Talk:ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy

Labeling of AG's and DA's as "Democrats"

I see that the AG's and DA's are now prominently identified as "Democratic." Perhaps this is just a coincidence, i.e., not an attempt to label them for the purpose of implying bias in their law enforcement capacities, although I noticed the Governor who requested the CA investigation was not identified as a "Republican," which was probably just an oversight. However, on non-BLP Wikipedia articles, you see Congressman, Senators, and Governors frequently being identified as as "Republican" or "Democratic," while you never see district attorneys or attorney generals being labelled in such fashion. Can anyone point out any non-BLP article examples that indicate otherwise?

It would seem to me, that if other non-BLP articles do not label district attorneys and attorney generals as Democrats or Republicans when they are acting in their official capacities, which in turn implies that political bias was involved in the outcomes of criminal investigations, then there would need to be sourcing indicating relevancy and that it is not a fringe view. Was there any reporting in reliable secondary sourcing that there was any credible evidence that district attorney Hynes, former attorney general Harshberger, or attorney general Brown manipulated the outcomes of the investigations for political purposes? What does everyone else think? AzureCitizen (talk) 15:09, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It would appear that O'Keefe and company manipulated the tapes to give a misleading impression, and that someone here is manipulating the wording to lessen the impact of that fact and to give the impression that they actually didn't do it, but that such findings by multiple sources were just political machinations. The facts of the matter lay "on the cutting room floor", so to speak, and O'Keefe got busted. To give any other impression is editorializing, rather than letting the sources speak. Does O'Keefe deny editing the tapes? Are there any RS that prove he didn't do it? Filmfluff (talk) 15:49, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the above expressed conserns, another editor asks me on my talk page:

By the way, is it necessary to include the adjective "Democratic" re politicians such as Scott Harshberger, Jerry Brown, and Charles Hynes? I don't think there is any reference to Schwarzenegger as "Republican". It sounds partisan. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 14:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with his/her assessment. I took a look at the cited references in the article (most of them were deadlinks, by the way) and they did not specifically note the political party registration of the individuals, so I have removed those adjectives for now. However, during my search for replacement sources, I did notice several partisan commentary sites that make it a point to mention political party of some of those involved, with a wink and a nudge, as if to imply relevance or influence -- but they leave it at mere speculation. I would hope our Wikipedia articles don't sink to participating in that game. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Needs to be more concise and toned down

Now that this is no longer the hot news, it really needs to be made more like an encyclopedia article and less like a news item with every detail in quotes and cited. More summarizing is needed, which I attempted in the Lead. Get to the main points fast. And in the article, does each video need to be described in detail, since they have all been discredited as having been heavily and selectively edited to show the workers at their worst? The last paragraph of the Lead could be deleted or summarized; the dates of each report do not have to be in there. Wouldn't it be enough to say something like: "From December 2009 to June 2010, independent reports by AGs of 3/4 jurisdictions and the GAO were released. In summary, they found the videos were heavily edited to misrepresent the situations, and ACORN workers had not participated in or encouraged criminal acts in the actual encounters." Parkwells (talk) 17:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggest External links for reports

It would seem that the CA AG Report, the CRS Report, etc. should be included as External Links. References/citations to them should come from third-parties published in Reliable Sources, rather than directly from these reports. There is plenty of newspaper and other media coverage to choose from or include.Parkwells (talk) 19:59, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Heavily editied verses transcripts

It's pretty clear [as a matter of objective fact] that X,Y,Z people [such as Jerry Brown, Rachel Maddow, etc.] have said that the videos were heavily edited to portray ACORN in the worst possible light. That's not at issue. It is, however, equally true [as a matter of objective fact as well] that the two social activists posted the unedited transcripts online as well as the edited videos. All of this is verifiable by sources.

But people keep removing or otherwise jumbling up the latter fact (about the transcripts), and they really should either stop doing that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.47.150.42 (talk) 23:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I just removed two edits of yours at the article since all I could find was an opposite statement (in the source). Can you provide the page number in the source that in your mind backs up your edits? Thanks.TMCk (talk) 00:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The source beats others' reports any day: http://biggovernment.com/author/jokeefe — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.148.22.221 (talk) 19:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't. It's not a reliable source per wiki standards, and even if it were, we tend to look askance at primary source sorts of material anyway. Biggovernment.com is no more reliable a source for this than MOveon.org would be for the left equivalent. You're essentially saying "the one we should trust is the guy behind it all who has a defined POV and definite stake...". Thank you, no.76.238.186.96 (talk) 00:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)