Talk:James O'Keefe

ACORN undercover videos (opening statement)

I'd like to start reviewing this section with anyone who would like to work together on this. One of the tricky issues regarding anything having to do with O'Keefe is that he's some sort of combination of a journalist, an entertainer, and an activist. This partly makes it difficult because even to this day, a lot of mainstream news outlets still aren't sure how to deal with him, and those are the outlets where wikipedia information comes from. However, even very liberal publications such as the NYT and the WaPo, as well as the Columbia Journalism Review have, eventually, come to acknowledge the considerable journalistic value of the ACORN videos, even though O’Keefe certainly wasn’t following the rules by which normal journalists must abide.

As of now, it seems that most if not all of O’Keefe’s opponents’ arguments against the legitimacy of the ACORN investigation point to Jerry Brown’s report. Jerry Brown’s report called the tapes “severely edited,” and I believe he himself has called them “misleadingly edited,” which is what ACORN spokespeople, officials, and supporters have claimed all along. We need to look closely at whether this declaration is really a sufficient basis to treat the ACORN investigation as wholly discredited, as many would like to believe and as I think the Wikipedia articles on the story seem to imply. After all, is Jerry Brown really a WP:RS? Certainly his investigation is part of the story and needs to be mentioned but we need to look at whether that should be the basis of the perspective with which articles on the ACORN matter are written.

Also, critics point to the fact that ACORN was “cleared of criminal wrongdoing” by a Brooklyn DA’s office as well as Jerry Brown’s office. I don’t know enough about the law to even know what rules there would be for prosecuting things captured on hidden camera (which I doubt would be admissible anyway). I also doubt you can prosecute people for criminal activity that was discussed but not actually perpetrated. Especially in light of what the NYT, WaPo, and CJR have had to say as noted above, I don’t think the notion that the ACORN videos must have been a fraudulent hoax because there weren’t any criminal prosecutions holds much water.

From this point, I hope to now get into the specifics in what is hopefully an itemized and organized fashion. I hope anyone with input will contribute their thoughts. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 02:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

ACORN undercover videos (first paragraph)

I'm also starting on this page because it's a much simpler matter than the ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy page, lol. Let's take a look at the first paragraph from the ACORN undercover videos section on the James O'Keefe page. It's pretty good, but there are a couple things I'd like to tackle. I'll paste the first part here for quick reference:

In September 2009, O'Keefe and his associate, Hannah Giles, published edited hidden camera recordings in which Giles posed as a prostitute and O'Keefe as her boyfriend in an attempt to elicit damaging responses from employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an advocacy organization for persons of low and moderate income.

The first issue, though it's not as much a problem on this page as the other page, is that I think it's important to point out that O'Keefe and Giles did not break the story by publishing "edited hidden camera videos" online. The ACORN story broke on Fox News. Glenn Beck hyped it on his radio show on the first day of the video rollout by playing some of the audio on his radio show, then later broke the story (wide open) on his Fox News show that evening. Over the next several days, other shows on Fox also reported on the story and replayed the videos. From the beginning, Fox was making the decisions regarding how those videos were edited before publication on Fox News. Fox even released some of the full, unedited videos on foxnews.com, though not all. The videos were released first on Fox News, then shortly after, the versions of the video edited by O’Keefe (along with music done by a friend of his and music videos done by Christian Hartsock) were posted on BigGovernment.com, along with full, unedited audio and full, unedited transcripts.

This is a very important point, especially because of the persistent accusations of “misleadingly edited” etc. I think we should note this point in the opening sentence. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 03:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

How about:

In September 2009, Fox News published edited hidden camera recordings made by O'Keefe and his associate, Hannah Giles, in which Giles posed as a prostitute and O'Keefe as her boyfriend in an attempt to elicit damaging responses from employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an advocacy organization for persons of low and moderate income also heavily involved in voter registration.<<reference>>

I'm leaving in the word "edited" for now. We'll deal with that later. Thoughts? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 03:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi SpecialKCL... just popped on again and saw the above; you are bringing things up the right way (slow, methodical, making your suggestions as to how text might be changed with before-and-after versions, explaining why you think the changes should be made, etc), but this thread really needs to be taken up on the main article page's Talk Page instead. What appears here on the O'Keefe BLP here is supposed to be a summary of what appears there plus biography related details (like the Congressional resolution from 31 house members applauding O'Keefe's efforts, etc). Failure to make the changes there first (through the consensus process) is going to make the changes here subject to revert to match the main article. Make sense? You don't have to lose any of the work you've done already; I would recommend copying and porting over what you have here, to the bottom of the Talk Page over there, and continuing the process there...

On an unrelated note, you probably noticed my edit where I consolidated the factualbasis ref - I think that may be the cause of confusion that happened between you and that other editor earlier. I think he should have AGF'd rather than jumping to the conclusion that you were lying, but mistakes and misunderstandings happen easily on Wikipedia. AzureCitizen (talk) 03:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah you're probably right. Maybe I'll try to work simultaneously though. What do you think about the proposed change to the first sentence? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 04:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You can work somewhat simultaneously, by working for change on the main article, then immediately porting the matching changes right back over here as they get incorporated - no one should oppose you back here, because you can simply point to the main article where the change was accepted there. Whenever an article contains a subsection synopsis from a main article, the main article controls - and when you stop to think about it, how could Wikipedia manage it any other way, etc?

With regard to Fox news publishing and what not, I will swing back through in a little while and post a comment over there, after you've ported your proposals over, to help get the ball rolling with looking at the edits. Other editors will probably kick their two cents in as well when they see the activity... --AzureCitizen (talk) 04:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Good to see it's moved there now... I will post a note here to help redirect anyone else who is interested. AzureCitizen (talk) 05:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

FOR ANY EDITORS INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING IN THIS THREAD: The discussion has now moved to the main article talk page; you can find the start of this thread here:

Talk:ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy#Opening Points Regarding the General Assumptions of this Page.

Primary sources

I'm sorry, but I find this pretty unsatisfactory. First of all, we should be basing our coverage on reliable secondary sources, not cherry-picking bits and pieces from primary sources (e.g. court documents). This is covered in fundamental Wikipedia policy. You are selectively quoting from a primary source to create the impression that the guilty plea was no big deal. That's poor editing - just stick to what secondary sources have said. The rationale - that it creates a "BLP and slander issue" - tells me that you don't really understand WP:BLP (or slander, for that matter). "Consulting an admin" doesn't really mean anything - after all, I'm an admin. The point is that being an admin doesn't imbue one with special powers to resolve content or sourcing issues by fiat. So what, exactly, is the policy-based rationale for including an editorially selected excerpt from a primary source to spin material from reliable secondary sources? MastCell ^Talk 03:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Mastcell, thanks for joining. Let me note a couple things. 1) I believe the wording you are pointing to was actually not mine originally. 2) I'm not suggesting that the guilty plea was no big deal. The point is that the dropping of felony charges of entering a federal buiding with intent to commit a felony was not the result of a "plea bargain" (something that was erroneously stated previously, and I'm not sure how that wouldn't be libelous), but instead the government explicitly stated that the evidence showed there was no intent to commit a felony. I think it's a bit of a stretch to call that cherry picking. 3) The language of that document cited is quite clear and involves basically zero interpretation. Primary sources are not banned from Wikipedia rules; there are only precautions against them. Certainly it would be improper to make broad characterizations of primary sources while only citing the primary source, but that's not what's going on here. Pretty much every wikipedia page I've seen has primary sources in its citations, and there are several others in this BLP as well.

Asserting a guy committed a felony (in addition, in this case, to intending to commit another felony) is a heck of a charge to make, and that is exactly what this article does if these points are not noted. It suggests he simply plea bargained out of it. The extraordinary preponderance of slander that was heaped on O'Keefe by mainstream outlets regarding this matter is remarkable, so I think it's very important to be careful. His arrest caused an enormous splash with the MSM (many outlets generally recognized as WP:RS) consistently reporting, falsely, up and down the line that he had been arrested for wiretapping (no such suggestion was ever made by the feds). Many even reported, falsely, that he plead guilty to phone tampering. As I'm sure you know, media outlets rarely give anywhere close the amount of attention to the corrections of their errors as they give to the initial, sensationalized stories. It's important that we don't make the same mistake here. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 05:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi MastCell, I read your post and can appreciate your concerns; you probably saw the reverts, noticed that SpecialKCL is a new SPA, then noticed this is a primary source issue that might seem like it's being twisted to make a point. For my part in this, allow me to disclose that I've been following the O'Keefe article for some time and am no fan; I take a skeptical view of edits that appear to glorify O'Keefe and his activist narrative, or apologetics for misbehavior like the New Orleans arrest or the CNN "punking" incident. Nonetheless, when this issue came up (see "Landrieu Caper" above), SpecialKCL was right to point out that O'Keefe did not actually enter into a plea bargain to avoid a felony charge which is probably a common misperception at this point for the public at large. Instead, the Government investigated the circumstances and dismissed the felony charge, and at a later court date O'Keefe pled guilty to a remaining misdemeanor charge. The factual basis entered at that time indicated that the Government's investigation had found no evidence that O'Keefe had ever intended to commit any felonies. So it was a relevant point that the O'Keefe BLP was mistakenly asserting that O'Keefe plea bargained away the felony by copping to a misdemeanor, and needs to be expressed in some Wikipedia RS & policy compliant way in the article. I may not be a fan of O'Keefe, but I strive to be as objective and NPOV as possible when editing articles.

You have asked what exactly the policy-based rationale is for "including an editorially selected excerpt from a primary source to spin material from reliable secondary sources". First, it appears that almost all of the secondary sources repeating this excerpt from this court document, interpreting it, are all right-wing agenda blogs and opinion articles, which make one cringe in citing as a reliable secondary source (as would be the case be they far right, or far left just the same). In this case, I would think the primary source warrants consideration, provided it is policy compliant. The pertinent part from the policy page reads (bolding for emphasis):

Policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about material found in a primary source. Do not base articles entirely on primary sources. Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material.

The exact wording from the factual basis accepted by the federal judge in entering O'Keefe's plea and misdemeanor conviction is as follows:

"In this case, further investigation did not uncover evidence that the defendants intended to commit any felony after the entry by false pretenses despite their initial statements to the staff of Senatorial office and GSA requesting access to the central phone system. Instead, the Government’s evidence would show that the defendants misrepresented themselves and their purpose for gaining access to the central phone system to orchestrate a conversation about phone calls to the Senator’s staff and capture the conversation on video, not to actually tamper with the phone system, or to commit any other felony."

Under these circumstances, I would think a cite to the factual basis, without any interpretation or explanatory commentary, ideally using direct quotes, would be appropriate to establish the fact that the Government did not uncover any evidence that the defendants intended to commit any felonies. Please think that over and let us know what you think of that assessment in terms of WP:PRIMARY. Thanks, AzureCitizen (talk) 16:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Teachers Union

http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/25/new-o%e2%80%99keefe-video-shows-teachers-bragging-about-bulletproof-tenure-rules-2/

New video from O'Keefe. I'll let you guys handle this. ProfessorLoesch (talk) 23:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

http://www.app.com/article/20101025/NEWS03/10250330/Web-video-takes-shots-at-teachers-union - Ashbury Park Press ProfessorLoesch (talk) 00:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

hmm...I just watched the videos. I don't think I understand this one quite as well, but I'll give it a shot. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 22:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Loesch, I entered a New Jersey video section. What do you think? There's weird problem with the references that I still can't figure out. There were two references that I used multiple timees, but wikipedia is somehow listing them all under the same reference. I still have to add the NJEA's statements. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 23:36, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Loesch is dead. DoctorFuManchu rose from his grave (I changed usernames).

Fine by me... - the NJ thing that is. DoctorFuManchu (talk) 07:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

updated with Christie and union responses DoctorFuManchu (talk) 09:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

2006 Forum controversy

Why was the section under this title heading removed from the article. It appeared to be well sourced with information presented from both supporters and detractors. What's the deal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.69.130.210 (talk) 22:28, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

See [1] and [2]. This has already been discussed. Truthsort (talk) 05:37, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Taking a look at the section, it is well-sourced, does not advance any ideas that aren't in the sources, and appears to be presented neutrally. Another editor has re-added the passages in question, and I would suggest that, at the very least, if it's disputed, rather than extricating the section, you should find some reliable sources that describe the dispute and discuss that neutrally. SchuminWeb (Talk) 13:48, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

This BLP article is obviously about a contentious subject and should be checked for neutrality. It seems to contain POV from numerous different sides, but that doesn't make it neutral. Athene cunicularia (talk) 00:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

In that regard, I just removed a "POV" tag that an IP editor had placed on the article. I don't particularly agree with the IP editor's comment that the article is unduly flattering, but I do agree with Athene cunicularia, there are some uneven spots. Criticism & accusations + defensiveness & denial does not equal balance, it makes things doubly biased. Although I completely understand these concerns, it would be a lot more helpful to start looking at specific things in the article that could be changed. Tagging is best as a last resort, if attempts to improve things fail. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

How about a controversy section for this article? Right now it just seems like a summary/commentary of all of his exploits so far, which by it self is biased IMO. I think having a section that outlines the controversy that surrounds him, it might even things out? 132.178.2.64 (talk) 21:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, controversy and praise sections are discouraged (see WP:CRIT, a widely respected essay but not a formal guideline). They tend to increase editing difficulties and become magnets for bias, instead of easing it out. I guess one man's controversy is another man's good deed. Generally, if there is a controversy over something and the controversy itself is relevant to the subject, it gets treated as a fact to be reported. But we don't try to assess whether someone is liked or disliked, unless that's relevant. Let's say we took a poll and 55% of Americans believe that James O'Keefe is nut, something that will likely break down along all kinds of political divisions. Does it matter even if most people think that? If it doesn't stop him, if he keeps doing what he does, if it doesn't affect his work, it's not really relevant. Many people don't like bittermelon, and we don't say that in the article because it doesn't matter. On the other hand, we do mention the popular conception of spinach as being disliked by children, because that's part of its public image. Does that make sense? I think instead of opining that there is a controversy over something he did, better to simply say what he did, then say how people reacted. If the sources all say that a controversy arose, then we can say that too. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

NPR Video

Changes were made that implied that Schiller explicitly states in the video that he is speaking personally and not for NPR because he had already resigned. He was working in his capacity as an executive tasked with fund-raising when the meeting took place and his resignation did not take effect until today. He may or may not have been speaking in an official capacity but I haven't seen any sources that show that he explicitly said that. If a source can be provided, then please include it. Warfieldian (talk) 02:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

In the video itself, Schiller prefaced the sharing of his opinions, "personally speaking," or something to that effect.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

the academy award for performance in a documentary should go to that bushy-bearded "Arab" who, on hearing NPR executive Richard Schiller say, "Let me take off my NPR hat" and launching into his Tea Party rant, intones in a marvelously phony North African accent, "I like it when you take off your NPR hat."---American Spectator (link)

--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:19, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Schiller never said he was speaking personally because he had already resigned, and neither does this present Wikipedia article. Schiller simply indicated he was giving his personal opinion, and not speaking for NPR. According to the NY Times:

Mr. Schiller indicates that he is sharing his personal point of view, not NPR’s.

Also, from that same source:

Early on in the conversation, Mr. Schiller says, “Now I’ll talk personally as opposed to wearing my NPR hat.” Later, he adds caveats like “in my personal opinion.” At one point, one of the fake group members jokes, “I like it when you take your NPR hat off.” The fake group members bring up topics in an apparent effort to keep Mr. Schiller talking.

I find it interesting that Schiller's disclaimer was edited out of the video version released to the news media -- I'm sure that was just an accidental oversight on O'Keefe's part. As was, I am sure, the omission of Schiller's comments indicating the belief that the Republican party was "hijacked" by radical Tea Party people was actually held by "highly placed" conservative Republicans. The released video version accidently snips-out the "they believe" wording, leaving the listener to assume Schiller was speaking for himself. Fun stuff. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:50, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Schiller was indisputably speaking for NPR because his sole function at the meeting was to raise money for NPR. No qualification regarding what "hat" he was wearing should appear in the article. It's a clear violation of POV -- it promotes the false view that Schiller's statement that he was "speaking for himself" was meant seriously.

This article also needs to be edited to include references to Schiller's extreme antisemitism. He greeted the investigative journalists' comments about how the Jews run the media with obvious approval. I'll get to work on that section.

Were any of Schiller's comments about the Coffee Party edited out by O'Keefe? It seems highly improbable, if not impossible, that he'd mention the Tea Party without mentioning the Coffee Party in the same breath. After all, the Coffee Party has far outshadowed the Tea Party in national political influence and it would be hard to have a discussion without referring to this fact.NeutralityPersonified (talk) 21:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)