Thanks for trying to copyedit, but you introduce some inaccuaracies. The incident did not happen at CPAC but at "The Uninvited" counter conference arranged by Bannon for people who were unwelcome at CPAC. Green makes a point of Taitz not even being welcome among "The Uninvited". Besides, the statement that the Breitbart site did not promote birtherism stands for itself. It's not like this epiode is "the evidence" and should not be written as such. Please consult the source. Iselilja (talk) 00:01, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Ok thanks for correcting me. I was thinking about getting rid of that bit about Taitz anyway. It does seem a bit far afield. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:01, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Infobox: website or newspaper

There's an RfC on whether a news website should use {{Infobox website}} or {{Infobox newspaper}}: Talk:The Times of Israel#RfC on infobox. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 14:03, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Promotion of identitarianism

BullRangifer, what's wrong with this content? I don't see the WP:OR or WP:PROMOTION angles. It appears to be supported by the cited secondary source. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:54, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I missed it, but was there a secondary or tertiary source there which proved that to be true? -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:00, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes - a book source, for which MichiganWoodShop helpfully added a quote. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 02:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay, let's see if there's another way to get this to work. (I'm an inclusionist. ) First, WP:LEAD is violated by placing that content and ref in the lead without it first being used in the body. It needs to be there first, and then a very summarized version might be appropriate in the lead, but not necessarily. We don't summarize every detail and source and then add it to the lead. We need to look at the important subjects covered in the body and summarize them. That usually means a short summary of each section. (More on this in my essay: WP:How to create and manage a good lead section.)

BTW, that book clearly identifies Bannon as a racist: "his racist and anti-Muslim views". That is in the context of commenting on Trump's anti-Muslim agenda. That should be used here and at Trump's and Bannon's articles. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

More than a year ago it was decided in a discussion that Breitbart should be described as 'Far Right'. However, there are multiple issues regarding this

• (1) The majority of editors opposed the term being used - Not even close to consensus for 'Keep'
• (2) A high number of sources were op-eds - not neutral
• (3) Some of the listed sources, such as the BBC source labelled Breitbart 'Right Wing', but never 'Far Right' - misleading readers
• (4) The use of 'Far Right' is used very prominently without context, such as 'John Doe of the New York Times described Breitbart as Far Right.' This indicates it is an unquestionable fact (it isn't)
• (5) The fact that the term gets removed so often demonstrates a clear lack of consensus on the issue.
• (6) Far Right is associated with white nationalism, Nazism, and fascism

If we are going to keep this description, these points need to be addressed. KU2018 (talk) 13:48, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Regarding (1), If you don't think there was a consensus there, then bring it up with the closer, Black Kite. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:55, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I will check with Black Kite. This discussion should continue though as that was closed a long while ago. KU2018 (talk) 13:58, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Regarding (6) - and? Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:59, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Every single one of these claims has been directly addressed, by me, either directly to you, or to another editor in a link I provided you in my recent comment on your talk page. To summarize:

1. That is completely false. The clear majority have supported the term through several discussions. (That particular discussion was 14 in favor and 10 opposed.)
2. Opinion sources are not inherently biased or unreliable. In addition, not all of them (not even most) are opinion sources.
3. "Far-right" is a more specific label, and a subset of "right-wing". The relevant fact is that absolutely no reliable sources ever dispute "far-right" or apply a different subset of "right-wing", such as "center-right" or "moderate right". This is not sources disagreeing, this is certain sources being less specific than others.
4. That is due to our policy of not presenting facts as opinions. There is no dispute in the reliable sources over Breitbart's political views. Hence, we present them as facts.
5. That doesn't matter one bit. We don't base our content decisions on the views of editors.
6. Not our problem. If Breitbart doesn't like us calling them "far-right" they should stop publishing far-right content. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:00, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

• 1. No consensus - not even close. Sorry for miscounting.
• 2. The lack of the far-right terms outside of op-ed suggest it is an opinion, not a fact. If it was so clear then nearly all sources would use 'Far Right'
• 3. Being more specific does not mean the label is true: The Republican party is Right Wing (broad) or far right (false)
• 4 There is dispute between the reliable sources. BBC does no use the term
• 5 Well Wikipedia clearly does because the view of the editor was to perform a closure without consensus
• 6 Just because they published some material consistent with far right views, it doesn't mean that what they primarily, without question, are.

Saying 'right wing' would still be accurate and is far less controversial and would be compatible with people and sources arguing for far right and far right is part of the right wing, not vice versa. A thumb is always a finger, a finger in not always a thumb. KU2018 (talk) 14:16, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

1. You demonstrably don't know what a consensus is. Please read WP:CONSENSUS. Continuing to make false claims such as this quickly becomes disruptive and can result in sanctions.
2. See my response above. I have already addressed this.
3. Multiple sources stating it and zero sources disagreeing with it does.
4. Bullshit.
5. Bullshit. See WP:V.
6. Doesn't matter. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:21, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

MPants point is that the BBC source does not conflict with the other sources - it does not dispute the far-right label, but merely uses right-wing. If it used center-right, that would be conflict. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:23, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't see why it matters that it would be less controversial. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:24, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Because this would help achieve consensus. Using right wing does not contradict far right. If you said John Doe was from London instead of 1 High Street, London, there would be no contradiction. 5 and 6 are not BS by the way, these are obvious points. The reasoning of 6 should be considered in every article for fairness KU2018 (talk) 14:30, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

5 is a bullshit claim on your part. Either you are misrepresenting the facts or unaware of them. The latter can be corrected with research on your part, the former can be corrected by a mouseclick on the part of an admin. It is up to you which it will turn out to be.

6 is simply not a concern of ours. We label white supremacists as white supremacists, Nazis as Nazis, KKK members as KKK members, regardless of whether or not they are offended by the labeling. See WP:NOTCENSORED for more on this. Also see WP:YESPOV which clearly states that anything which is asserted uncontested and unattributed by the reliable sources can be asserted uncontested and unattributed here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:35, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

When did 58 percent become consensus - the other side also put up reasonable arguments? In terms of WP:YESPOV - why would a writer contest their own opinion in an op-ed? KU2018 (talk) 14:44, 15 January 2018 (UTC)