Talk:Andrew Bolt/Archive 2

Nation's most influential and controversial political commentators?
Hi, I appreciate that Bolt is influential, but not one of the "nation's most influential and controversial political commentator" this paragraph should go in my opinion:
 * "Bolt has been described as one of the nation's most influential and controversial political commentators. He is described as a conservative but rejects the label "right-wing"

This is merely opinion, Tim Burrows says he is influential, and Ed Butler says not so much It's easy to find other opinions pieces and op-eds that make claims either way...they're just opinions, primary sources. The figures tell another story, one in which Bolt has a small audience of only 31,000 nightly viewers, compared to the ABC's 7.30 report which has an audience of around 600,000 most nights. He may or may not be the most influential commentator (I personally doubt it), but it's impossible to verify this claim. It should be removed. Is he or isn't he? It's subjective opinion (and weasel wordy). If we can't say either way then we should say nothing. This assertion should be removed. I don't see why this is in the article, let alone the lede. He can call himself chairman Mao if he wants, people say stuff all the time. It's what other experts have said about him that matters. Whether he is right-wing or not is up for debate, so his political position should not be included. He is a conservative, that's not a contentious claim, we should leave it there.
 * 1 - "Bolt has been described as one of the nation's most influential and controversial political commentators"
 * 2 - "He is described as a conservative"
 * 3 - "but rejects the label "right-wing""

All three assertions use words and phrases that make it sound like something specific has been said, by an expert when in fact only ambiguous claims are being communicated. These are unsupported attributions ie: "described as" as I said earlier...is he or isn't he? Statements of fact are all we should be dealing with.

Look at the Leigh Sales article, in my opinion she is a far more respected presenter, and it's a fact that she has a far greater audience. Her page is well written and describes the subject, it doesn't contain all this guff about being the biggest puba, having the greatest influence or how she rejects being labelled an Estonian cheese maker, Stalinist or whatever. I hope you get what I mean? This stuff is all contentious, debatable, opinion...it comes across as tendentious and is cited with op-eds and opinion. This paragraph certainly doesn't belong in the lede, in my opinion it doesn't belong in an encyclopedic entry at all. Cheers Bacondrum (talk) 14:51, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Just addressing your first concern, I tend to agree. The claim of "nation's most influential and controversial political commentator" has two sources. One is Kevin Rudd's former press secretary. Could we find someone less notable? The second is a surprisingly unattributed piece from the ABC, in what seems to be part of a promo for Q&A. These are really not great sources. HiLo48 (talk) 23:46, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughts. So would you support removing the assertion? Bacondrum (talk) 02:10, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I would, but probably worth giving this discussion a little more time. HiLo48 (talk) 02:18, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Of course, no rush Bacondrum (talk) 06:13, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

recent changes
I still think this sentence is an unsupported attribution and should be removed, perhaps reworded and added in another section, but not the lede: "He was once described as one of the nation's most influential and controversial political commentators." If this was a statement made by the PM or something it might be notable, otherwise it's just a random opinion. Bacondrum (talk) 06:13, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Chris Chittleborough here. You were too quick for me, Bacondrum!
 * Here's what I wrote before seeing this comment:
 * That para dates back many years, and reflects lots of compromises between pro-Bolt, anti-Bolt and pro-BLP editors.
 * In undoing Bacondrum's deletion of that para, I changed it from "Bolt is seen ..." to "Bolt has been described as ...", precisely because the cites are weak and dated. Now that I've read this discussion, I see that I should have gone further.
 * Please note that the claim is only "one of the nation's ...".
 * IIRC, the "described as conservative" language was inserted by, or in response to, one editor years ago.
 * The "rejects the label right-wing" is another historical relic. Some Bolt-haters wanted to describe him as far-right (which he certainly is not); IIRC (it was many years ago), he disclaimed the label "right-wing" in response to such an attack.
 * So I just edited the article to remove those relics. I retained the "has been described as one of the nation's most ..." claim in a slightly less prominent position for now, but we really need to to rewrite that or find better sources. (Citing Mumbrella and Lachlan Harris here is another historical relic, if memory serves.)
 * On the other hand, we probably should mention that he is one of the more prominent and/or controversial commentators around, assuming someone finds good cites for those statements.
 * If someone finds a rock-solid cite calling him "influential", we could always put that back in. The Mumbrella article is not really good enough even for the lesser claim that Bolt "has been described as the most influential man in media".
 * (Somewhat off-topic: Is Leigh Sales a "commentator"? Bolt has been a columnist for 20 or so years; as such, it is his job to express his own opinions. Isn't Sales supposed to be a neutral presenter?)
 * So I think we should replace that para with something saying that Bolt is highly visible or controversial or something, but I'm afraid I've already spent too much time on this, so someone else will have to find the cites. OTOH, deleting the last relic of that para wouldn't make the article all that much worse. Cheers, CWC 06:29, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * hey, I assumed the clumsy wording was a result of a bunch of tendentious pro-Bolt, anti-Bolt action over time. I think it should be removed from the lede, he is prominent/controversial but this is best described in detail in the article rather than the lede, IMO. I think the problem with asserting his position on the political spectrum is demonstrated perfectly in the different ways you and me view him, you've stated that you don't think he is far-right, I think he is, but that's my opinion not a statement of fact, it's all contestable - we should be stating verifiable facts not opinions. This is all factual and verifiable: "Andrew Bolt (born 26 September 1959[2]) is an Australian conservative social and political commentator. His current roles include blogger and columnist at the Melbourne-based Herald Sun and host of television show The Bolt Report each weeknight" This is an unsupported attribution: "He was once described as one of the nation's most influential and controversial political commentators" unless the person who said that is highly notable it doesn't pass muster. Could easily find quality citations to assert that he is controversial, I'd support that in place of "one of the most influential", I'm happy to find the citations if you're happy with that change. Absolutely, Sales is a neutral presenter, I'm talking about reach/influence not ethics. Cheers Bacondrum (talk) 07:03, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Just so you know where I'm coming from, I would contest any edits that assert that he is of the far-right, despite my personal opinion. Bacondrum (talk) 07:12, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Original research
Bolt being attacked for defending Pell one Facebook shouldn`t be cited if one of the only two sources is a Facebook post and not an independent source for the issue. It also seems prejudicial to Bolt to not mention that the appeals court decision was split and that he supported Weinberg`s dissent. JohnLogan1600 (talk) 17:59, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi, Bolt does support and defend Pell, that fact is well established. As for claims that he is a pedophile apologist, it is completely defamatory and Facebook and Junkee are not acceptable sources for such a defamatory claim. I removed it. Bacondrum (talk) 21:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Bruce Pascoe's aboriginal heritage
There seems to be some debate about Pascoe's heritage. It seems to me that the neutral terminology here should be 'claimed'. Certainly it seems to be regarded as a claim by WP:RS Gogolwold (talk) 13:41, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * No, not reliable sources, just Murdoch and Quadrant. Murdoch is good for the footy scores, but completely unreliable on matters like this. Quadrant and its current editor have been publishing anti-Aboriginal tripe for decades. HiLo48 (talk) 21:55, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * What nonsense! Your own personal preferences are useless here. Check on Wikipedia's consensus lists of reliable and deprecated sources. Quadrant is not generally seen as reliable - though not for the racist reasons you state - but The Australian is fine. If in doubt, raise it on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. --Pete (talk) 22:08, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Has The Australian published the news that Bolt was recently made to look a complete fool by his recent use of a completely false claim about what a Yolngu elder allegedly said about Pascoe? Neglecting to publish the truth about a hero of the Murdoch stable is just as much a form of bias as telling lies. HiLo48 (talk) 23:46, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The "Guilliatt" reference (at the end of that paragraph) is a reference for the whole paragraph. "By the time he was 40, he had fully identified as Koori and was immersing himself in indigenous language and the history of frontier massacres, a subject that sparked ructions in the farming community where he lived.". The description of the book is drawn directly from the second sentence of Dark Emu (book). Also, please don't claim to have read a reference and cite it with a title of "Subscribe to The Australian | Newspaper home delivery, website, iPad, iPhone & Android apps". If you read it, copy the correct title. --Scott Davis Talk 03:23, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Dutch?
There's a tiny, slow moving edit skirmish underway involving me and an editor who doesn't use Edit summaries, so I have no idea what their goal is here. This editor wants to declare Bolt to be Dutch Australian, rather than just Australian. I note now that both the lead and the Nationality field of the Infobox declares him to be so. Dutch Australian is not a nationality. His nationality is simply Australian. I also don't see that part of his ancestry to be important enough to be in the first sentence of the article. For those who think it's important to mention his Dutch background, it's in the fist sentence of the Background section, the first section after the lead.

Thoughts anyone? HiLo48 (talk) 03:03, 13 May 2021 (UTC)


 * His parents are/were Dutch Australians. He was born in Adelaide - that makes him an Australian of Dutch descent. Definitely not worth mentioning in the lead, as I cannot see that it's influenced anything that he's known for. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:14, 13 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Hardly a skirmish, the edit was made, you reversed it and I reversed your reversal. Identity, especially nationality, is very important to the subject in question. A large majority of his work focuses on identity and race, it is important that the record show his true nationality. It is simply your opinion that Dutch Australian is not a nationality, you may want to educate yourself on the nationality via the linked page. Thanks BarcodeIII (talk) 05:56, 13 May 2021 (UTC)


 * What linked page? Our Nationality article says "Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state." You've been on Wikipedia for a very long time. Can you please learn to use both Edit summaries, and indenting on Talk pages? HiLo48 (talk) 06:03, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Is Bolt a journalist?
Bolt is not a journalist by any true definition of the word. He writes pro-right-wing opinion only. His work is noted for its bias, lack of factual basis & close correlation with Liberal Party agenda. He is basically a propaganda writer for the Australian Liberal Party. The difference between actual journalism & propaganda writing is important. The article should differentiate between the two if possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.158.89 (talk • contribs)