Talk:Abby Phillip

"American journalist" or "American political commentator" ?
Consider last night: (2020-1-14 Democrat debate)

Abby Phillip, CNN employee: "Senator Sanders, . . . in 2018, you told [Warren] that you did not believe that a woman could win the election."Why  did  you  say  that ? ”

Sanders: "I did not say that."

Abby Phillip, CNN employee: “Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?”

A cynic might suggest changing Abby Phillip's description in the lede paragraph from "journalist" to "Warren campaign spokesperson Phillip", but seriously, given the above, might not "commentator" be a more accurate description of this CNN employee, than "journalist"?

What do people think? 70.18.10.252 (talk) 21:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)


 * On the official CNN website, she is listed as a Political Correspondent. (see: here). She is called a journalist by PBS, and a "prominent black journalist" by the NY Times here. According to her employer, she "covers the 2020 presidential election" and doesn't write opinion pieces or appear on roundtable discussions like various CNN "contributors" or "analysts". So, we should stick with what the reliable sources say. KidAd (talk) 23:39, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * A cynic might suggest that you bring your agenda here by incorrectly using "Democrat" as an adjective, and that the rest of what you have to offer here is political BS. Drmies (talk) 00:26, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

"Criticism"
This is the latest addition of the whole storm-in-a-teacup controversy of Phillip not properly attributing or whatever the point about ... well I don't even want to repeat it, it's so tiny and boring. The thing is, a. it IS a storm in a teacup. A journalist says something unfortunate and HOLY MOLY LETS HAUNT HER WITH IT ON HER WIKIPEDIA PAGE AND TAINT HER FOREVER. b. It is entirely undue, given how short her article is. c. The edit that I reverted is also incorrect, as I pointed out in an edit summary: Phillip wasn't criticized "by" The Hill; rather, The Hill pointed out that no fewer than TWO "media commentators" and one Bernie supporter had complained. Now, Folkenflik is a fine journalist and NPR a fine organization, but for god's sake, it was one tweet--and same with Rich Lowry's comment. The Hill is plenty reliable, but not always neutral, so again, how much weight should this get? d. Finally, she wasn't accused of bias, as I already pointed out, but User:Clibenfoart seems not to have noticed: read the sources, please, and stop interpreting them so liberally. e. Did I mention this is a BLP, and don't people care that we're smearing this woman under the guise of "OH THERE'S A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE"? , maybe this should be semi-protected--did you see there was yet another IP who inserted quotation marks? (God, IP, that was SO cute of you.) Drmies (talk) 00:34, 16 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking this to the talk page. I believe one sentence is the correct amount of detail to give for this event. I disagree with your assessment that she wasn't (at all) accused of bias; the sources given include people who described her questions as "unfair" and "jumping off the referee's chair". Nonetheless I suggest that we reword the sentence as: "According to The Hill and The Washington Examiner, some commentators criticized Phillips for how she moderated a particular exchange between candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders". What do you think? Best, Davey2116 (talk) 04:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

"a. it IS a storm in a teacup. A journalist says something unfortunate and HOLY MOLY LETS HAUNT HER WITH IT ON HER WIKIPEDIA PAGE AND TAINT HER FOREVER."

It's called karma --- cause and effect. ---Dagme (talk) 13:42, 17 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I would not include it for ideological reasons or karma, although Abby Phillip definitely supported Warren there which can be seen as critical as a debate moderator who is supposed to be neutral. Is it a storm in the teacup? I'm not sure. But it is definetely the most media coverage she ever recieved and you can find a number of big newspapers from different political sides with critism. I would support Daveys text, its short enough, precise and neutral. Clibenfoart (talk)

Harvard University vs Harvard College
Harvard University is the umbrella organization that includes the Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Law School, Harvard College, and a number of other schools and organizations. The only one of these that grants undergraduate degrees such a Batchelor of Arts is Harvard College. See https://www.entitlebooks.com/harvard-college-vs-harvard-university/ and the Wikipedia articles Harvard College and Harvard University.

Ms Philiip graduated from Harvard College with a Batchelor of Arts degree. Dickvb4 (talk) 01:08, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , I checked a few similar pages (1, 2, 3) and they all use University not College. So consistency would argue for that. Also I think there’s the potential to be confusing to the casual reader whom we can’t really expect to be familiar with the structure of any/every given university—they may wonder if Harvard College is something separate, the way Rhodes College has nothing to do with Rhodes Scholars. Saying Harvard University seems clearer. But we could write University in the entry and pipe the link to the College, for anyone interested enough to click through. Innisfree987 (talk) 03:10, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Thanks. Dickvb4 (talk) 23:45, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 November 2020
Abby's birthday is not accurate. I would like to fix that.

Joe Ackerman Josephackerman86 (talk) 17:17, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , thanks, do you have a reliable source we can cite? Wikipedia is very strict about requiring published, trustworthy sources for all material added to a biography of a living person (see WP:BLP), which is why right now the entry only contains an estimated birth year, based on a source that mentions her age at the time the piece was written. Innisfree987 (talk) 18:04, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , I was wondering if we could use a post from Abby's Instagram? I've seen that used on other pages and didn't know if that would suffice?
 * Josephackerman86 (talk) 18:23, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Potentially—could you share a link, I couldn’t find it. If she says something like, “Today I’m (however many) years old,” that could work but if she just says it’s her birthday without age, we would generally keep things as is—because of WP:BLPPRIVACY, there’s a strong preference to stick with just the year, so a date without a year doesn’t help. Really ideally we would stick with secondary sources but this could technically pass the criteria for self-published sources. Innisfree987 (talk) 18:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , I found a date of birth for Abby Phillip on the website News Break. I honestly do not know how credible this website is, but it does show a date of birth. Let me know if it will pass or not. I can keep digging. Josephackerman86 (talk) 01:50, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , thanks. If that’s what you’ve been able to find, you can stop digging. If you have a look at the policies I’ve linked to above, you’ll note a preference for only including what’s widely published by reliable sources. Given her DOB is not readily available, we can safely say it wouldn’t meet policy yet. It’s ok: honestly it does not add much for the average reader to know more than her general age. Thanks for your interest though. Perhaps you could just keep an eye out for new articles from reliable sources, especially ones that offer more substantive information about her career. Innisfree987 (talk) 02:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)