Talk:Bob Herbert

Untitled
Most of this article seems to be taken word for word from the NY Times online biography for Bob Herbert. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/HERBERT-BIO.html

Perhaps there should be a citation or credit? This might even be a copyright violation, actually.

This is severely biased. I am going to edit it a bit to make it better, but someone should check the facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.182.93.202 (talk) 15:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

'Journalism errors'
It's a shame that the liberal thought police have overtaken Wikipedia. This inclusion of this section deals with the factual account that Mr. Herbert wrote an Op/Ed accusing John McCain of Racism. Perhaps those in the liberal fold on Wikipedia don't beelive that accusing a Major Party Candidate racist a big deal. Especially when the so-called journalist is an so-called expert in matters of race.

At this point, the liberal thought police have removed the section because no sources were referenced. After the reference material was included, their objection was that it contained too much information.

After the article was trimmed down, their objection is that "it is not an important matter and that people make mistakes all the time". Let's be clear, this is a supposed award winning Jounalist working for the New York Times. This supposed jounrnalist accused a person of racism, based totally on an incorrect assumption. This supposed journalist wrote his peice in the New York Times and followed up with an interview on MSNBC supporting his incorrect conclusions.

This section represents the facts in the matter, which are as follows:

1. Bob Herbert accused John McCain of running a racist ad.

2. The basis of Herbert's accusation was that the ad contained images of Phallic buildings UNRELATED to Obama, Hilton, or Spears.

3. He thought the images shown were the "Leaning Tower of Pisa" and the "Washington Monument"

4. He concluded that showing these UNRELATED phalic images before showing Hilton and Spears had Racist intent.

5. Staff on the Morning Joe show pointed out to him that the images were not UNRELATED, but the Victory Column in Berlin where Obama gave his speech.

6. Because the Victory Column was the image shown where Obama was giving his Berlin Speech, and not some other unrelated image, this COMPLETELY would change the context of Mr. Herbert's racism claim. WHY? Because Mr. Herbert was asking why John McCain would throw in an image of a phallic looking building in the ad. The reason MCCain put the building in the ad was because that's where Obama gave his speech. No other reason. PERIOD!!!!

7. As of this date, Mr. Herbert or the New York Times has still not issued an apology for falsly claiming racism on a Candidate for the President of the United States.

At this point, all material has been referenced.

Bigtothebone (talk) 23:31, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * And from day one you have only included a reference that proves he said those things. Great, that's not what matters. It's your opinion, and apparently your opinion alone, that accusing a candidate of racism is important. This hasn't been picked up by any other press outlets as being a significant accusation and unless you can back the actual claims in the section up with secondary sources, then it will be removed again. I have searched for reliable sources on this subject and have found only conservative blogs that have talked about it. Blogs are not reliable sources. You have ignored every request to prove the significance and relevance of this information. All of there reasons that the 'liberal police' gave are logical reasons. Dedicating half an article to bogus flaming is completely uncalled for, including unreferenced information of a serious nature is uncalled for and violates Wikipedia policies and guidelines. You were already banned for 24 hours because of disruptive edits on another article. I suggest you learn how to act mature before you think about continuing to edit. NcSchu ( Talk ) 01:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, you are incorrect. I have also noticed your biased removal of sourced information. It truly doesn't matter to you how many sources are produced. For example, try the following:

Wave Magazine - http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=26758

Dallas Morning News - http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-balance_05edi.ART.State.Edition1.4d54aab.html

Dallas Morning News Opinion - http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-hitsandmisses_09edi.ART.State.Edition1.4d9f8b2.html

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/08/11/2008-08-11_consultant_racism_isnt_major_issue_in_pr.html

The Eagle Tribune - http://www.eagletribune.com/puopinion/local_story_226232910.html?keyword=secondarystory

Radar Magazine - http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/08/mccain-celeb-ad-racist-bob-herbert.php

The Daily Voice - http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/08/post-5-000981.php

Regardless, your ideology is blinding your ability for others to presents factual information. It appears that one more person agrees with bigtothebone. Is that consensus?

Please stop vandalizing this article.

OldWilliam (talk) 03:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * William, yes I never realized how bad the liberal bias was at Wikipedia. So much for Liberals allowing free thought. They are indeed "thought nazis". I am amazed the games they play. We are doing a class project on the subject. They eventually call in the so called administrators (Basically guys that have been on for a long time), to ban you.

Take a look at any conservative bio in Wikipedia and watch what is allowed. I defy you to take a Bill O'reilly, Sean Hannity, Ruch Limbaugh, Ann Coulture, etc. Wikipedia is a joke because the liberals in here can't accept other contradictions to their dogma...

Bigtothebone (talk) 14:17, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * For god's sake, only one of those links is a reliable source. They're all editorials and opinion pieces. Read WP:R and then come back to me. There's a reason that every editor who has remote experience editing on this encyclopedia has removed this information. For you to believe you understand what does and does not belong on this website is plain ignorance and arrogance. I mean, you don't even know what NPOV stands for yet you try to use that as a reason for reversion ('N' stands for neutral, by the way). I'm not ignoring the fact that he accused the candidate's ads of being racist. You insist on adding undue weight to the information. If you are truly interested in including the information then you should have no objection to the current edit. You accuse me of being biased, yet it's plainly obvious that you personally disagree with what Herbert said and that you wish to tarnish his reputation with it. It is your opinion and the opinion of conservatives that the claims are false, which has been noted per one of the links, but it is entirely unnecessary to label his comments as 'false' and 'demanding an apology' and naming the section 'journalistic credibility', especially when he was speaking as a op-ed columnist, so it is his right to accuse them of racism. There's no proof of it challenging his credibility nor requiring an apology. You will get banned if you continue reverting edits without any attempt at compromise. You start to sound a little bit paranoid making accusations of a giant liberal conspiracy. It's probably better to argue using actual Wikipedia policies and sound evidence rather than claiming everyone's out to get you. NcSchu ( Talk ) 16:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I have removed this section three times over the past two days since it has been unreferenced (and reads completely like original research and like a biased rant), violates WP:NPOV by basically serving to be an area of attack towards Herbert without providing any neutral point of view, and violates WP:BLP by being extremely harsh and sensationalist against Herbert. Note that WP:BLP states: "Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to take sides; it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to particular viewpoints, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. The views of a tiny minority have no place in the article. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation is broadly neutral; in particular, subsection headings should reflect important areas to the subject's notability." This page is supposed to be neutral, as are all pages, yet a section containing one minute error that has no secondary sources to back up its significance and is completely blown out of proportion deserves a full four paragraphs? Not only is it not notable, it's not even relevant, as people making mistakes isn't that groundbreaking or important in the scheme of things. People are able to have their own views and own opinions, and their observations can be wrong. But that's for the blogosphere, not an encyclopedia. NcSchu ( Talk ) 22:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The information has been added again, and yet the other party involved has decided to violate the WP:3RR and ignore this post. Referencing two primary sources does not make the information viable for inclusion. Secondary sources that demonstrate the information's relevance and notability are required to include any such information. NcSchu ( Talk ) 23:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, including any reference to that particular Morning Joe appearance at all seems ridiculous. Herbert goes on Morning Joe about once every week or two; he also appears regularly on several MSNBC evening talk shows. I would feel comfortable estimating that Herbert has made between 15 and 30 television appearances so far this year, and none of them was more or less interesting, more or less noteworthy, more or less significant that the one mentioned in this article. So why is it in here? Probably because somebody wants to paint him "race baiting", right? Also on this topic, I see no evidence for the assertion in the lead section that he has written "many" columns alleging racism. I've been reading Herbert's work for a long time. Like him or hate him, that's just not a fair or accurate description of his work. It just isn't. 69.181.30.22 (talk) 07:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Exactly, the only people who thought these comments were somehow significant were conservative blogs, and any blogs per WP:R are not reliable sources. Mentioning it at all in a sentence or two is a stretch in my view but it was an attempt at ending this pointless revert war by User:Bigtothebone however this user is completely against any kind of agreement whatsoever and insists on dedicating practically half of the article space to this one measly comment. NcSchu ( Talk ) 15:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I still don't think the section referencing that one Morning Joe appearance is necessary at all. No one outside of a few conservative blogs (and this discussion page) seems to have paid any attention to that appearance, which as discussed above was just one of many such appearances, so why chronicle it here? However, if the consensus is to keep the section, then the current abbreviated version seems ok to me. 69.181.30.22 (talk) 20:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Since our friend has been blocked for sockpuppetry, I just went ahead and deleted the section since no one else seemed to want to include it. Gamaliel (talk) 03:31, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Question Um. Was there an RFC here? If so, what is the question? If not, is it just dated? RayAYang (talk) 14:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There was, and nobody responded. But alas it isn't needed anymore since the only other major party was banned for sock puppetry. NcSchu ( Talk ) 17:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Lead section
Can this be worked on? It seems overly generalized and unsourced. Also the section about the McCain ad is way too long compared to the rest of his bio, doesn't that fall under undue weight or some other wiki law. I know its discussed above but I am commenting here, sue me :) Cheers, --70.181.45.138 (talk) 02:53, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * To me there are so many bad things about that section it's just plain pointless. It mostly comes down to the fact that there is no source explaining why Herbert's comments are relevant to this page and significant in his career. NcSchu ( Talk ) 13:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC)