Talk:Max Blumenthal/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

VENEZUELA: Unexplained deletion of cited text

@GPRamirez5:, your reasoning for blanking cited text on Blumenthal's use of Venezuela's state-funded Telesur (TV channel) to source a story, please? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

There's nothing about Telesur in that text. As I explained in the first place, it was WP:UNDUE emphasis on a third party political opinion. Pretty much anything from that Atlantic screed belongs in the "Controversy" section.GPRamirez5 (talk) 22:46, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

GPRamirez5 Atlantic screed ? I do not know what that references; please explain. Both sources mention Telesur, and the text you deleted included the sourced mentions of Telesur. Would you like me to translate (or you can run the Spanish article through a translator); I can if needed. It is not "undue emphasis on a third party"; it is Blumenthal citing a source which is well known to a) be state propaganda, of b) the worst type because the lies, as in this case, are designed to incriminate-- and then building the entire premise of the article around a falsehood (the photo). So, if you could explain "atlantic screed", explain where you don't see Telesur, let me know if you want me to translate, we can try to put the pieces together in a way that works. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:21, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Actually, GPRamirez5, from your diff above, I think you are responding to the wrong deletion (you made two), and not referencing the deletion I am talking about. I know nothing of the text you deleted at the top; could you please review what you deleted at the bottom of this text? Perhaps we have a misunderstanding. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

OR better, I'll make it easier for you-- text below. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:32, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I concur with SandyGeorgia, not sure why this was removed. Placing sourced information back.----ZiaLater (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

So we have Blumenthal's WP:PRIMARY source with no independent indication of significance, and a secondary source which doesn't mention Blumenthal at all? Do I have that correct? Please include reliable sources which directly support either:

• This one story is significant to understanding Blumenthal
• This photographer's rebuttal is significant to Blumenthal

Without either of these it's not clear why this is being mentioned at all. This is verging on WP:COATRACK territory. We're not here to compile examples of his work, we should summarize what reliable sources say about his work. Grayfell (talk) 04:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, Blumenthal wrote it for Telesur as well, including the controversial images. What do you think SandyGeorgia?----ZiaLater (talk) 15:13, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I have rewritten the text to reflect the issue raised by Grayfell.[1] (See below, Venezuela 2) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: I recommend changing from "Venezuelan journalist Karla Salcedo Flores who claimed that she had taken the photos and said that Telesur had misused her photos for propaganda purposes after the network claimed protesters burned the supply vehicles" → "Venezuelan journalist Karla Salcedo Flores who stated that she had taken the photos and said that Telesur had misused her photos for propaganda purposes after the network reported protesters burned the supply vehicles".----ZiaLater (talk) 19:56, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Concur. There are messes galore in this article. Someone needs to do some basic cleanup and checking and dead link repair. Since most are missing authors or dead links, it's difficult to assess how deep the problems are and how much is primary sourced. [2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:48, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Venezuela

Blumenthal wrote an article for Grayzone entitled "Burning Aid: An Interventionist Deception on Colombia-Venezuela Bridge?" about clashes on 23 February 2019 on the Colombia–Venezuela border during the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis. In the article, he questioned whether "Sen. Marco Rubio and coup leaders" may have engaged in deception. He partly based his analysis on what he called photographs from Venezuela's state-run Telesur that allegedly showed an opposition protestor throwing a molotov cocktail at one of the trucks that was burned while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Venezuela. Blumenthal wrote: "Telesur reporter Madelein Garcia published photographs showing a guarimbero with a gas canister next to one of the burning trucks." La Patilla published a series of tweets from Venezuelan journalist Karla Salcedo Flores who claimed that she had taken the photos and said that Telesur had misused her photos for propaganda purposes after the network claimed protesters burned the supply vehicles. La Patilla reported on tweets where Salcedo Flores said she saw young people with water that they were using to try to douse the flames, not what Telesur was reporting and what Blumenthal re-reported.

Venezuela 2

Blumenthal wrote an article for Venezuela's state-run Telesur entitled "Quemando la ayuda: ¿un engaño intervencionista en el puente Colombia-Venezuela?" (English: Burning Aid: An Interventionist Deception on Colombia-Venezuela Bridge?) about clashes on 23 February 2019 on the Colombia–Venezuela border during the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis. In the article, he questioned whether what he called "Sen. Marco Rubio and coup leaders" may have engaged in deception, based partly on what he called photographs from Venezuela's state-run Telesur that allegedly showed an opposition protestor throwing a molotov cocktail at a truck that was burned during attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to Venezuela. Blumenthal wrote in the Telesur article: "Telesur reporter Madelein Garcia published photographs showing a guarimbero with a gas canister next to one of the burning trucks." La Patilla and other sources published a series of tweets from Venezuelan journalist Karla Salcedo Flores who claimed that she had taken the photos and alleged that her photos were misused for propaganda purposes. La Patilla reported on tweets where Salcedo Flores said that what she saw and photographed was young people with water that they were using to try to douse the flames, not what Telesur reported.

Incorrect claim

This section is presently false. Blumenthal did not write the article in question for TeleSUR. He wrote the article for his website, The Grayzone, and then TeleSUR later republished it after the fact. It is false to claim he "wrote an article for Venezuela's state-run Telesur," as the article says right now. That is objectively not true. This article needs to be corrected using the "Venezuela 1" draft above. SpiritofIFStone (talk) 21:01, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

References

Venezuela: NYT confirms Blumenthal's reporting was correct

The New York Times has published a report confirming that what Blumenthal reported at his website The Grayzone was correct: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-aid-fire-video.html This section must now be updated and corrected. SpiritofIFStone (talk) 16:54, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Lead

The following information in the lead is consistently being deleted and I've yet to hear a reasonable explanation:

He was awarded the 2014 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Notable Book Award for his book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. He was formerly a writer for The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America, as well as a Fellow of the Nation Institute. He is the author of three books, one of which, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (2009), appeared on The New York Times bestsellers list.

GPRamirez5 (talk) 01:15, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry can't help with an explanation. I didn't understand the various reasons either. It seems like a reasonable biographical summary and I can't fault the sources. I have seen similar lede's on other pages. I think someone mentioned that the Lannan award was in the main body and so didn't need to be in the lede which does not make sense to me. Another comment suggested providing independent sources but again I am not sure what this was referring to.Burrobert (talk) 02:26, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

References

@GPRamirez5:, when you use refs on a talk page, could you please remember to add {{reflist-talk}}? Could you also explain why you keep deleting that Blumenthal was a former writer for AlterNet, while leaving other outlets that he formerly wrote for? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:30, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia:, I didn't delete him as "a former writer for Alternet". Your formulation had him as a current senior writer at a Alternet, which is false.GPRamirez5 (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I am not seeing that: [3] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:26, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Forgive me my liege! That wasn't you, that was ZiaLater who repeatedly reinserted the falsehood.GPRamirez5 (talk) 12:54, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

The last sentence in the lead is awkward and mildly POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.152.106.102 (talk) 01:49, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Synthesis et al

I have removed this text for discussion, due to several problems (generally WP:SYNTH:

• • The New York Times subsequently published a report demonstrating that Maduro's forces had not burned the aid convoy, and the opposition militants were to blame. Glen Greenwald and The Intercept praised Blumenthal for exposing Trump administration "fake news" on Venezuela.

References

1. The New York Times mentions neither Blumenthal nor Madeleine Garcia nor Karla Salcedo Flores, and makes no connection with the alleged plagiarized/falsified photo used by Blumenthal/Garcia as alleged by the original photographer, Salcedo Flores.
2. The NYT did not demonstrate anything, they suggested; please read it carefully.
3. Next we have someone "praising" Blumenthal; I don't see "praise", this is not neutrally worded, and the new report, again, makes no mention that Blumenthal's report used an allegedly falsified photo, independently (maybe) of the photos analyzed by the NYT. Apples and oranges here are being used to "praise" Blumenthal, with a good measure of SYNTH that ignores/overlooks the original problem with his reporting, which was the use of an allegedly falsified photo. According to the photojournalist who took the photo.
4. And finally, we don't know if the NYT analyzed different photos, or the allegedly plagiarized photos.

Lots wrong with the lack of neutrality in how these two sentences are written, and since the NYT piece makes NO connection with Blumenthal and the Salcedo Flores matter, it is synth to use it. Please try to re-write these sentences more neutrally and without SYNTH. What the Intercept writes about Blumenthal makes NO connection whatsover to Blumenthal using an allegedgly plagiarized and/or falsified photo, and connecting these two issues via the NYT piece, when the NYT piece does not even discuss this, is SYNTH. Please write more neutrally about what the Intercept says, without synthesizing to connect the two matters. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:33, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

No, it is very obviously not WP:SYNTH because:

1. There is no claim here that the Times mentions Blumenthal—that is why there is no reference to Blumenthal in the sentence which cites the Times. It is, however, very germane to the incident which Telesur covered in the previous paragraph.
2. Blumenthal is praised for exposing fake news by Greenwald, as any reasonable person reading the article can see, and it is an accurate summary to say so.GPRamirez5 (talk) 20:10, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Please try to craft more neutral and less synthy text, reflecting what the NYT actually said, and watch your edit summaries. One thing is Blumenthal reporting from plagiarized, misrepresented photos, and a whole 'nother thing is The Intercept's reporting on Blumenthal. Stick to the facts. Telesur/Blumenthal reported on one image whose author says it was misrepresented; we don't know if the NYT also used that image or knew its history. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

User:SandyGeorgia, please familiarize yourself with the WP explanatory page “What SYNTH is Not”

You can begin with this section:

SYNTH is not an advocacy tool. If someone doesn't like what was said, and they therefore cry SYNTH, others almost certainly will be right to cry foul. Virtually anything can be shoehorned into a broad reading of SYNTH, but the vast majority of it shouldn't be.

GPRamirez5 (talk) 20:25, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

• The New York Times subsequently published a report demonstrating that Maduro's forces had not burned the aid convoy, and the opposition militants were to blame. By using the word "subsequently" here, your text linked it to the previous incident. The New York Times did not mention Blumenthal, has nothing to do with Blumenthal's use of the allegedly falsified photo, and doesn't belong in this article. [Glen Greenwald]] and The Intercept praised Blumenthal for exposing Trump administration "fake news" on Venezuela. I suspect that by focusing on the task at hand, you can write a more neutral and accurate summary of the Intercept statements, taking into account our previous knowledge about the allegedly falsified photos. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:45, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Further, you added the NYT below the plagiarism allegation with the edit summary, "NY Times supports Maduro version", which gives the appearance that you did not recognize that the earlier story is unrelated, and about Blumenthal relying on an allegedly falsified photo. The synth is revealed in this edit summary, where you are trying to connect the two events. Would you like to propose an attempt at neutral wording of The Intercept, or would you prefer that I do it? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:24, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia is citing a couple of obscure Venezuelan opposition newspapers in Spanish that are known for promoting fake news about this incident to imply that Blumenthal is guilty of some sort of misconduct in his entirely accurate reporting on Venezuela (and possibly to reject the findings of the gold-standard RS The New York Times), even though neither of her sources mention Blumenthal AT ALL. She has egregiously violated WP:BLP by forcing these unsourced, scurrilous smears into this article while simultaneously falsely invoking SYNTH in a failed attempt to exclude the fact that Blumenthal's analysis has been proven true. This egregious misconduct, which should be sanctionable, raises massive red flags about what else this extremely prolific editor may be doing to skew Wikipedia's coverage of the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:09, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Please watch your edit summaries and personalization of discussions; if you have a point, you should be able to make it without personal attacks. I am hoping you will finish fixing the WP:COATRACK that you left in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:37, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

WP:COATRACK is actually a description of what you dumped on the Venezuela section in the first place, Sandy Georgia. And a person who coatracks, falsely cries SYNTH, and violates WP:BLP is demonstrating a pattern of personal behavior that invites strong and justified criticism.GPRamirez5 (talk) 10:37, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Trujillo

@TheTimesAreAChanging: I suggest you to self revert since there are active measures in the article against more than a single revert per 24 hours. You have not provided sources supporting your claim, and even then the edit summary doesn't justify the removal of content since its intent is not to "refute" The New York Times, but rather to show the point of view of one of the parties involved. --Jamez42 (talk) 18:52, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

This is BLP violating WP:SYNTH. We're not going to cherry-pick self-serving statements from primary sources like the Colombian foreign minister with no direct relation to the subject of this article in order to create a pointless "he-said, she-said" quote farm WP:COATRACK in which objective truth is unknowable and politicians and anti-Maduro activists are given equal weight to RS like The New York Times. You're embarrassing yourself and your cause with this behavior. "You have not provided sources supporting your claim." What are you talking about? You're the one making a claim; that's why you added a source to the article. According to Google translate, this is what your own source states:

The Colombian Foreign Minister, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, denied on Tuesday March 12 that his government manipulated a video that picked up the fire from a convoy with humanitarian aid to Venezuela and insisted that everything happened on 23 February was the responsibility of the Executive of Nicolás Maduro, reviewed EFE.

"Absolute falsehood," Trujillo said when asked about an information in the New York Times, according to which a video of the incident distributed by Colombia would be manipulated, by removing a part that indicates that the fire could be caused by demonstrators from the opposition.

According to the Colombian minister, "everything that happened that day is a consequence of the dictator Maduro [bold in original], the usurper Maduro, prevented by violence that Venezuela's humanitarian aid needed by thousands and thousands of Venezuelan brothers," said the note.

Are you hoping that no-one will check Spanish-language sources to see if you are accurately summarizing them? Either way, you can get off on a technicality because your edit, while misleading, doesn't actually say that Trujillo says that Maduro's troops started the fire: Something that Trujillo was rather careful not to say, and doubtless would have said if he could still say it. Or will you protest that my analysis of this primary source is itself WP:OR? Editorial discretion is permitted on talk pages, but in any case that's why you shouldn't be wading through primary-sourced propaganda to synthesize an alternative narrative to that found in RS.

tl;dr? A government official crying "fake news!" at RS isn't notable. We don't need "Colombia's response" to factual reporting, except possibly when it comes to the assertion that Colombia's government edited the footage, which was not made by Blumenthal and can possibly be omitted altogether.

But, yeah, since you're threatening sanctions based on technicalities, I can let this poorly-sourced, disputed content that you are edit warring into a BLP without consensus sit for another hour. We'll see how well that works out for you.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:49, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Geez, was that overly aggressive tone really needed? Things such as "You're embarrassing yourself" and "you shouldn't be wading through primary-sourced propaganda" are out of line. Claiming that I have a "cause" or an ulterior motive for editing, or that I "hoped that no-one would check Spanish-language sources", isn't helpful either. You're clearly not assuming good faith and I would ask that you please don't personalize messages in the future. Several guidelines have been quoted and most of them aren't precisely accurate. I'm not sure why BLP is being cited since there aren't particularly defamatory or even negative claims against Blumenthal, and the content in question is sourced. This doesn't seem to be a case of WP:SYNTH because there not a conclusion being drawn directly from the reference, and neither of WP:COATRACK because the content included is directly related to the paragraph, besides that it would constitute only a minority of it.

That being said, the most important thing is that you have not explained why the reference provided is an unreliable or a primary source, unless you mean that the NYT is "more" reliable than El Pitazo and because of that it shouldn't be included. Neither have you explained why quoting a government official isn't notable. Only a single statement is being included per WP:NPOV, far from a "'he-said, she-said' quote farm WP:COATRACK" or referencing every single "politician or anti-Maduro activist". Juan Guaidó was also asked about the NYT and he responded that the article didn't provide a definite conclusion and that three trucks were burned that day, while the article only focuses in a single one, but in my opinion quoting him in the main space would truly be coatracking.

The addition main purpose is to show that a party involved in the event refuted the claims, nothing more. NTN24, the outlet whose journalist first made the claim that Maduro burned the aid, offered a rebuttal too. We could work out the wording, but it isn't a reason to remove all the content, edit war or insult. --Jamez42 (talk) 16:14, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Jamesz42, it seems to me that your proposed edit—"However, Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo rejected the claims by The New York Times and insisted that Nicolás Maduro was responsible"–is an overly broad summary that misrepresents the primary thrust of your own source by implying that Trujillo produced a substantive refutation of the reporting in The New York Times. To the contrary, as quoted above, Trujillo strongly denied that his government edited the footage, calling it "absolute falsehood," and then added that Maduro was ultimately responsible for whatever happened that day either way—a meaningless and unfalsifiable bit of political spin that adds no encyclopedic value to this article. Because your addition is SYNTH (which hardly reduces your WP:BURDEN to gain consensus before reinstating disputed content to a BLP) it may be possible for you to deny the implication, but you are clearly trying to discredit Blumenthal's reporting as well as that of the NYT with this official statement from a government with a huge ax to grind against Venezuela, even though there is no "controversy" here in RS: You have not provided any RS that refute the NYT and Blumenthal, and I assume that you would not be relying on vague talking points supplied by the Colombian foreign minister if you could cite RS instead, yet you seek to diminish the RS reporting on this incident by reducing it to mere "claims," followed by counter-claims. If this precedent is accepted, then the floodgates would be open and it is likely that the entire section and article would devolve into an unencyclopedic "he said, she said" QUOTEFARM imparting no useful information to readers in relatively short order.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:55, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Once again I'd ask to stop personalization and not to assume bad faith against me and not to claim that I'm "clearly trying to discredit Blumenthal's reporting" or the NYT's, my additions have been only according to WP:NPOV and they aren't attacks in any way. I included the NTN24 article that I mentioned, hoping that the original outlet that reported on the burning trucks is considered a RS. Cheers. --Jamez42 (talk) 14:53, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Your new source (the reliability of which is very much in question after this incident) is a three-paragraph-long summary of the NYT report in Spanish, based on no new investigative reporting. Nothing in this source (besides the title "Is the New York Times version of the burning of humanitarian aid believable?," which does not reflect the body of the text) even questions, let alone "rebuts," the NYT's conclusions. I'm honestly not sure how you could think that your description of this source as "a rebuttal to the New York Times article" is accurate. It's just a short summary ("The New York Times ignites the controversy in Venezuela by ridding Nicolás Maduro's regime of blame for the burning of humanitarian aid on February 23, when they tried to enter the country's trucks with food and medicine and Maduro ordered the blockade blocked. An investigation by the US newspaper suggests that the fire was accidentally generated by demonstrators affected by the interim president, Juan Guaidó," per Google Translate) combined with a small amount of political commentary/spin at the end. Assuming good faith, I would have to assume that you are basing your description on the one sentence that repeats the familiar talking point that "whatever happened, Maduro is still ultimately to blame"—or, as the source puts it, "The truth is that Maduro kept his promise not to let humanitarian aid into Venezuela, making a security deployment at the border posts with the Bolivarian National Police and the so-called collectives"—but this, again, does not constitute a meaningful "rebuttal" to highly-reliable NYT reporting.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:50, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

As I stated in my edit summary, the reference consists in a 48 minute long special produced by NTN24, far from the "three-paragraph-long summary". --Jamez42 (talk) 21:20, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

(EC): Now Jamez42 is saying that the "rebuttal" is actually contained in an attached 48-minute-long video in Spanish, rather than the text in question. It's impossible for me to verify this claim, although there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of both Jamez42 and Venezuelan opposition media such as NTN24 with a history of promoting fake news about this incident. What seems beyond dispute is that none of this has anything to do with Max Blumenthal, ostensibly the subject of this BLP, because the alleged "rebuttals" by the Colombian foreign minister and NTN24 do not mention Blumenthal and because Jamez42 stated above that he is not citing them in order to discredit Blumenthal's reporting on Venezuela (which would be SYNTH). To the contrary, Jamez42 maintains that since this article cites Greenwald as commenting that the NYT vindicates Blumenthal, it should also include other notable commentary on the NYT article in question, including from Venezuelan opposition media that initially misreported these events. In my opinion, this would be wrong on multiple levels: First, even the NYT would not be cited here without a secondary source (The Intercept) tying it to Blumenthal (and even with a secondary source, Jamez42's frequent collaborator SandyGeorgia still tried to keep it out by crying SYNTH); why, then, should NTN24's alleged "rebuttal" be included without a secondary source mentioning it in relation to Blumenthal's reporting? Furthermore, it really is farcical to suggest that, under Wikipedia policy, NTN24 is considered to occupy the same elite tier of reliable sources as The New York Times, or that there's an honest "debate" about whether tear gas is more likely to ignite a huge fire than Molotov cocktails. In sum: Keep it out.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:30, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Bolding the last words was unnecessary. I never claimed that the response was in the text per se in the first place. I referenced directly NTN24 per WP:RS, but if you can't access the video through the article this is the YouTube link included: ¿Es creíble la versión del New York Times sobre la quema de la ayuda humanitaria?. As I have mentioned before, NTN24 was the first outlet to report the burning of the aid, regardless of the motives stated, which is why said important weight has been given to it. After all the details provided in the original Grayzone and the addition of another's claim that the NYT vindicated Blumenthal's article, per WP:NPOV it's advisable that at the very least it is shown that the current version has still been questioned. I changed the wording in an effort to improve neutrality. If you believe that NTN24 does not meet the reliability requirements per the Wikipedia policy, I think the best venue is that you request for a comment at the reliable sources noticeboard.--Jamez42 (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

There might be a NPOV justification if the subject of this article were the burning of the aid truck. However, the subject of this article is Max Blumenthal. If there is no direct connection to him, it doesn't belong here.GPRamirez5 (talk) 01:06, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@GPRamirez5: The edit is a counter view that the NYT vindicated Blumenthal's article, so WP:NPOV still applies. Seeing the insistence to revert even when changes have been suggested remind me of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and seeing both the edit history and the talk page of the article, a violation of WP:OWN. --Jamez42 (talk) 13:14, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: Could you please offer an answer too? WP:BLP explains, bolding in its main page, that information about living persons (original bold), while the information added is regarding a Blumenthal's report, not to say that the information is not poorly sourced, neither does it have libelous material. Quoting that BLP applies here is, in a way, admitting that the information is related to the article. Again, WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a valid reason for not including the content. --Jamez42 (talk) 08:42, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Jamez42, I have not explicitly alleged that your edits to this article violate BLP; I have only expressed the view that your reverts are rather trigger-happy for someone who is editing a BLP that is also subject to AE sanctions. The WP:ONUS to gain consensus for disputed content would remain even in the case of an article where such restrictions were irrelevant, but one might expect that you would be on your best behavior here. I genuinely do not see how you could consider the comments above by GPRamirez5 and myself to be ambiguous, in need of further clarification, or consistent with your latest revert, citing this discussion. Until there is consensus on the talk page that a rebuttal to the The New York Times is necessary to achieve NPOV, I would strongly advise you not to restore such a rebuttal for a fifth time (or a third time in the case of the specific NTN24 source that you are currently citing). While WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a valid reason to exclude content from any article, including a BLP, without a source connecting your proposed addition to Max Blumenthal it is difficult to see why you are so insistent on restoring it; WP:ILIKEIT is not a valid rationale for inclusion.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:26, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: I feel there's effectively a deadlock currently. I think that the best option at the moment is asking for a dispute resolution. What do you think? --Jamez42 (talk) 10:52, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@GPRamirez5 and TheTimesAreAChanging: From what I've seen, all of your edits in the articles have either been to keep a preferred version or to just disagree with a point of view, without helping to improve the page, effectively stonewalling. This is the case even with the latest addition, which has had three different versions already. Once again I ask you to please participate in the dispute resolution discussion, since I have started it to prevent edit warring. --Jamez42 (talk) 16:26, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I see that the discussion has already been closed precisely because no answer was given in 72 hours, even with proper notice. If an argument isn't provided in the following 24 hours, I'll restore to the latest proposed addition. Discussion should not stall proposed changes and improvements, specially when there's no sign of willingness to continue such discussion. Different versions have been proposed per the guidelines and policies cited, and further comments have also been received respective counter-arguments. Therefore, I ask for an explanation for keeping the status quo from the latest suggestion or to start again another dispute resolution discussion. --Jamez42 (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

"From what I've seen, all of your edits in the articles have either been to keep a preferred version or to just disagree with a point of view, without helping to improve the page, effectively stonewalling." You've got it exactly backwards User:Jamez42. The WP:ONUS is not on us, it is on you to convince and build consensus. You have failed to do that.

I expect you will continue to fail because your entire claim of relevancy is so weak it can't be justified. Your grasping use of sourcing and leaps of logic cannot help. If you cite a source that says Jewish men are circumcised and attempt to link that to Max Blumenthal because, after all, he is Jewish and therefore likely circumcised, that is not a worthy addition to the article no matter how many different ways you write it. GPRamirez5 (talk) 21:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@GPRamirez5: Yes, I'm already familiarized with WP:ONUS, and my addition is verifiable information from a reliable source. Having already cited guidelines and policies, saying that my "claim of relevancy it's so weak it can't be justified", and that my "grasping use of sourcing and leaps of logic cannot help" it's just near another personal attack, so I'll ask once more to stop the insults. Do you disagree that NTN24 is a reliable source? Please argue why. I am committing logical fallacies or contradictions? Please point them out, but don't accuse me baselessly; making a circumcision is a strawman fallacy and does not refute my points. Why didn't you participate in the dispute resolution discussion, which I opened three days ago and I notified you about, since you want consensus to be built? It takes two to tango.

I'll repeat: the content is a opposite view that the NYT vindicated Blumenthal's article. Quoting Greenwald and saying that The New York Times vindicates Blumenthal's report is arguing that they are related, and thus that it is relevant. I'll make a recap of all the current information in the section:

• • Full description of the Grayzone's article, including the dismissal's of the opposition's theory and citing of Bloomberg News footage
  • Anecdote about similar circumstances in the West Bank
  • Full description of the The New York Times' article,
  • Greenwald's quote assuring that the new vindicated the original report

Having the whole two paragrahs and having established that there's relevancy between the articles, the section is unbalanced while there isn't mention that the version is still disputed, and even more when the first media outlet to report the event published a special on the article. Can you think on a proposal or an alternative rather than keeping a prefer version per WP:OWN? If the content can't be included, at the very least I can propose that all the unnecesary details are trimmed. --Jamez42 (talk) 23:51, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

And I'll repeat: WP:ONUS.GPRamirez5 (talk) 03:06, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@GPRamirez5:If you read my response, you would know that I'm not claiming that "verifiability guarantee inclusion" and that this time I did not insist on adding sources. I strongly advise you to discuss the questions that I made. --Jamez42 (talk) 13:11, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I've been a bit busy lately and felt no urgent need to respond, but that was a fine copyedit. I'd recommend an RfC if you want to establish consensus for including any additional disputed content, as DRN is a broken system and the three of us don't appear likely to change our minds anytime soon. Regards,TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:59, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Venezuela

The consensus is against including the proposed text of both options with editors finding the information to be a WP:COATRACK of material unrelated to Blumenthal.

Cunard (talk) 01:22, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

• See further comment about the close here. Cunard (talk) 08:43, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should any of the two highlighted texts be added to the Venezuela section? --Jamez42 (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Option 1

• On 24 February 2019, Blumenthal wrote an article for the Grayzone website about clashes on 23 February on the Colombia–Venezuela border during the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis and the shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela. In the article, Blumenthal dismissed the assertion that tear gas employed by Venezuelan security forces loyal to Nicolás Maduro had set humanitarian aid trucks attempting to enter Venezuela from Colombia on fire, citing footage from Bloomberg News that showed opposition protesters on the Francisca de Paula Santander bridge in the border preparing Molotov cocktails, "which could easily set a truck cabin or its cargo alight", citing similar situations during his reporting on the West Bank. On 10 March, The New York Times wrote that their reconstruction using both public information and previously unpublished video evidence contradicted the version that the use of tear gas by Maduro's forces had caused the trucks to burn and "suggest[ed] that a Molotov cocktail thrown by an antigovernment protester was the most likely trigger for the blaze". However, Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo rejected the claims by The New York Times and insisted that Nicolás Maduro was responsible."

Option 2

• On 24 February 2019, Blumenthal wrote an article for the Grayzone website about clashes on 23 February on the Colombia–Venezuela border during the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis and the shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela. In the article, Blumenthal dismissed the assertion that tear gas employed by Venezuelan security forces loyal to Nicolás Maduro had set humanitarian aid trucks attempting to enter Venezuela from Colombia on fire, citing footage from Bloomberg News that showed opposition protesters on the Francisca de Paula Santander bridge in the border preparing Molotov cocktails, "which could easily set a truck cabin or its cargo alight", citing similar situations during his reporting on the West Bank. On 10 March, The New York Times wrote that their reconstruction using both public information and previously unpublished video evidence contradicted the version that the use of tear gas by Maduro's forces had caused the trucks to burn and "suggest[ed] that a Molotov cocktail thrown by an antigovernment protester was the most likely trigger for the blaze". NTN24 published a rebuttal to the New York Times article."

References

--Jamez42 (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Background

@TheTimesAreAChanging and GPRamirez5: The article's current section on Venezuela currently deals with Blumenthal's article regarding the burning of humanitarian aid trucks in February and adds that an article of The New York Times reaches a similar conclusion. At least two texts about opposite points of view have been proposed as changes to the article. There's currently no consensus about how to proceed. The discussions above can be read for references, specifically the Trujillo section. --Jamez42 (talk) 14:45, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose both option 1 and option 2. I am happy with the way the event is currently described. If there are RS's that analyse Blumenthal's position then they could possibly be added though I don't think the section on this one event should be expanded too much. The two sources listed in the RFC do not mention Blumenthal so I don't support including their analysis in Blumenthal's bio. They would be more relevant to a page discussing the situation in Venezuela. The NYTimes piece used in the current article does not mention Blumenthal but some description of it is necessary to make sense of Greenwald's comment. Any analysis added to the article about the event at the border should be attributed as it will be someone's opinion. This is what has been done with Blumenthal's, the NYT's and Greenwald's opinions. Burrobert (talk) 16:36, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
• Exclude along with the rest of the section. This is blatant WP:COATRACK material that has nothing to do with Blumenthal. Battles over Venezuela-related content should be confined to Venezuela-related articles. Notice that neither source mentions him at all; that should be a red flag to all of you bickering over this. R2 (bleep) 20:50, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• @Ahrtoodeetoo: So far and to be honest, I think this is the best option available. --Jamez42 (talk) 21:24, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose including any of the content proposed by Jamez42 above. Ahrtoodeetoo is basically correct that this is WP:COATRACK material intended to push a POV related to the situation in Venezuela, with neither of the sources cited by Jamez42 even mentioning Blumenthal. I'd go further and say that neither of Jamez42's sources appear to be reliable or to "rebut" the gold-standard RS The New York Times in any meaningful way (one is just the Colombian foreign minister denying that his government edited footage of the incident—a well-sourced allegation that was already removed in order to placate Jamez42—and insisting that Maduro was still morally responsible for it even if opposition forces actually started the fire—which is not falsifiable). However, Ahrtoodeetoo is wrong to suggest that the long-standing text in the article is equally problematic; only one side in this dispute is relying on dubious sources or attempting to push a political agenda unrelated to the ostensible subject of the article, as the article history should make clear. The "Venezuela" section was created by SandyGeorgia before The New York Times revealed to the general public that anti-Maduro protesters burned the aid trucks with Molotov cocktails, when Blumenthal's skepticism of Maduro's responsibility seemed wacky and weird to the majority of laymen and credentialed specialists alike, and was sourced entirely to Blumenthal's own report and the Venezuelan opposition newspaper La Patilla (an outlet with a dubious record of accuracy and neutrality). Like Jamez42's sources, the La Patilla source said absolutely nothing whatsoever about Blumenthal, so the text initially was pure WP:OR by SandyGeorgia intended to impugn Blumenthal's personal character for "wrongthink," with SandyGeorgia implying that Blumenthal had some sort of untoward relationship with Telesur because it happened to reprint his analysis and attempting to tie Blumenthal to a contrived "plagiarism scandal" at Telesur that he had nothing to do with. SandyGeorgia's version was an absurd abuse of Wikipedia's content policies, all but explicitly calling Blumenthal a "useful idiot for Maduro" in wikivoice, but these BLP vios stuck for a long time—until the truth came out, revealing that Blumenthal was 100% correct and his critics (in this case, Wikipedia editors) were 100% wrong. As a result, the section was updated to reflect the current consensus in RS, including one sentence of attributed commentary from an Intercept article quite explicitly crediting Blumenthal, prompting some of the same editors (now including Jamez42, it seems) that most vehemently advocated for the existence of a "Venezuela" section in this article when its only purpose was to smear Blumenthal to turn around and say that the topic is actually UNDUE... And yet, these same editors are still simultaneously the only ones actually attempting to force content and sources with no connection to the BLP subject into this article, trying to have their cake and eat it, too. It's completely unprincipled conduct, justified only by Jamez42's insistence that facts and RS need to be "balanced" with opinion and unreliable sources to achieve WP:NPOV (which is an erroneous understanding of what the policy requires). There should be no false equivalence made between the long-standing version and the addition suggested by Jamez42 above; if Jamez42 loses this RfC, then he should not be permitted to remove the entire section as a consolation prize.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:31, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• Comment @TheTimesAreAChanging: I'm dismayed of response, specially since you were the one that recommended starting a RfC. I also started a dispute resolution discussion when I was seeking to find a consensus, and neither GPRamirez5 or you seemed interested in participating, so I can assure you that my intention isn't "winning", and neither is that the point of RfCs to start with, not to mention this one. My changes only had the intention of showing the report has been contested, show both points of view per WP:NPOV, but I think this has been discussed ad nauseam above, and I prefer third parties to form a position based on the previous section, as well as receiving feedback from them. If you want to argue further that's alright, but saying that my intention is to "advance an agenda", among other accusations, is not only assuming bad faith, but also personal attacks, which I have already asked you in the past to please stop. Let's not make this dispute harder to solve. --Jamez42 (talk) 21:36, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• Exclude along with the rest of the section, as proposed by R2. I moved Blumenthal being added to the Wiesenthal Ctr 2013 list to this section, as it does not seem to fit anywhere else. But I think such lists are mostly useless and question it being included. Everything published about Blumenthal does not have to be included. I think this list of so-called Controversies is mostly much ado about nothing and agree with excluding it altogether. It seems very odd to characterize disagreements with a reporter as constituting a controversy. There is too little about this article about the influence of the Independence Party on Sarah Palin's political career to make any sense of the entry here, and her reportedly wanting to divert attention from the story means little. I agree that this is not the place to argue about his reporting on the Venezuela material. It is overblowing it to say it is a controversy, and it belongs with related material in the Venezuela article, per WP:COATRACK.Parkwells (talk) 01:29, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

• Shorten As a disinterested observer, neutrality does not require this amount of detail; in fact, it works against it because you end up recycling opposing views. Maybe that's the issue.

• "A February 2019 article by Blumenthal concerning clashes on the Colombia–Venezuela border challenged assertions tear gas used by Venezuelan security forces set fire to trucks attempting to enter Venezuela with humanitarian aid. The article suggested the cause was Molotov cocktails thrown by opposition protesters, a claim supported by the New York Times but rejected by Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo."

Robinvp11 (talk) 11:02, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Extended discussion

Sometimes we get so involved in our internecine battles that we forget to see the forest through the trees. R2 (bleep) 21:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I just read the RfC, and I have no idea what it is asking. Be added where? I'd suggest trying again with a version of the RfC that is intelligible to someone who has no prior familiarity with the article or the dispute.Adoring nanny (talk) 03:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@Adoring nanny: Hi! I'm sorry, I tried rewriting the RfC to be clearer. Please let me know if I should improve anything, I don't have much experience with RfCs. --Jamez42 (talk) 21:12, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Comment I intended to ask in the RfC other users if there was any proposed changes besides the ones in the options, like @Ahrtoodeetoo:, so any other recommendations are welcome. --Jamez42 (talk) 20:24, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The "Venezuela" section: followup to the RfC close

Burrobert (talk · contribs) asked me to comment here since I closed an RfC about the "Venezuela" section.

Here is the sequence of edits:

1. 18:50, 27 October 2019 (UTC): Jamez42 removed the "Venezuela" section, writing, "Removing section per RfC".
2. 01:54, 28 October 2019 (UTC): Burrobert reverted, writing, "My understanding of the RFC is that it refers to the highlighted text at the bottom of the paragraph, not to the whole paragraph itself."
3. 19:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC): Jamez42 replaced the section, writing, "You're right. A shorter version was proposed; including."
4. 02:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC): Burrobert reverted, writing, "The RfC didn't agree to summarising the text. It was a suggestion by one of the participants. Returning the text that was approved by the RfC."
5. 22:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC): Jamez42 reverted, writing, "Is that the only reason why you're reverting? You are the only editor oppossing change along with TheTimesAreAChanging. Two other editors showed support of removing the entire section".

The RfC was about only the bolded text that was proposed to be added after the two paragraphs in the "Venezuela" section that another editor has removed and replaced here. The RfC's conclusion was to reject each proposed addition. The RfC close did not make a judgment on the existence of the "Venezuela" section or the then-wording of the "Venezuela" section since editors were not asked those questions. I recommend creating a new RfC to ask the community two questions:

1. Should the "Venezuela" section be kept or deleted?
2. If the consensus is to keep the "Venezuela" section, which version of the text should be used: this one or this one or a different version?

My reading of the RfC consensus is that there was a clear consensus against adding the bolded text because it was a coatrack. One of the additions the RfC rejected was:

However, Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo rejected the claims by The New York Times and insisted that Nicolás Maduro was responsible.

Jamez42's edit here condenses the section. The summary has this sentence:

The article suggested the cause was Molotov cocktails thrown by opposition protesters, a claim supported by The New York Times but rejected by Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo.

The consensus in the RfC was to exclude the mention of Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, so I consider the part of the sentence about the claim being "rejected by Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo" to be a violation of the RfC consensus. I recommend removing this part of the sentence unless and until there is a consensus to include this material. I also recommend restoring the status quo version of the article to this 02:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC) edit by Burrorobert unless and until there is a consensus to change it.

Cunard (talk) 08:43, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for having a look Cunard (talk · contribs). I think your analysis is accurate. I'll give other editors a chance to comment before making your suggested edits to the disputed text. Burrobert (talk) 11:51, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you @Cunard:. I have restored the section per your advice. I would like to start another RfC to clarify this point, but I would be grateful if somebody does it before. Best regards. --Jamez42 (talk) 18:16, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you both. Thank you, Jamez42 (talk · contribs), for restoring the section per my suggestion. I agree that another RfC would be very useful to determine the community consensus on these questions. Cunard (talk) 00:45, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Also a Greyzone current writer

As referenced here: https://thegrayzone.com/author/max-blumenthal/ . Can't edit as don't have 500 edits or something Apeholder (talk) 01:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes the article is locked. The Grayzone is mentioned in the body of the article. I have added a sentence about it to the leading paragraph as well. Burrobert (talk) 04:04, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Frequent contributor to Mint Press News

Mr. Blumenthal is a frequent contributor to Mint Press News. See: https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/max-blumenthal/ Please add this information to the appropriate paragraph under "Career".

RfC: Max Blumenthal Venezuela section

There is a clear consensus for option A to keep the section (as preserved here) as is.

Cunard (talk) 23:37, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In the Max Blumenthal article, this text has been proposed to replace the Venezuela section:

A February 2019 article by Blumenthal concerning clashes on the Colombia–Venezuela border challenged assertions tear gas used by Venezuelan security forces set fire to trucks attempting to enter Venezuela with humanitarian aid. The article suggested the cause was Molotov cocktails thrown by opposition protesters, a claim supported by The New York Times but rejected by Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo."

References

What should be done?

• A. Keep the section
• B. Include the proposed text
• C. Remove the whole section --Jamez42 (talk) 01:43, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Survey

• Option A. I think the text is fine as is.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Burrobert (talk • contribs)

• Option A. (Summoned by bot) I see no valid reason to chop down the Venezuela section as proposed. BTW, you should put the existing language in this RfC. Coretheapple (talk) 14:44, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• Option A. Keep the section. It accurately explains the reporting and there is no reason to trim it down. --David Tornheim (talk) 10:43, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• Option A. As per sources. Bacondrum (talk) 23:53, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option A. The original section has a more detailed account. For clarity, it would also help to identify who are making the assertions about the Venezuelan security forces causing the fire. Darwin Naz (talk) 23:00, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment - Please amend this proposal to include specific sources. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 03:53, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: Thank you for your feedback. I have included the references to the proposed text. --Jamez42 (talk) 16:04, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• Comment @Jamez42 - This is my first contribution to a discussion so forgive me if my formatting is incorrect. I would suggest editing the first sentence for syntactic clarity - "...challenged assertions that tear gas...". I would also advocate for option B, because your suggested addition, in my opinion, succinctly expresses two opposing narratives without bias towards either one. In light of the above consternation, I appreciate your suggested edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LittleChongsto (talk • contribs) 23:01, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@LittleChongsto: No worries, format seems good to me :) Thanks for the proposal! --Jamez42 (talk) 01:08, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jamez42: This edit has made the statement of this RfC too large for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is no longer showing correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies. The RfC needs a brief and neutral statement to show correctly; it will also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Reverted. Thanks for the notice! --Jamez42 (talk) 23:06, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, it's back now. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:21, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I think an explanation would be useful as to why deleting almost the whole section (option B) or removing the section entirely (option C) would be warranted. Is there something wrong with the rest of the section? It seems fairly unobjectionable to me, but I may be missing some context. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 04:15, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Cmonghost: See the previous RfC for details. --Jamez42 (talk) 16:08, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Neutrality

The neutrality tag has been in place since July 2019. What issues are unresolved? --David Tornheim (talk) 21:32, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Looking at the history it was placed by Jamez42 with comment "Placing neutrality tag, given the current dispute in the talk page. Will start a RfC shortly". There has been a completed RfC on Venezuela since then so perhaps the issue has been resolved. The Venezuela section seems fine to me but perhaps Jamez42 should have a look and give an opinion. Burrobert (talk) 05:11, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Jamez42 as they just made a reference to the neutrality tag in an edit summary. @Jamez42: Can you please explain what the current issues on the page are, in your view? — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 15:29, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. As I commented in my edit summary, I fell that the Venezuela section currently has unnecessary and excessive details, and it should be mentioned that the first added version was quite different from the current one. There's still an ongoing discussion on wherever to trim the section or not, but there are some improvements that I've thought about doing once it ends.

However, this seems to be a problem in the rest of the sections regarding Syria, Russia and Saudi Arabia, as examples, where they talk more about political positions rather than Blumenthal's actual career or articles. Again, I think these improvements could be done once the RfC ends. --Jamez42 (talk) 03:07, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Why do improvements to Syria, Russia, and Saudi Arabia need to wait until the Venezuela RfC ends? I've noticed some issues with the Russia section in particular as well, which is largely populated by descriptions of attacks on him (e.g., referring to him as a "useful idiot" for Putin, comparing him to InfoWars, etc.). Per WP:BLPBALANCE we should probably avoid giving disproportionate space and undue weight to these smears. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 17:30, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Unexplained removal of content from the lead

@Jamez42: Please explain this revert of my revert. I reverted your edit because you removed content from the lead and moved it to the body of the article, apparently not noticing that the material is already in the body of the article, only one paragraph above where you copied it to. The article now reads:

Blumenthal's articles and video documentaries have been published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Independent Film Channel, Salon, The Real News, Al Jazeera English,[4] Sputnik,[14] and the Columbia Journalism Review.[15] [paragraph break] Blumenthal has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Huffington Post, the Independent Film Channel, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English and other publications.[16]

This is hopelessly redundant and can't possibly be construed as an improvement to the article, so I reverted it. In the same edit, you also removed the term "award-winning" from the lead without explaining it. I don't have strong opinions about whether this should be there, but since you didn't give any reason and it's obviously true, I reverted the whole edit.

In your revert, you say: WP:UNDUE and WP:LABEL. The article is already tagged with NPOV, it should be tried to be improved. I don't see how either of the cited policies apply.

1. Please explain why you think summarizing the venues in which Blumenthal has been published is undue in the lead but not undue in the body. Similar material appears in the leads of other articles about journalists, e.g., Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and leads are supposed to summarize the article, which is what the content you removed does.
2. As for "award-winning", I'm not sure how this is a "contentious label", since it's actually a fact, but again, I don't have a strong opinion about including it or not.

I'd also like to say that editing would be more productive if you followed WP:BRD and did not restore your own bold edits after they have been removed—especially when doing so would objectively make the article worse by introducing repetition (as I stated in my edit summary, which you seem not to have read). If you believe a policy is being violated you should explain it clearly on talk rather than just linking the policy page in your edit summary. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 15:27, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

The term "award-winning" is loaded to include in the lead. Even Stephen King, arguably the most prolific writer in the last years, does not have any similar description, and lets the article content to describe his merits, as well as other details in the content.

As of the awards, I did not remove them, but moved them. They were added directly to the lead, and not having said text in the section defeats the whole purpose of a lead to summarize the article. --Jamez42 (talk) 03:17, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jamez42: OK, it seems like maybe you don't understand what you did. Please look at the diff of yours that I linked again. You did not remove awards from the lead. You removed the summary of venues in which Blumenthal's work has been published, and his position as a fellow at the Nation Institute. You moved this information to the body of the article, directly below where near-identical material was already found, which had the effect of (a) removing the information from the lead, and (b) repeating near-identical information in the body of the article.

Since this seems to have been a mistake, I'll restore the information to the lead. Please read carefully next time before jumping the gun. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 17:17, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I misspoke, you could also have interpreted that instead of saying "I didn't understand what I did". I made a different edit to solve the issue. --Jamez42 (talk) 18:07, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for failing to read your mind. Why did you remove the NYT, the Guardian, and other highly-regarded sources that Blumenthal has written for, leaving only the more marginal sources? I don't see the value of this change and think they should be re-added. The lead is short and doesn't need to be trimmed. Also, the wording "was formerly" is also not really verifiable, unless you have a source that says he's terminated his relationship with those sources? The original wording, "has written for" is more accurate. Can you explain why you changed it? — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 18:52, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea of what you're talking about. Compare these https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Max_Blumenthal&oldid=931707088 two versions and you'll see that the main change was moving statements, while the wording change was just to include "Blumenthal has written for media outlets and publications". I ask you to stop snarky remarks. --Jamez42 (talk) 21:38, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

You're right that that the "was formerly" wording wasn't yours, sorry. Why did you feel the need to eliminate the mentions of the specific publications he's written for? "Blumenthal has written for several outlets and publications" is a vague statement that says essentially nothing (it's established in the previous paragraph), and is not an improvement over the previous text, which gave specific examples. The lead did not need trimming so it's unclear what problem you were attempting to solve. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 21:52, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the arguments of Cmonghost about and his/recent edits restoring content. Jamez42 please do not keep deleting this material from the WP:LEDE. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:23, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

What I can say is that the lead is the summary of the article, and repeating all of the publications mentioned in the content defeats its purpose; only Sputnik and the Columbia Journalism Review are left out. This is particularly concerning considering the current POV tag. If I may, maybe we can include the three or four most important publications instead of all of them, as a possible alternative. --Jamez42 (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

This is particularly concerning considering the current POV tag. You are the one who put the tag there. I don't see why multiple editors disagreeing with what *you* want in the lede are somehow "particularly concerning", because you had previously put the POV tag on the article, and are still not satisfied when the RfC's are showing that editors don't agree with you. Strange. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:26, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@David Tornheim: Doing a quick read across the talk page shows that I'm clearly not the first editor to express POV concerns. If these positions are based policies or guidelines, I don't see which the problem is. It should be mentioned that the RfC is only about the Venezuela section, and a discussion about other sections has not started. I wouldn't mind pinging said editors to know about their arguments, but I don't think it'd be correct per WP:CANVASS. I have made the edit per the proposal, including The New York Times, The Nation, The Guardian and Al Jazeera English as publications examples. --Jamez42 (talk) 08:56, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Inaccurate smear in the Syria section

Under the Syria section of this article it states that Blumenthal "started promoting views supportive of Bashar al Assad". Wikipedia does not link to a single article where Max has said supportive things of the Assad government. (and by the way he has criticized the Syrian government for being an authoritarian police state and using Vietnam era weapons to violently put down an insurgency). The difference though between him and many of the western intervention cheerleaders it that he has also criticized the sectarianism of the rebels (who have worked with AQ and ISIS, at different points) and he has criticized the role of the US and other powerful forces in trying to expand and continue the war- reproducing the bloodshed rather than helping to push for peace and compromise. These criticisms have been conflated with "support for Assad" which is so clearly a smear meant to silence him and scare off other people from his work. Wikipedia can do better than this.

Also the page states "Blumenthal had allegedly mocked Syrians for preparing plastic bags to protect against alleged Syrian government chemical weapons attacks." IF you go back and look at the tweet and the context he was mocking international coverage of events in Syria, when it was so clear that media coverage was not critically investigating the chemical weapons attacks and was instead echoing claims made by jihadist and islamist organizations to provoke US military intervention. This whole Syria section is so biased and clearly written by people who support intervention and want to smear this author.

It also states " In 2019, he visited Damascus to take part in a trade union convention. He received criticism from some exiled Syrians for allegedly promoting views that favour Assad during his visit." But here it says nothing about what exactly he was talking about that upset supporters of the rebels. He was writing and tweeting about the role of the sanctions in carrying out collective punishment, blocking fuel, finances, trade, similar to the hybrid wars being carried out on Venezuela and Iran. These page is only referencing the smears of those who criticize him on Syria, but dosnt actually reflect any of the content of his writings on Syria. It also falsely labels him as an Assadist and makes it sound as if his critics have "no ball in the game", so to say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 22:31, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Some or much of what you say may be true. However, Wikipedia relies on what is written in WP:SECONDARY reliable sources (WP:RS). The tweets and article by Blumenthal are not secondary but WP:PRIMARY. And some of the things you stated that are objectionable appear to have been written in the RS. If you can provide other WP:RS that disagrees, that can be added. I'm going to parse some of your statement based on this. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:40, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

• Under the Syria section of this article it states that Blumenthal "started promoting views supportive of Bashar al Assad". Wikipedia does not link to a single article where Max has said supportive things of the Assad government.

This article in the New York TimesNY Review of Books calls Blumenthal "an Assad apologist" and says, "Another prominent pro-Assad figure is Max Blumenthal." So the statement is sourced to WP:SECONDARY WP:RS. Is there WP:RS that challenges this assertion? Is there any WP:RS that supports any of the other claims made in the first paragraph? Perhaps, non-American media? --David Tornheim (talk) 07:50, 21 December 2019 (UTC) [revised 08:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC) per next comment.]

It's actually from the NY Review of Books, and it reads like an opinion piece (e.g., describing things as "maddening", using "unfortunately" in reference to the author's opinion, etc). It should at least be attributed, probably. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 07:53, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

You are correct. I will fix. I agree it should be attributed, ideally to the author of the piece. Can you do it?--David Tornheim (talk) 07:56, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Why is an opinion piece, that never actually factually validates its claim that Blumenthal is an Assadist, allowed to remain here? This is definitely a smear and does not hold up to Wikipedia standards for defining the totality of how someone feels about a contemporary event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 03:31, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• Also the page states "Blumenthal had allegedly mocked Syrians for preparing plastic bags to protect against alleged Syrian government chemical weapons attacks. This was sourced to this article in The Jerusalem Post, a periodical that I am not familiar. Are you suggesting it is unreliable? That articles lede says "Blumenthal has mocked Syrians in the past for preparing plastic bags to protect against Syrian regime chemical weapons attacks." Is there WP:RS that says this article is in error or gives a different take on the tweets in question? --David Tornheim (talk) 08:14, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Jerusalem post is definitely unreliable source for explaining Blumenthal. He is a top critic of Israeli foreign policy and this newspaper is owned by people directly connected with the Israeli government and takes a very pro-interventionist line for that country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 03:34, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• IF you go back and look at the tweet and the context he was mocking international coverage of events in Syria,...

Could indeed be true. But, I believe this would be original research, WP:PRIMARY and/or WP:SELFPUB. Please read WP:PRIMARY and WP:OR and let me know if you think there is a reason that the original tweet(s) could be added. Can you provide a link to any tweet you think would be worthy of inclusion and the justification for that inclusion? --David Tornheim (talk) 08:14, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

• when it was so clear that media coverage was not critically investigating the chemical weapons attacks and was instead echoing claims made by jihadist and islamist organizations to provoke US military intervention. This whole Syria section is so biased and clearly written by people who support intervention and want to smear this author.

This may be true, but please see WP:NOTTRUTH. I have noted my concerns about U.S. media bias since I first started editing and the fact that this same media is frequently used as WP:RS: See User:David_Tornheim#Mainstream_Media. Also, please see Media_bias_in_the_United_States, Media_bias_in_the_United_States#Pro-power_and_pro-government_bias, and Media_bias_in_the_United_States#Coverage_of_foreign_issues.

One way to address such bias is to find equal or more reliable sources (e.g. academic journals, experts, etc.) that do not have such a bias or that provide a different viewpoint. Foreign press is acceptable. Do you have WP:RS that says any of what you claim above? That's the best way to address your concern. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:39, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

• [Third paragraph]

I haven't reviewed the concerns of the third paragraph. Those would likely be addressed in the same way as mentioned above--using reliable sources that support claims you have made. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:44, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

question::

Why is Janine di Giovanni quoted to explain Blumenthal's "support for Assad"? Janine di Giovanni does not accurately depict Max's views and instead engages in a smear. This smear is not supported by any evidence. Wikipedia cannot find a single shred of evidence where Max says he supports Assad. So why is this smear left up? So Wikipedia will quote a smear as long as it is cited? Also, now you have a better segment under "Career" referring to Max's history on Syria. However, he did not just "claim" that the White helmets were connected to islamist extremists and Al Nusra, he actually documented it.

The section on Syria under "Career" should be moved down to the part of the text that is actually on Syria. His career spans a huge amount of topics, and how you have it now it makes it appear as if he has focused on Syria, which is not accurate.

Again the sentence "Blumenthal had allegedly mocked Syrians for preparing plastic bags to protect against alleged Syrian government chemical weapons attacks" should be changed to something like "Pro-interventionist Critics of Blumenthal have alleged he has mocked Syrians for preparing plastic bags to protect against alleged Syrian government chemical weapons attacks, when if taken in context he was poking criticism at the mass media's uncritical reporting on chemical weapons attacks." Are you all watching how numerous experts at the OPCW have now come forward challenging the narrative on chemical weapons in Syria? Max is not alone on this, and he has done it in a careful and professional investigative way. You can watch the videos of Aaron Mate at the Grayzone (Max's outlet) where he interviews numerous experts on Chemical weapons and the OPCW controversy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 03:20, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Regarding OPCW, I found this report from March 2019. Is this the most recent report? No comment on the other issues at this time. I think some of them may have been addressed by another editor. Major changes to the article have taken place in the last couple of days. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:10, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

You probably mean these:

• Maté, Aaron (2019-06-18). "Top scientist slams OPCW leadership for repressing dissenting report on Syria gas attack". The Grayzone. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
• and this video: Newsweek reporter quits after editors block coverage of OPCW Syria scandal, retrieved 2019-12-27

Is there are other material to look at? --David Tornheim (talk) 03:26, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I found more material from this section:

Talk:Douma_chemical_attack#WikiLeaks

based on ZScarpia's comment below. ZScarpia: Do you have any thoughts on the above? --David Tornheim (talk) 12:37, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Writers such as Janine di Giovanni have referred to others as Assad-friendly or Assad-apologists when, if you examine their writing, they have been very critical of the Assad regime. Being opposed to attempts by outside governments to engineer regime change in places such as Syria doesn't necessarily make people supporters of the regimes there ("spreading democracy" hasn't worked very well in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and the Ukraine and those doing the spreading have a record of unseating democratic governments in places like Chile and Iran when it suited them). Neutrality means that nothing can be stated as a fact (rather than a point of view) here if other reliable sources contradict it. If there aren't any contradictory reliable sources, I think it becomes legitimate to quote the subjects themselves in order to show that they have expressed views contradictory to those being represented, though care needs to be taken not to do it in such a way that introduces original research or synthesis.     ←   ZScarpia   13:53, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Blumenthal says much the same as the regime about the White Helmets (their claims have been rejected by admissible sources). In September, with his associates, he had access to government-controlled areas of Syria which Assad's critics do not. He was accompanied by the head of the Syrian Solidarity Movement which six years ago organised the visit to the United States by Mother Agnes, another Assadist (read the sources used in her article). The citations other editors object to do use evidence. Of course, Blumenthal is going deny defending the Syrian government, the reverse would not be a wise action, but all Wikipedia articles are meant to reflect multiple points of view. And Blumenthal has become a controversial figure. Philip Cross (talk) 14:38, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing

@David Tornheim: your reference to this RS/N entry which is nearly a decade old and refers to a disputed Nelson Mandela quote in a 1990 article is insufficient to demonstrate the unreliability of Commentary. Nor is you assertion that the Bruce Bawer article is "biased" sufficient for its deletion. Blumenthal is a controversial figure who gains a strong reaction and inevitably the article is going to reflect that. Positive mentions of him in RS are a small minority.

You have restored a RT (Russia Today) reference, which especially on international politics (as here, even if the event was in Moscow), is not considered reliable by the editing community. The event four years ago has plenty of good third party sources. I considered the mention of Michael Flynn, and a British politician, off-topic so I removed it. Philip Cross (talk) 13:43, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

To your concerns:

• Commentary (magazine) is a neo-con advocacy magazine [4].
• Bruce Bawer is conservative figure, who is associated with Neo-conservativism. He and the magazine can hardly be objective in commenting on a writer so openly opposed to hawkish neo-conservativism.
• Attendance of Michael Flynn and politician Ken Livingstone (and even Jill Stein) show that attendance at the event is not as controversial or unusual as the articles are trying to make it.
• The quotes on the on the reliability of RT were selective. It also says: "There is no consensus on the reliability of RT (formerly Russia Today)." I think it is safe to say that RT knows who attended their own event. That hardly seems controversial or "international politics".

Let's see what other editors think. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:33, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia does not discount sources on the basis of their politics or personal preference, but on the basis of not being a reliable source; an argument better than you have provided on Commentary and Bawer is required. On the basis of the attendees in Moscow, I would read their articles as their inclusion does not benefit Blumenthal (allegedly pro-Putin, etc). Michael Flynn (the case is on appeal) has a conviction for accepting funds from a foreign government without authorization (Turkey), illicit contact with officials from a second government (Russia) and making false statements. Philip Cross (talk) 22:16, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Bawer's opinion piece calling Blumenthal an "idiot" in the way you added it was far WP:UNDUE and hardly WP:NPOV. The piece. If you wanted to put it in a criticism section, that may be okay, especially if the author of the piece is identified as being both conservative and a neo-con. But if you want to include someone with such strong opinions from the right, it seems only fair that for balance you include opinions of the many notable figures who support him, such as Medea Benjamin from Code Pink (e.g. this article)? Right? (For disclosure: I have donated to Code Pink User:David_Tornheim#Code_Pink_and_Medea_Benjamin and am friends with her on Facebook to receive her reporting). Or Maduro himself: [5]. --David Tornheim (talk) 23:32, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not normally have "Criticism" sections on NPOV grounds and the labeling you suggest is unsourced and POV. Sources do not need to be "balanced" to be used here. Bawer's article also backed up the "pro-Assad" claim which was a little contentious a few days ago. Incidentally, Bawer's article was not the only source to use the "Useful Idiot" tag in the article. Philip Cross (talk) 23:57, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Bruce Bawer is a writer with a reputation for somewhat extreme views.[6][7] Commentary is a magazine with a Neo-conservative bent and a focus on "Jewish affairs". Given their viewpoint, both are obviously going to have fairly partisan opinions about Blumenthal. While that doesn't rule out using them in the article, it begs the question of why you would want to.

Perhaps there's a bit of a double standard in operation here, given that the use of the reporting and commentary of better known writers was objected to in the article on the Douma attack.[8]

    ←   ZScarpia   12:15, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:RSP is clear regarding the result of the discussion of RT's reliability: RT is generally unreliable for topics that are controversial or related to international politics. --Jamez42 (talk) 12:38, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• The quotes on the on the reliability of RT were selective. It also says: "There is no consensus on the reliability of RT (formerly Russia Today)." I think it is safe to say that RT knows who attended their own event. That hardly seems controversial or "international politics". (which I had already written above). --David Tornheim (talk) 12:48, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

A gathering of individuals from the West in Moscow clearly counts as "international politics" on which the perennial sources page is quite clear: don't cite RT.

On the previous issue, personal preferences rather than Wikipedia policy are taking priority here. Only one objection to citing Commentary on RS/N has been located (by David Tornheim above) which applied to one incident thirty years ago, so policy arguments against citing the magazine are weak. The somewhat unsourced page on Bawer on RationalWiki, inferior to the Wikipedia page, would not be accepted here. Philip Cross (talk) 12:55, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

No. I am not alone in objecting to Bawer's piece in Commentary. ZScarpia did here.

As I have continually explained [9][10], RT's ability to factually identify who was at the event is hardly controversial or "international politics". --David Tornheim (talk) 20:54, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Pulse

Philip Cross You have used Pulse for quite a few refs e.g. [11][12]. Please explain why what appears to be a blog and WP:SPS (see https://pulsemedia.org/about/) is WP:RS for this article. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Pulse is co-edited by Dr Idrees Ahmad of the University of Stirling. I believe it can be considered RS. Philip Cross (talk) 09:14, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

New Politics

Philip Cross I'd also see your justification of using this opinion piece in New Politics that has the title "troll" is WP:RS. Putting an ad hominem in the title hardly seems like objective reporting. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The WP article you cite says New Politics is an "independent socialist journal" associated with a "'Neither Washington Nor Moscow!' Third Camp, democratic Marxist perspective." Not exactly a conservative/neo-conservative publication then. Unless you consider a list of contributors including Noam Chomsky, Paul Buhle, Cornel West and Howard Zinn to be so. Philip Cross (talk) 09:25, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

The About and Why We Publish pages identify it as an independent socialist forum for dialogue and debate on the left. The site lists no editorial policies. It's a forum for opinions, not a source for facts. Humanengr (talk) 07:45, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

It has an editorial board and co-editors demonstrating oversight of the articles it publishes. Philip Cross (talk) 08:50, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

‘Oversight' isn’t fact-checking. And here, the article says “[Blumenthal] has since gone on to help produce features for RT” which links (now retrievable via archive.is) to this tweet by Anya Parampil which says "Excited to air a project I’ve dumped all my energy into over last few weeks— along with @MaxBlumenthal. Produced by @davidsheen.” That does not say Blumenthal "helped produce" the show much less the plural "helped produce features". The About page for that film does not mention Blumenthal. No, they don’t fact-check. Humanengr (talk) 00:57, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

All of this has nothing to do with what it cited in the article. But for the record, "helped produce" does not mean "Produced by", but it can mean Blumenthal was involved in the program, which Ms Parampil confirms. Philip Cross (talk) 06:27, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I questioned the propriety of using New Politics as a fact source. You responded with 'oversight'. I pointed to failure to fact-check. Your All of this has nothing to do with what it cited in the article does not counter the failure of New Politics to fact-check. Hence not RS. (It is worthwhile noting, however, that this particular failure goes directly to Charles Davis's reporting on Blumenthal.)

1. The failure to fact-check goes directly to the questionable nature of this source: Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts or with no editorial oversight (per WP:QUESTIONABLE) or, as WP:APPLYRS says, What matters is the fact-checking process. I repeat, not RS.
2. Re 'produce', we are talking about a 'film' (RT's term, or what Charles Davis calls a 'feature'). The word 'produce' has a very specific meaning: per Wiktionary: To sponsor and present (a motion picture, etc) to an audience or to the public.
3. Also, you have no response to the misrepresentation of singular as plural He has since gone on to help produce features for RT.
4. Beyond that, it is worth noting that, per Davis, he was named by Blumenthal as a “shadow author” (a claim Davis denies) in a threat of litigation Blumenthal brought against SPLC. That Davis chose to pen this article lacks even the appearance of objectivity. Humanengr (talk) 07:28, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

This article cites multiple sources where Blumenthal's credibility and the veracity of his claims have been questioned. As Wikipedia does not allow subjects any influence over the content of the articles, his opinion of Charles Davis is irrelevant. The SPLC article Blumenthal objected to was not by Charles Davis, but by Alexander Reid Ross. The article by Ross which is cited was published by Haaretz, a source which has the highest rating for reliability on Wikipedia here. Philip Cross (talk) 07:58, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Those points are all irrelevant. What is relevant is that Davis — after being named in a legal threat by Blumenthal (whether Blumenthal is correct or not in his assertion re Davis's 'shadow authorship') — chose to pen an article about Blumenthal. You have no response to any of my (now numbered) points. Humanengr (talk) 08:24, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Mirrors of the deleted SPLC article are not cited in this article, and there would, in the circumstances, be valid to oppose its inclusion. Since when has an article by someone responding to an accusation in a reliable, non-deprecated source been inadmissible? Davis directly quotes Blumenthal's claim concerning himself in the New Politics article: "This wasn’t by one writer. This was by a cabal of people who have been trying to suppress dissent". Davis writes of the claim passed to him from the SPLC's general counsel: "It was with some surprise, then, that I received a call on March 13 from the SPLC’s bemused general counsel, Jim Knoepp, regarding a peculiar legal threat Blumenthal had sent to the civil rights organization. That threat named me as a “shadow author” of an article I did not write by a man I did not know on topics we had never discussed". If only Blumenthal's other counters to his critics could be cited here ("smear", "McCarthyite", "neocon", etc) the writers of the third-party sources cited here would be thoroughly exposed in no time. As I began you are making an issue of the deleted SPLC article which is never likely to be cited here. Philip Cross (talk) 09:35, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

That this article is "by someone responding to an accusation" makes it non-objective for fact claims. That this article was not fact-checked shows that the publisher is not RS. Your claim that I am "making an issue of the deleted SPLC article" is nonsense. Everything you have offered is off-target, a distraction, and non-responsive. Humanengr (talk) 09:43, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

You are taking as gospel truth the claims of Max Blumenthal who has not written for a reliable source in years and whose main outlets are deprecated (The Grayzone, RT, Sputnik) over Charles Davis who frequently writes for The Daily Beast and Bellingcat (as well as New Politics) which have an appropriate status for inclusion in Wikipedia articles. We are not reaching any kind of resolution here. Please take these issues to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Philip Cross (talk) 10:05, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Re taking this somewhere else, I was thinking similarly. Will notify. Humanengr (talk) 10:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Palestine Book Awards

@Philip Cross:, @Doug Weller:: Regarding the claims that this award is non-notable [13][14]: The award is not limited to coverage by its sponsor Middle East Monitor, but is also mentioned in other WP:RS and/or by notable organizations:

• Middle East Eye: "Annual Palestine Book Awards shortlist announced in London". Middle East Eye édition française (in French). Retrieved 2019-12-27.
• recognized by Stanford University Press: here
• The Muslim News here
• "'Palestine Book Awards' Gives First-ever Award in Translation Category". & Arablit. 2019-11-04. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
• attacked by Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law here
• mentioned in culture section of Iran Daily [15]

Hence, I have restored mention of the award. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:38, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the research. Doug Weller talk 15:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

The 51 Day War (2015)

The section Max_Blumenthal#The_51_Day_War_(2015) lacks WP:NPOV. I did a quick Google search on the book, which shows that the overwhelming majority of reviews of the book are favorable, e.g. L.A. Review of Books, Kirkus Reviews, In these Times. I don't understand why a single negative review should dominate the section. It is WP:UNDUE. It can be removed as WP:UNDUE, or--better--balanced by a representative sample which includes the favorable reviews. I believe the bias tag needs to stay until this section appropriately summarizes the WP:RS reporting on this book. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

As you suggested, the Los Angeles Review of Books and Kirkus Reviews are now cited, although the LARB reviewer commending his treatment of the "resistance", or rather Hamas, is probably not what you had in mind. If articles are not to be overwhelmed by minutiae, it helps to provide claims/evidence of the subject's sympathies. If Blumenthal has said something like "I am ambivalent about/against Hamas", or words to the effect, that could be cited as well. It seems unlikely he has. Philip Cross (talk) 14:03, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

When you cite a source like that you have to be WP:NPOV, not to simply add the quotes that you think are most likely to make the subject look bad, inconsistent, etc. It looks a lot like WP:OR. Instead, please summarize what the source says about him, which I am not seeing. I may take this to an WP:NPOV/N because of my concerns that these quotes are not accurately representing the WP:RS. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:22, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

On the contrary, there are two paragraphs dedicated to the Blumenthal's coverage of the "resistance" in Sonali Kolhatkar's LARB review (and the Israeli response) beginning: "But what sets this reportage apart is the author’s added focus on Palestinian resistance...", from which I drew. A biographical article on Blumenthal is likely to discuss his personal qualities and there are other Wikipedia articles about the war itself in which his work is cited. Citing the reference to "Blumenthal’s urgent prose", or similar, is insubstantial, and much of the review is an outline of the war itself though drawing on the book. Philip Cross (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Please put wikiquotes link under external links

Please cut & paste this under external links:

Anutherconcerned (talk) 16:26, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Added.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 20:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Sarcastic quote

@SharabSalam: Not sure what your problem with this quote is [16]. Sure, he's being sarcastic, but that seems to be kind of the point he's making - he's finds it over the top to be lumped with Ali Khamenei. --RaiderAspect (talk) 09:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

It should be deleted as video sources are discouraged. The original rendering mentioned Ayatollah Khomeini, who has been dead for thirty years, rather than Khamenei, which I changed without watching the video (I had problems with my computer speakers at the time.) In fact, Blumenthal clearly says "Khomeini" in the first minute of the video. It is a poor joke (rather the transcription error I believed more likely) which I would suggest shows him in a bad light trivializing the issue of antisemitism. There are many better sources making assertions about Blumenthal's attitude towards (Zionist) Jews currently included in the article, without the need for this one. I am not necessarily referring to Blumenthal, but being Jewish does not mean people cannot be antisemites. I will change Khamenei back to Khomeini. Philip Cross (talk) 11:38, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I removed that part where it says He commented that he, Richard Falk, and Roger Waters (who also appear on the list) "had stiff competition: Ayatollah Khomeini [sic, Khamenei] was number one." I left this: Blumenthal responded by saying the Wiesenthal Center's list associated him with such people as American writer Alice Walker which I think is the real response.

@Philip Cross: I am not necessarily referring to Blumenthal, but being Jewish does not mean people cannot be antisemites. Even if you said "I am not necessarily referring to Blumenthal", you should NOT even suggest he is anti-semite.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 20:37, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Can Philip Cross even point to one anti-semitic thing that Blumenthal has said or done? No because he hasn't. Pro-empire editors likes Philippe cross consistently conflate criticism of Israeli government policies with the racism of anti-semitism. This is meant to silent dissidents like Blumenthal. They smear them over this website. Cross should be ashamed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

IP 47.147.197.20, I have added your details from the edit history again (as for one of your comments at Talk:Elliott Abrams) the bot having failed to function. Please use tildes as requested before. The issue you raise concerning Max Blumenthal has been discussed elsewhere on this page and at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Philip Cross BLP issue. Philip Cross (talk) 19:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Bias and slander

Why does Wikipedia include this sentence in the very top of the article? This is such slander comparing Blumenthal's work to "Info Wars" with no evidence or data actually establishing this statement. This is clearly an attempt to slander Blumenthal. It is shameful that Wikipedia has editors who do this kind of thing. I am referring to this sentence " Janine di Giovanni, in The New York Review of Books, wrote that Blumenthal was part of the website 21st Century Wire–which she compared to InfoWars–stating that his work and affiliated group is "spread by a spectrum of far-left, anti-West conspiracy theorists; anti-Semites; supporters of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah; libertarians; and far-right groups".[13]" Not once has Blumenthal being linked to any far-right or anti-semitic group. This is meant to slander. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 21:21, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

It is entirely legitimate to include the comments of Janine di Giovanni, an academic and journalist who has covered wars for several decades for major publications and broadcasters. The New York Review of Books is an eminent journal which easily meets the requirement of being a reliable source for citation. Wikipedia policies do not distinguish between sources which are favorable or hostile to a subject, although an editors' language cannot give weight on any side (Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). The Biographies of living persons policy adds further rules like avoiding potential libel, but has a firmer insistence on using reliable sources. It does not matter if any reader finds content objectionable if it meets WP policies for the sources which editors can use. Philip Cross (talk) 19:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I have no problem with commentary of di Giovanni's from The New York Review of Books being quoted in the article. She is a prominent journalist and author and the NYRB is a source of high quality writing, though I see no evidence that she is, as you describe her, an academic. An academic in normal terms would be somebody who does research and has the results published in conference proceedings or academic journals. Di Giovanni is a "Senior Fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs", but that doesn't necessarily make her an academic. The Institute's article contains a list of other senior fellows. How many of those could justifiably be described as academics? Something to think about is whether there is a double standard in operation. If academic sources are more desirable, why not source material from genuine academics, such as the members of the “Working Group on Syria, Propaganda, and Media" (WGSPM) who, like Professor Tim Hayward, hold academic posts? If commentary by di Giovanni is allowed, then why not Robert Fisk, an eminent journalist and author, whose articles from The Independent have been barred as source material on the grounds that he is labelled as a "Voice" and so, it is claimed, all his pieces are opinion. While not an academic, at least Fisk holds a PhD, in Political Science, which he gained from Trinity College, Dublin in 1983.     ←   ZScarpia   13:39, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

In addition to her fellowships, the Wikipedia article about Janine di Giovanni also says she has served as Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Her Guggenheim Fellowship would have been awarded on the basis of having "demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." If Fisk and the others ever praise Blumenthal in a prestigious publication, that might well be included, but it is unlikely someone with the reputation which (say) Fisk now has would be asked to contribute to a reputable publication with the sole exception of the London Independent. Most academics submit papers to peer-reviewed publications which is the basis for Wikipedia citing academic articles. I have not come across any such papers commending Max Blumenthal. Philip Cross (talk) 14:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

It is my opinion that it is very difficult to talk about the legitimacy of an internationally renowned academic who is entrenched within the norms of the powers that be. Blumenthal, as a person speaking in opposition to imperialism by the US and her allies is fundamentally challenging many of the assumptions and positions that must be held as a prerequisite for someone becoming mainstream and successful within the political norms of major institutions, like academia, and the government and military organisations which fund academic institutions and individual academics.

Many respected academics work within institutions which have supported the US military by providing technology and useful academic research to the US military. The relationship between academia and the military many times leads to academics and their institutions being patronised directly by the US military budget. So I do not think that it is so easy to say that an academic who is respected in an area should be allowed to have potentially slanderous comments have free reign in plastering a Wikipedia page with highly emotive language seeking to, in my opinion, diminish and dismiss legitimate criticism by mischaracterising Blumenthal through comparison to InfoWars.

And with Blumenthal, as someone who is so challenging towards powerful institutions in government, intelligence and military, we as Wikipedia editors striving to be impartial should be incredibly cautious that this Wikipedia page isn't used by those in power who want to deny information from someone who "speaks truth to power".

It is a fine line to walk between institutional authority and individuals speaking out, because tyranny or scientific consensus lay on one side of that line and crackpots or lone people speaking truth in a sea of disinformation lay on either side of that line.

The world is political and biased, but it is still our duty to tread cautiously, weighing and judging information as impartial as we can while trying to account for biases which may lead to experts opinions being compromised. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.215.247.16 (talk) 12:21, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

well said, doggie 2601:189:8082:CA90:632:1751:542A:DCB7 (talk) 19:34, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

---

The first paragraph of the article violates one of the Five Pillars of Wikipedia – which is to maintain a neutral point of view. Rather than "avoiding advocacy," the article embraces it with zeal in the very first sentence, where it asserts that Blumenthal "is known for spreading conspiracy theories and engaging in denial of atrocities committed by dictatorial regimes." These accusations are opinions of his detractors; they are not some indisputable objective fact. Supporting such libel with the published opinions of his detractors does not justify the violation of Wikipedia's principle of objectivity. Note that the paragraph does not also state that Blumenthal is "known for" promoting peace and opposing imperialism and injustice. But those opinions of his work are just are worthy – based on the text and citations from the body of the article itself. Similarly, Blumenthal is also "accused of spreading Russian propaganda" in the introduction – even though there are other opinions that the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times "spread propaganda" just as much as Sputnik and RT.

The introduction of the article give readers a distorted, subjective impression of the full record. Such writing is not a "neutral point of view." The opinions displayed in the introduction need to be moved to appropriate sections within the body of the article. --Gremlint (talk) 18:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Gremlint, Now might be a good time for you to take a look at Wikipedia:Reliable sources and WP:Lead. The wording you have issue with reflects what reliable secondary sources say about this page's subject in the body of this article. The "other opinions" about those sources that you mention (NYT and LAT) in regard to Sputnik and RT (Wikipedia:Deprecated sources) don't really matter here, for reasons made clear at the links I've provided. Also, beyond the NYT and LAT, other sources support the claims made here, including peer-reviewed journal articles, as described in the article's body.--Hobomok (talk) 22:42, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Gremlint raises a valid point of criticism. This article, as well as many other articles in Wikipedia, displays a concerning sloppines in the use of language (i.e. in the precision of its wording) when it comes to crucial aspects. In this cases it recklessly fails to differentiate between opinions/assessments/views etc. on the one side and objective facts. For instance the sentence "The Grayzone website, which is known for spreading conspiracy theories and engaging in denial of atrocities committed by dictatorial regimes" is highly inappropriate in an encyclopedia, becuase it constitutes a servere distortion of what the sources, that are added in the following footnotes, actually say. Those sources all are articles that present the opinion (or at best: the assessment) that the Grayzone website is "spreading conspiracy theories" etc. Consequentially the sentence in the wikipedia article, that is backed up by referring to those sources, should adequately reflect that circumstance. But instead of making it clear that it is the opinion of certain people (or perhaps even many people) that the Grayzone is spreading conspiracy theories etc., the article write that it "is known for spreading conspiracy theories", i.e. it pretends that it is an objective fact, that is established, unassailable and beyond dispute, that the website "is known" for that. So the sentences states "it IS" (purporting the existence of a firm fact) when the proper phrasing would be something like "it is accused of...", or "it is considered by...[insert people/organizations that hold that view]" or "it is often considered". So it misrepresents the issue by elevating accusations/views/opinions/assessments etc. to the level of objective facts. But since we are not faced with an issue in the area of physics, where objective determinations can be made, but with a highly normative issue (how could one objectively determinate or quantify that the website is doing the aforementioned things + how can one quantify that it "is known" for that? Obviously one cannot. It is impossible to do). So accuracy as well as responsibility and the standards of encyclopedic writing require that sloppy formulations like the aforementioned that distrot and misrepresent reality are rectified. A proper formulation would be something like A: "The Grayzone website, which is accused of spreading conspiracy theories and of engaging in denial of atrocities committed by dicatorial regimes"; or B: "The Grayzone website, which is considered by A..., B..., C....etc. of spreading conspiracy theories etc." or C: "The Grayzone website, which is often considered to be spreading conspiracy theories etc.". So, even though website is certainly not my cup of tea, accuracy is imperative. --> i.e. since all the sources, that are used as references in this article here, clearly only express opinions or positions (or at best: qualified assessments), that amount to the aforementioned accusations/criticisms, the language of this article should reflect that adequately and make it clear that those criticisms/reproaches/accusations are just that: opinions (opinions that I find quite convincing but opinions none the less) or at most evaluations, assessments etc., but not obective (undisputed etc.) facts. Afte all: No one wants an article here to be misleading, but presenting opinions (no matter how much one believes those opinions to be correct) as facts, by linguistically dressing those opinions up as facts, as this article does in some places, is quite misleading. Hope someone here has the work ethics to correct that woeful state of affairs.2001:9E8:2619:A900:B0C0:BB9:A083:FC86 (talk) 02:27, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I stopped reading after the first few sentences because it was boring and predictable. Facts are opinions, opinions are facts, yadda yadda. What you desire is called WP:FALSEBALANCE, and Wikipedia does not do it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

More slander

The Grayzone was not founded after Max attended a conference in Russia, it was already publishing on the AlterNet website. Also. Max has appeared on RT, that does not mean he "supports it". When a journalist appears on CNN does that mean he "supports" CNN? The language here is so revealing and it is clearly meant to slander this author. He has contributed to many journalist outlets but here the wikipedia authors attempt to sideline him as a conspiracy theorist working for the Kremlin. These three sentences are such slander and its shocking they are in the introduction to this page: "Blumenthal has supported the work of RT, the television network formerly known as Russia Today. In December 2015, during an all-expenses paid trip to Moscow, Blumenthal attended RT's 10 Years On Air anniversary party beside then-Lieutenant General Michael Flynn of the United States and English politician Ken Livingstone.[15][16][17] He has also contributed on multiple occasions to Sputnik.[18] Shortly after his visit to Moscow,[14] Blumenthal founded The Grayzone website "to shine a journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions."[19]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 21:24, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

In the Russia section below, the article cites from Blumenthal's interview with Tucker Carlson in November 2017 in which he defends RT from "the charge that it’s Kremlin propaganda" and gives the reason for his appearances on it. A quote from a socialist newspaper says he appears on the platform "defending Russian foreign policy" on both RT and Sputnik. It would be helpful to add citations where Blumenthal has been critical of the Russian international media, but they seem to be elusive. Philip Cross (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Defending RT from the charge of Kremlin propaganda, does not mean that Blumenthal is a conspiracy theorist, nor a supporter of all Russian foreign policies as this wikipedia page makes it sound. It does not even mean that Blumenthal supports ALL of RT's coverage. It just means he disagrees with the simplistic charge that it is Kremlin propaganda, a charge that is made most often by people within the US government (and groups with funding connections to US agencies) the strongest empire in human history. Here is an idea: lets think of this in an alternative situation, so that you can think about this from a bird's eye view outside the box of cold war thinking... Imagine if the Russian government was the biggest world power (with 800+ bases and a nearly trillion dollar a year military budget and had the most powerful surveillance apparatus in human history) and it was on a witch-hunt against everything American, to root it out from its society. Then imagine if a dissident Russian journalist was to challenge them and say that the VOA (US government funded media outlet) in Russia should not be blocked from cable or youtube, or that it is not merely White House propaganda but actually has some useful views that are not allowed in Russian mainstream media.. Would that make this journalist a puppet of the White House? Would that act of dissent make this journalist a defender of all of Russia's foreign policy? Would it even make this journalist a supporter of all of VOA's coverage? You do realize right that the corporate media and establishment gatekeepers have a long history of blocking many anti-war views or only allowing them on rare occasions. Noam Chomsky and others have written hundreds of books on the topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.48.0.44 (talk) 03:20, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Where are the sources pointing to Blumenthal disagreeing with any aspect of Russian foreign policy? Philip Cross (talk) 09:22, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

As a source for the statement, which is a BLP, we should try to do better than this article from Pulse and this article by Bruce Bawer from Commentary Magazine. From the WP:Reliable Source Noticeboard, comments on: Pulse; Commentary ("a collection of editorials"). A consistent standard should apply: if opinion from those sources is allowed, opinion from sources which have equivalent or better editorial control, which are less obscure and which report positively on Blumenthal should be allowed.     ←   ZScarpia   14:17, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I believe Commentary (hardly "obscure") and Pulse count as a reliable sources in this context. From WP:RS: "When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint." It continues: "If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article and do not represent it as fact." On the later point some of the material may not be properly attributed.

I have not cited generalists, Dr Idrees Ahmad the co-editor of Pulse who writes about the middle east, is an academic. Bruce Bawer also has a PhD (albeit in English). That his writings about Islam and Muslims would appear to place him on the political right is insufficient to exclude his article in Commentary. It also backs up Janine di Giovanni's NYRB comments about Blumenthal's allegiances. Reliable sources which present Blumenthal positively are, in recent years, negligible in number and Wikipedia articles are meant to reflect what is said about a topic or individual (within the BLP restrictions), rather than to be perfectly balanced. Philip Cross (talk) 15:24, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Cross is engaging in the irrational bandwagon fallacy as well as WP:RECENTISM. Corporate media commentary on foreign policy is known to be biased toward the government in the near term (as is documented from the Iraq War travesty) and not up to BLP standards.GPRamirez5 (talk) 16:02, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I doubt much outside what you describe as "corporate media commentary" passes muster as a reliable source for what is meant to be a mainstream encyclopedia. Philip Cross (talk) 16:17, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

But I am not arguing for the inclusion of my preferred sources here. I am arguing for the exclusion of yours.GPRamirez5 (talk) 14:31, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Those sources are in the mainstream written by reputable individuals, as I have tried to explain. Blumenthal claimed Israelis are biased towards Europe, so the assertion about the Mizrahi being from around the middle east and North Africa (from which they were expelled) is entirely on topic. In the source from Tablet, the author is discussing the conversation with Ian Lustick, so it is not original research as you are trying to imply. Self-evident, but North Africa includes Egypt which is one of the neighbouring countries. Philip Cross (talk) 15:30, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Taking Commentary, it started off as a publication where Jewish-affairs were discussed, becoming the house journal of Neoconservatism. I doubt that's what many people have in mind when defining mainstream. And I should think that perception of the reputation of its writers would be highly polarised and heavily depend on the politics of the perceiver. Fairly obviously, contributors to Commentary would very much not be appreciators of Blumenthal's journalism, nor Blumenthal a fan of Commentary's opinion pieces. Filling articles with opinions from sources which have a common, pronounced, bias is pretty much guaranteed to produce a non-NPOV result.     ←   ZScarpia   15:35, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

If Commentary is ever decided by consensus to be "generally unreliable" or even "deprecated", then the use of an article from that source could be considered undue or even removed. As it isn't in either of those categories, the use of Bawer's Commentary article remains legitimate, regardless of the viewpoint it contains. This Wikipedia article would only contain statements from Blumenthal, or citations from non-mainstream publications like the Morning Star, if strong (in Wikipedia policy terms) were to be excluded from being used for this article. The green tinted sources which have "a reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, and error-correction, often in the form of a strong editorial team" do not generally contain an enthusiastic appraisal of Mr Blumenthal's work. In the same Wikipedia document, the Morning Star falls into the "no consensus"/"marginally reliable" category. Philip Cross (talk) 16:28, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Book review of management of savagery

why does wikipedia only include the negative review of this book? Why not quote Professor Justin Podur's excellent review of the book that talks about how revealing the author's findings are. Why does Wikipedia consistently post smear material on this author? In my view people either connected with the national security state or biased against anti-war/anti-empire voices have a lot of pull on this website. They consistently slant these articles to criticize dissident voices, while those who are so close to washington think tanks and starting wars often get a pass. Why is this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.197.20 (talk) 21:27, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I tried to find Justin Podur's review earlier today, but it does not appear to be online. Please provide the url if it is online. Philip Cross (talk) 19:00, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

47.147.197.20, I have attempted to present the section in a more balanced manner, giving more of Blumenthal's response and providing an additional review. Let us know if you have more concerns.----ZiaLater (talk) 01:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

It's because Wikipedia sources all material on any topic touching the interests of the security state from the open sewage pipe of biased media corporations. Any other source is deemed unreliable.Shtove 14:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

More like anyone who does not share your unbalanced views is deemed by you to be in the pocket of vested interests, or something. 2601:647:5800:9120:49F0:F86D:2E04:77D0 (talk) 02:30, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 January 2020

Reference 53, which links to the tablet, does not actually substantiate the claim made. The author of the Tablet article offers no evidence to support his claim or to effectively contradict Blumenthal's point. Auntiediva (talk) 23:33, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 February 2020

Remove the link to the website http://maxblumenthal.com/ Newbrunswickeast (talk) 23:00, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

 Done – Thjarkur (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 May 2020

Change "Russian propaganda outlets Sputnik and RT." to "Russian media outlets Sputnik and RT." MarioBayo (talk) 19:39, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. And that's going to be a pretty high bar. See this discussion and this discussion, for example. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:31, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 May 2020

A recently cropped picture of Blumenthal would be the much more preferred image in the bio. It is more recent, it is Blumenthal in the flesh, and is a cropped picture zooming in on his face. MarioBayo (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:28, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sputnik and RT: 'state broadcasters'.

In this set of edits, the description of Sputnik and RT was changed from Russian 'outlets' to Russian 'state broadcasters', the term used for Cold War Eastern European channels. The description is misleading and entirely the opinion of the editor, it not being used by either of the cited sources, one of which in any case, Marquardt-Bigman's, is a blog (see the bottom of the page: "The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors").     ←   ZScarpia   18:39, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, could someone maybe add the ownerships of all the various other outlets mentioned? If not, I wonder why not. ;-) Why is the linking to their pages not sufficient? --91.96.35.112 (talk) 09:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Dr Marquardt-Bigman cites the Wikipedia articles on Sputnik and RT America for her assertions about them, so the citation cannot be used at this point as a source. Charles Davis uses the phrases "Russian state media"/"outlet", although not directly referring to the two broadcasters. I originally made a hasty substitution for "propaganda" added by another editor, which I knew would be queried as an addition to the summary and to prevent the word being restored. The Janine di Giovanni NYRB article is precise on this point. Philip Cross (talk) 19:44, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Protection

This article seems to be not prominent already as 2017 is, I'm requesting to lower protection to Semi El C. 98.33.16.123 (talk) 09:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not the protecting admin — that would be Cyberpower678. El_C 09:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

The reasoning for the bluelock option can be found at Wikipedia:Protection policy#Extended confirmed protection and at Wikipedia:Rough guide to extended confirmed protection. From the later article: "The only topic which ArbCom has explicitly specified for use of ECP is the Arab-Israeli conflict. [Cite for Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3 at this point, PC.] Administrators may apply indefinite extended confirmed protection at any time to any page in the conflict area at their discretion, whether or not there has been disruptive editing on the page."

As it stands, a user only needs to have had an account for 30 days and have made 500 edits to be able to edit this and other articles with a high level of protection. Easy to achieve if an editor starts to work on this website with minor edits fixing formatting errors and the like. What is the hurry? Philip Cross (talk) 10:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• 98.33.16.123: You are welcome to make suggestions here on the talk page. --David Tornheim (talk) 10:25, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 3 August 2020

There is massive vandalism ongoing by Philip Cross on this article (again), and you prevent normal users from editing this? Someone has to revert all of this ... BoMbY (talk) 06:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. The instructions clearly say "This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it." An edit request is not a mechanism for generalized griping about an article, or personal attacks against a named editor who is not guilty of vandalism as defined on Wikipedia. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:40, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@Cullen: I see they reported the same editor as a vandal to AIV in January and this is their first edit since then - with this account at least. Doug Weller talk 13:15, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Mainstream media references

The above request was probably motivated by the many accounts on Twitter are complaining about my recent edits, including three who have a conflict of interest, one of whom is at the very highest perceivable level (though admitted only retweets on this occasion). To prevent a possible edit war, I added the following concealed note to the article yesterday: "Blumenthal has written at least *once* for the Los Angeles Times in 2009 on Sarah Palin and at least *twice* for the New York Times, in 2009 on Eisenhower and 2014 on Israel". I also added in my edit summary that Blumenthal has written for The Guardian on three occasions. Unlike the other examples listed in the article, he has never been a regular contributor to these publications. Thus to include references to what are isolated examples of Blumenthal working for the hated "state corporate media" is misleading. Philip Cross (talk) 06:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I haven't looked back through all the diffs. My best guess is that your objection is that the article was worded too ambiguously, so that it may have been concluded that Blumenthal's writings appeared more frequently in the mainstream press than actually appears to be the case. Why not state that 'occasional articles' by Blumenthal have appeared in named publications? That would make it clear that he is not a regular writer for them. Deleting visible mention of the appearance of Blumenthal's writings in the mainstream press because you felt that it was 'misleading' may be preferable from your point of view, but obviously may lead to a misleading impression in the opposite direction.

The Lead being chock-a-block with citations, it looks, from a cursory inspection, as though, as with the Philip Giraldi article's, it does not do what a Lead is supposed to, which is to summarise the body of the article.

    ←   ZScarpia   09:21, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

The Nation's biography provides an unadorned list of his published outlets. One could add the Washington Monthly to the mainstream outlets Blumenthal has written for; twice in this case, in 2003 and 2005. Being more specific about how many times Blumenthal has written for this or that reliable source is entering the area of interpretative original research. The latter term only applies to what is included in an article, rather than what is excluded. It is not Wikipedia policy to include every possible reliable source because of the rules about undue weight on content.

I have tried to find usable third-party sources for the first decade of Blumenthal's career, but so far they seem to be practically non-existent. (I have not looked into his writings about migrants yet.) Republican Gomorrah does not appear to have been reviewed by any significant outlet, even though the Los Angeles Times listed it in its top ten non-fiction bestseller list for several weeks in 2009. Philip Cross (talk) 10:03, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

What I was trying to do was to address your concern that mentioning the fact that articles by Blumenthal were published in various reputable publications might 'mislead' readers in some way. In no way am I suggesting that any solution which breaches Wikipedia policies be adopted. Wikipedia requires contributors to edit neutrally, which means that personal opinions should not affect the way that topics are approached. Here, you might like to have a think about how you would write about the list of publications in which Blumenthal's articles have appeared if, instead, the subject of the article was somebody you admired.     ←   ZScarpia   10:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

The first media outlet mentioned in the summary is presently The Grayzone, the outlet with which he has been most closely associated for several years, followed by RT and Sputnik, on whose programs he admits to featuring "fairly regularly". It is common practice for article summaries to include the current affiliations of public figures following their nationality and career details, as this one now does. Philip Cross (talk) 10:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

A number of points:

- You maintain it's a common practice without offering evidence.

- There's a difference between common practice and universal practice.

- There's a differene between what is mandated, policy, and what might be widely practised.

- Though it might be common practice to only mention publications regularly written for in the Lead, details of other publications contributed to may be mentioned in the body of the article. The way things stand, you've deleted the only mention in the article of prestigious publications in which Blumenthal's articles appear.

- The Lead (called the Summary by you) is supposed to summarise the contents of the rest of the article. It doesn't appear to be properly doing that.

    ←   ZScarpia   08:59, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The lead mentions The New York Times and the Los Angeles once more, even though the are very minor parts of Blumenthal's career. On Wikipedia, lead is often spelt lede, which is US usage, I use the word summary because it is more universal. While it is desirable for the lede being closer to a precis of the main text, Blumenthal's work has been controversial in reliable sources since the Jerusalem videos in 2009 and a better summary is therefore likely to be contentious and unstable. This is not wholly an issue of opinions some editors disagree with rather than facts, as his deliberate and undeniable "comparisons between Israel and Nazism" are a central part of this account, often referred to in sources, which may not lead readers to have a positive opinion of the subject of this article. Philip Cross (talk) 10:17, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Deliberate and undeniable "comparisons between Israel and Nazism"?:

- Describing Herut, the ancestor of parties of today such as Likud, Albert Einstein, Hanna Arendt and other prominent Jewish Americans, writing in The New York Times, protest the visit to America of Menachem Begin, December 1948: "Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party (Herut), a political party closely akin in its organization, method, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties."[17]

- "Fascism was a well-employed term in the Yishuv. David Ben-Gurion used it often and would refer to Jabotinsky as “Vladimir Hitler,” and the Marxist Hashomer Hatzair’s Warsaw bulletin carried a caricature of Jabotinsky captioned: “Adolf Jabotinsky.”"[18]

- Haaretz reader SMB commenting on Israel's Nation-state law: "Sh[a]des of Nuremberg. Our own, homegrown Nuremberg law. We are our own Aryans."[19]

Those who might make Nazi comparisons ... but as a compliment?:

- "Far-right, anti-Muslim, self-declared Zionist Tommy Robinson has boasted of his love for Israel in leaked video footage ... . ... The footage – released by the Sun – captures the growing bond between the far-right and Israel. Racists and neo-Nazis in Europe and the US often harbour deep-seated envy for the Zionist states’ ethno-religious nationalism and wish to model Europe and the US on a similar footing. Leaders of the far-right – like white nationalist Richard Spencer who is known to harbour Nazi sympathies – gave a ringing endorsement to Israel’s Nation-State Law saying: “I have great admiration for Israel’s nation-state law. Jews are, once again, at the vanguard, rethinking politics and sovereignty for the future, showing a path forward for Europeans.” In another incident, a former Israeli soldier who was a member of Tommy Robinson’s campaign addressed protestors on a London street saying: “no matter what the left call us, I am the world’s proudest Jewish Nazi”."[20][21]

And a gratuitous Nazi comparison made in a message sent to Jenny Manson, co-chair of the JVL?:

- '"You fucking Nazi bitch," it said. "You should burn in the gas oven. You dirty fucking bitch…. Stinking, stinking swine… You deserve … to burn in acid."'[22]

    ←   ZScarpia   18:20, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Gilad Atzmon reference

Raised because I might be showing bad faith by removing much of the description of Atzmon. A third option on its inclusion dissented from my opinion; the following citation to The Atlantic does not mention Max Blumenthal. However, this was added as a BLP defence of Atzmon which is surely off-topic in an article about Blumenthal. As this has all happened in just under a week, it may be considered likely for such a deviation to added to the article again. Was I justified to cut the Atzmon reference to the bare minimum? Philip Cross (talk) 07:03, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Adding a description of Atzmon from an article that does not mention Blumenthal is synthesis and more particularly guilt by association. If we allow the description to stand then Atzmon’s defence should also stand. The preferred option of course is for both to be removed.

I would also consider the inclusion of a review by David Duke to by guilt by association.

We have used a paper by Petra Marquardt-Bigman as the source for the text about Atzmon and David Duke. I don’t know anything about the author. Her paper was cited by Eric Alterman in a Nation blog post on Max Blumenthal. The Nation’s editors reviewed the post and commented:

This blog post originally included a passage linking to a paper by Petra Marquardt-Bigman titled ‘Another Milestone for the Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism: The New America Foundation and Max Blumenthal’s Goliath.” After a review, we concluded that this paper did not meet our standards as source material and so the link and the passage were removed by the editors.

Burrobert (talk) 13:08, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Burrobert, I made the same point as you, but was overruled. On the Petra Marquardt-Bigman paper, I should point out reliable source criteria on Wikipedia is not governed by The Nation magazine. Additionally, current reference 85 contains an extended list of citations which mention the neo-Nazi Stormfront website and/or David Duke writing about Max Blumenthal non-negatively. One more reference citing Gilad Atzmon is not so much "guilt by association" as perhaps a pattern. I don't much mind the Atzmon and Duke descriptions being removed, but @Northern Moonlight: was the editor on the other side of the third-opinion request I mentioned before. Philip Cross (talk) 16:32, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

In cases such as this, it is useful to do a check for double standards. If an editor would not be prepared to make the same kind of changes when a subject he or she approves of is mentioned as when mention is made of one disapproved of (say, adding text cited to sources not related to the article topic pointing out that Israel has been "called a racist enterprise" or Ephraim Mirvis "called a racist and Nakba denier") then he or she is not editing neutrally, which there is an opbligation to do. I'd say that, essentially, you have two legitimate choices as to the way to proceed.     ←   ZScarpia   15:52, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I will not object if the reviews of Atzmon and Duke are removed entirely. What concerns me is that the non-negative reviews of these two people who are significantly outside mainstream political views are presented in the same manner or given the same weight as from other reviewers. Northern Moonlight | ほっこう 16:55, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Outside mainstream opinion certainly, Northern Moonlight, but the passage is cited to a reliable source (Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law), and is only a minor part of the section on Goliath. Multiple sources mention Duke's approval of Blumenthal's work and the connection is thus notable; it is not necessary to agree with Duke. Atzmon finding Blumenthal's work useful is not much mentioned elsewhere, but it is not our fault if Blumenthal has such admirers for his Israel related writings. Checking Petra Marquardt-Bigman's paper, I found the supposed David Duke quotes were only from his website, rather than being by Duke himself. Philip Cross (talk) 18:02, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

From the article on the LBD: "The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) is an nonprofit organization founded by Kenneth L. Marcus in 2012 to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people, to promote justice for all, and to advocate for Israel. LDB is active on American campuses, where it, according to the organization, combats anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism." So a pro-Israel advocacy organisation founded by a pro-Israel activist. What are your justifications for claiming that it is a reliable source here, an article on a prominent anti-Zionist?     ←   ZScarpia   21:19, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

ZScarpia, Zionism isn't fringe, unlike Blumenthal's deprecated website and certain individuals who write positively about his work. Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia, so mainstream opinion, as on Israel, is likely to take precedence here. Most of Blumenthal's cited critics would want Israel to continue to exist, in other words, they have basically Zionist sympathies. In practice, you are objecting to the LDB source being used to cite an "anti-Zionist" like Atzmon, who is not in my view being misrepresented. Please demonstrate Atzmon is being misrepresented or disprove a suspicion that your only reason to object is because his approval of Blumenthal is something you do not like. Philip Cross (talk) 21:58, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Are you speaking to me or ZScarpia? Because I didn’t say anything about LDB at all. Northern Moonlight | ほっこう

I was responding to ZScarpia. Fixed. Philip Cross (talk) 22:41, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems that both PC and NM (who had earlier overruled PC) have no objections to the description of Atzmon being removed. But it is still in the article. Is there a reason? Burrobert (talk) 05:16, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no objection if the entire review is removed, but if it stays there, there should be some sort of descriptor prefacing it so the reader is made aware they come from people whose views are considered fringe. It’s more about WP:RSUW. Northern Moonlight | ほっこう 13:11, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

"Zionism isn't fringe" is your justification for claiming that an advocacy organisation is a reliable source? Is, therefore, any organisation advocating for Israel a reliable source? Is there a corollary that anti-Zionism is fringe and therefore any organisation advocating anti-Zionism is not a reliable source? Would you accept material in an article about a Zionist cited solely to anti-Zionist sources as neutral? [Note: there is confusion above about who and what you were replying to because your indentation is off.]     ←   ZScarpia   10:18, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Atzmon's original article appeared on Veterans Today, a deprecated "anti-zionist" website like The Electronic Intifada, Press TV, MintPress News and others including The Grayzone. The Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group, like many other sources published by the Jewish community, has the status of a reliable source. A dubious source, like the website publishing Atzmon's article, becomes acceptable for inclusion only when a reliable source quotes from it. The indentations for this whole section is off, not only my contributions. Philip Cross (talk) 10:48, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Let me make it clear: I don't support material being included from sources having no connection with the subject matter of the article, either to attack or support Atzmon, no matter whether it's an article in The Atlantic or one written by Atzmon himself in Veterans Today.

I'm assuming that your comment about the reliability of the ADL is a reference to this recent discussion on the Reliable Source Noticeboard which concluded: "There is consensus that ADL is a generally reliable source, including for topics related to hate groups and extremism in the U.S. There is no consensus that ADL must be attributed in all cases, but there is consensus that the labelling of organisations and individuals by the ADL (particularly as antisemitic) should be attributed. Some editors commented that ADL's opinion pieces are not reliable, and several wrote that they should only be used with attribution. Some editors commented that ADL is a biased source for Israel/Palestine related topics and should be used with caution, if at all." I'd say that there's ambiguity over how that should be read: it says that the ADL is a generally reliable source but then appears to qualify that. Perhaps the part about the labelling of organisations and individuals has particular relevance in the current article. Would I be correct to read your argument as being that, as the ADL, an organisation which engages in advocacy for Israel has been found to be "generally reliable" (though perhaps not without qualifications), then other Israel advocacy organisations such as the LDB, which is being used here, are, by extension, also? You mention other sources "published by the Jewish community" (of which anti-Zionists such as Blumenthal, of course, are part). Which sources did you have in mind? AIPAC perhaps? Are there any Israel-advocacy organisations which you would not consider reliable?

In the case of Electronic Intifada at least, you should use the word 'deprecated' more carefully (though perhaps you know of a more recent discussion than the ones I managed to find). I find it interesting to compare the RSN discussion for EI of October 2018 with the recent, July and August 2020, one for the ADL. Most of the contributions amount to beauty or popularity contest votes, with no justifications being given. However, in the case of EI, Andromedean (10:32, 12 October 2018 (UTC)) lists supposedly positive reviews of EI which I would have expected to count for something, but appear not to have.

    ←   ZScarpia   13:05, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

ZScarpia, I used Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources for my statements. Much more definitive than RS/N. Philip Cross (talk) 16:26, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

The case I pointed out is the last one listed on the RSP page. However the decision made in that case has not been copied over. Note the difference between deprecation and a source being found generally unreliable.     ←   ZScarpia   18:14, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

The Mizrahi bit

The source provided says that half of the Israeli population has Mizrahi ancestry. It does not substantiate this claim with any evidence. Ericcabaniss (talk) 07:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Splitting Proposal: The Grayzone

I am proposing that we split off an article on The Grayzone from this article. The Grayzone has gotten significant coverage from multiple reliable sources in its own right, though the article currently exists as a redirect to this page. Some of these sources (such as this WSJ piece, ASPI report) don't even mention Blumenthal by name when referring to the website. I believe that this is evidence that the two are separately notable, and I therefore would like to see if other editors would also support the creation of a new article that focuses on The Grayzone as a standalone entity (rather than framing everything done by the website in the context of how it is pertinent to Blumenthal's biography itself) — Mikehawk10 (talk) 22:37, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this. ---Dagme (talk) 00:37, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm skeptical that this coverage is WP:SUSTAINED enough to justify the independent notability of Grayzone. Generalrelative (talk) 00:42, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Tend to agree with Generalrelative unless Mikehawk10 or others have examples showing sustained coverage? BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:36, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree. It seems odd to re-direct to an individual, especially since there is not even a specific section about the website in the article. Dhawk790 (talk) 20:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

We should do this, The Greyzone seems to be more notable than Blumenthal himself. Not really sure about those questioning sustained coverage, I see enough in-depth coverage to pass WP:GNG a few times over and all it needs to do is pass it once. WP:GNG is not exactly a high bar, also I would note that theres no reason we need a consensus on this. @Mikehawk10: just make it, if anyone objects they can take it to AfD. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Adding one more agree vote --~~

Agreed. The link should be its own article and not just be a redirect to a biographical article, as The Grayzone is more than just Max Blumenthal.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 00:26, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree to split - the Grayzone is significant for its journalism. Shtove (talk) 10:27, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree that they should be split. Besides the sufficient secondary coverage of Grayzone, it is also simply inaccurate to conflate an individual with a news organization. This conflation results in an excessively long and convoluted page.BigFriendlyGiant2 (talk) 02:20, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Can those arguing for split drop a few links to secondary RS coverage to show GZ's notability before this proceeds? BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: There is coverage from Coda Story. Axios, an opinion piece in Haaretz by a university professor, The Daily Beast, and there's a long ASPI report that has been covered by media sources. There's also less substantive mentions of the site in The Economist and Washington Free Beacon. If I get time this weekend, I'll execute the split. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:08, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Update: I (kinda) did the split. The Grayzone has its own article now. I'm not exactly sure what to move over there, though. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 07:37, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute needed

This article needs a warning that the neutrality of this article is being disputed, due to the massive negative slant of this article, easily 75/25 against. There are hardly any positives in this article, it could come off as a smear campaign designed to compare a rando journalist to the likes of Adolf Hitler.

Wikipedia is not designed for political ideological posturing, it is meant as an objective and neutral repository of information. Please fix this problem, maybe with an NPOV or snub tag. --D. Compton Ambrose

Anyone can propose specific additions on the talk page which present Mr Blumenthal in a different light, so long as the potential citations are from reliable sources. In its current form, it reflects what such sources have written about him. Philip Cross (talk) 08:33, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not taking sides, but it just seems like - Max Blumenthal himself being guilty of this at times - there are already so many hyperbolic statements being made these days that extra care should be taken not to add to it. There should be a neutrality check ASAP, imo at least. --D. Compton Ambrose

Could you be more specific as to what the issues are and what changes you think should be made? X-Editor (talk) 02:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

That there should be an NPOV tag and that a particular user is pushing an aggressive interpretation of a fringe journalist. By the way, someone rando tweeted about this and tagged me in it, I am not affiliated with them. I even asked them to remove the tweet in question. I'm not going to add the tag but I just suggested it should perhaps have one until more sources are accrued. Either that or a 'stub' tag if the POV is not considered aggressive enough (although a rough estimate of a 70/30 negative slant is pretty aggressive imo). --D. Compton Ambrose

As I am well aware who you mean, be warned he is a banned user who misused multiple accounts. Philip Cross (talk) 12:42, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Seconded - please add a NPOV tag, the slant of the article is overwhelmingl negative, far more so than is usual for controversial journalists — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.25.43.109 (talk) 11:53, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Needs POV Tag

The talk page for this article does not appear to have reached a consensus on the neutrality of the article. It should, due to this lack of consensus, have a POV marker at the top of the article. Wackword (talk) 01:25, 6 November 2021 (UTC)Wackword

Seconded - please add a NPOV tag, the slant of the article is overwhelmingl negative, far more so than is usual for controversial journalists. 2.25.43.109 (talk) 11:52, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Example of POV problems: section on Goliath

Per the article about the book itself, readers can learn that what Publishers Weekly, The Atlantic, Kirkus, The New York Observer, etc. said about the book. This article instead cites opinion pieces aimed at discrediting Blumenthal. As an encyclopedia our role is to describe the article topic, not to hand a megaphone to people on one side or the other about how very good or bad Blumenthal is. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:14, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, multiple RS describe Blumenthal as a strong critic of Israel. It is entirely fair and desirable for the article to include viewpoints about Blumenthal expressed by people who are strong defenders of Israel. But this article over-uses opinion pieces that are clearly pushing an anti-Blumenthal POV; for example, five different footnotes point to a clearly-labeled "Opinion" piece whose title is "Wild Thing: Max Blumenthal's Creepy Anti-Zionist Odyssey"; four to "Another Milestone for the Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism: The New America Foundation and Max Blumenthal's Goliath" (another piece by the same author which also gets a mention was "David Duke, Other Anti-Semites Praise Max Blumenthal's 'I Hate Israel Handbook'".) This article needs major pruning. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:59, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

The majority of text at Max Blumenthal#Goliath (2013) should be moved to Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. And the entire bloated article could use revision for encyclopedic tone and conciseness, with an eye to the WP:10YEARTEST and WP:VNOTSUFF. A neutral point of view can actually be achieved by writing less, not stuffing in more, so long as significant views are covered proportionally. A longer article doesn't necessarily mean a better article, especially on Wikipedia where mediocrity and pedantry is the status quo. --Animalparty! (talk) 07:53, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Article improvement needed

My efforts to improve the article have now all been reverted by Horse Eye's Back. I hope somebody else will take over removing some of the obvious POV issues, since my poor edit summaries were all the excuse needed to restore the article to its original mess. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:33, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Now that your bold edits have been reverted, HouseOfChange, perhaps you should argue the case for each of the edits here and see if any of them receive consensus. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:02, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Here are three edits where Horse Eye's Back found particular fault with my edit summaries

a) After looking at a source, I changed a word to match source text, with the edit summary "nPOV". The RS cited says ""On air, he questioned the scale of the detention of Uyghurs in camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province." The article then quotes MB raising questions about what is known about the scale of Uyghur detention. I changed "denied the scale" to "questioned the scale." According to HEB the edit itself actually appears to have gone against our WP:NPOV policy as thats the word used by the source. The source's headline uses "denies the scale," but that headline is not supported by the text of the source; headlines are not fact-checked.

b) This edit has the summary "condense and rmv obvious BLP violation." HEB considered that edit summary misleading: looking through the edit I can’t find a BLP violation (obvious or not) OK, correct me if I am wrong, but while trying to condense a section about a 2014 visit to Berlin, I saw what I thought were 3 BLP violations: 1) quoting a description of Blumenthal as someone who sought to "invoke consistently anti-Semitic comparisons between Israel and Nazism", and 2) another quote indirectly accusing MB of physically threatening a member of parliament and "endanger[ing] the parliamentary process," and 3) nowhere in the section about 2014 trip is there any countervailing opinion or response from MB to the events and accusations described.

c) In several edit summaries, I described sources that I removed as "opinion pieces." HEB took exception to that description of this article in particular. As I explained on my Talk page, "This article expresses strong opinions about the BLP subject, as does its title: 'Clinton-Linked Israel Basher Max Blumenthal Disparages, Defames the Late Elie Wiesel.' It includes some facts, but less-opinionated sources are better sources for those facts."

I am not an expert on Max Blumenthal, and I don't want to become one. I tried to improve an article some of whose flaws seemed clear to me. My edit summaries may have been mistaken but in each case I tried to explain my own reasoning, not to mislead anyone. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:48, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

HouseOfChange is right about A, the source does use that language and I was mistaken. On B none of those are actually WP:BLP violations, quotes are not to be censored and we work hard to avoid a WP:FALSEBALANCE by inserting any countervailing opinion or response from MB to the events and accusations described when there isn’t as much coverage (if any) of that. On C the Algemeiner Journal is a WP:RS especially within their area of expertise, being biased and having an opinion aren’t the same things as being an opinion piece as I hope I have made clear. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: As for B, the accusation of antisemitism is a strong one, and rather than being censored, or tucked in here and there around the article, it should have a section devoted to it: who accuses MB of it, on what grounds, etc. Here's a handy compendium. But I am leaving this article to others who know more about the topic. As for C, I am aware of your assertion that an opinionated or biased article is not an "opinion piece." Perhaps I was misled by Merriam Webster, which defines "opinion piece" as "an article in which the writer expresses their personal opinion."

This piece, which the bio cites 3 times is clearly labeled "Opinion." So is this one, clearly labeled "Opinion," also cited 3 times. This article should inform readers of criticisms against MB, but the article is currently overinflated into a linkfarm of partisan diatribe. Surely it is better to give a clear account of what notable critics have criticized rather than lending our platform here to yapping twits who deflect criticism of Israel by calling it "virtually" or "in effect" or "arguably" antisemitic. Israel is a great country, with problems like every other country; it is disgraced not exalted by some of its "defenders." HouseOfChange (talk) 19:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

@HouseOfChange Your "compendium" refers to MB as a 'useful idiot Jew'. On this basis I say it should not be considered a source on antisemitism. If such sources are what is driving the negative slant of this article, the article definitely needs an NPOV tag as has been repeatedly suggested on this page. I am suggesting this again. 2.25.43.109 (talk) 11:58, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Clarification re: Dispute with Karen J. Greenberg (2011)

Concerning the last sentence in the Greenberg section "Greenberg had made the same comments to Adam Serwer of Mother Jones.[46][48]"

This statement can be misread and serves no purpose, as four sentences earlier begins "Contacted by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic and Adam Serwer of Mother Jones," and two sentences earlier is "She told Serwer that "I did not intend to assert these allegations as fact ... the entire sense of the quote is inaccurate."" including this sentence in the article seems to serve no purpose but to confuse the reader, positioned as it is immediately after Blumenthal's assertion that she she was intimidated into recanting.

Can it be removed? 108.28.194.186 (talk) 21:36, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

To update

To update in this article: Blumenthal's views on Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 04:21, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

As ever, this article needs reliable sources for Blumenthal's responses to this war. See also Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. More editors on the look out for usable citations to develop this article (or any article) are welcome. Philip Cross (talk) 11:16, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

There's really not that much in terms of RS. The closest I can get are these three sources, but the coverage is not in-depth. Fox News covered Blumenthal's tweet, but also didn't do much besides say that Blumenthal tweeted it. — Mhawk10 (talk) 06:33, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 April 2022

This page widely uses poor sources. There is obviously a tiff going on between the subject and New Politics thus using New Politics as a source lacks credibility. Further New Politics is used as a source for things it is not a source for. For example, regarding Syria, it is used as source for the UN declaration on sarin gas. New Politics is not a news source. It is writing opinion based on other news sources. Actual news sources such as Reuters or the NYT (and the UN itself) has reported the UN deemed there to be “reasonable grounds” to assume Syria dropped the gas via helicopter. However, a whistleblower has claimed even that limited assessment to be inaccurate. http://syriapropagandamedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Engineering-assessment-of-two-cylinders-observed-at-the-Douma-incident-27-February-2019-1.pdf and https://couragefound.org/2019/10/analytical-points-opcw-panel

The point being that opinion pieces should not be used as sources except when noted as an opinion only. WGyp (talk) 18:30, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:09, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

A funny thing happened on the way to the theatre

Have you heard this one?

Q. When is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist writing in a green-tick reliable source not a reliable source?

A. When he says something nice about Max Blumenthal.

Hilarious. Burrobert (talk) 04:13, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek, why did you remove the material attributed to Greenwald in the Intercept? nableezy - 14:04, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Because neither Greenwald nor the Intercept are RS for this topic. Volunteer Marek 22:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Says who? Huldra (talk) 23:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• This, I think, is not how we should be applying the concept of reliability to sources. We have broad judgements about the reliability of venues, such as The Intercept; RS/P will list recognised qualifications to general reliability, but otherwise claiming that a typically reliable venue is not reliable on a topic is something that should be raised on the talk page or on RS/N before eliminating it from mainspace. Now, it is quite true that generally reliable venues have journalism that makes claims that we should doubt, but then the right order is to (i) find countervailing RSes that dispute the dubious RS and then (ii) move the dubious claim from wikivoice to a he-said, she-said format, i.e., both claims and counterclaims attributed in the main text. — Charles Stewart (talk) 07:20, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Wait what, in what world are the Intercept and Greenwald not reliable sources? WP:RSP lists the Intercept as generally reliable. What is this based on? If it is the unreliability of the source then consensus is already against that and the edit should be restored. I dont really want to get in to an edit war, but cmon at least when Greenwald was still at the intercept both it and he had a stellar reputation. Sure things may have turned in terms of Greenwald's rep among people of a certain political persuasion, but calling this not a reliable source seems a bit much. nableezy - 17:30, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Burrobert (talk) 11:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Im sorry Volunteer Marek, Im restoring this, we already have established consensus that the Intercept is generally reliable, and nothing here gives any basis for the challenge. This is attributed to a blue linked author, is totally DUE, and if anybody wants info on Greenwald they can click that link. nableezy - 22:23, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

An article in The New York Times (which was deleted from the article because it does not mention Blumenthal) establishes the report by Greenwald and Blumenthal were wrong:

On March 10, The New York Times reported that their reconstruction, using both public information and previously unpublished video evidence, did not support accounts that the use of tear gas by Maduro's forces had caused the trucks to burn. It "suggest[ed] that a Molotov cocktail thrown by an antigovernment protester was the most likely trigger for the blaze".

Editors should not include material which has been demonstrated to be false (or fringe) in stronger reliable sources. Fringe material needs to be challenged by mainstream sources for inclusion. If it has not been, it is insufficiently notable to be included in any article. Seems obvious, but apparently not. Philip Cross (talk) 06:47, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

You might want to read that again, Philip Cross: Blumenthal scooped the Times, which fully vindicated his analysis. And, yes, The New York Times source was removed based on a phony WP:SYNTH challenge, but it should also be restored, because Greenwald directly made the obvious and correct observation that Blumenthal scooped the Times. This content was long-standing for about two years before NoonIcarus decided to relitigate the issue. You're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts, etc.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:45, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Thankyou, TheTimesAreAChanging. Obviously I was very rash in my edit and you were right to revert my error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philip Cross (talk • contribs) 09:20, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I do not see any problems with the text or the source. TFD (talk) 16:53, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 31 October 2022

Some of the information on Max Blumenthal are fundamentally wrong and ought to be corrected ASAP! 138.88.179.28 (talk) 02:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 02:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)