Talk:James Kirchick

Notability?
Someone in the next section sought to censor reference to the subject's homosexuality, but it appears to me that the only reason he has a WP page is because he's a gay activist. I see no journalistic accomplishments. Gay groups have given him awards because he is a gay, who is fighting to impose the gay agenda. 24.90.121.4 (talk) 21:02, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Homosexual
James Kirchick is homosexual and Jewish by his own admission. This hardly constitutes vandalism as I provided a reliable source(his own words: http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/31319.html). Whoever reverted the edit, just thinks that somehow this is negative. Well, if you view being Jewish and homosexual as a bad thing then that is your own bigotry.
 * It may not be vandalism, but it's irrelevant. If that's not the case, why not list the religion and sexual preference of every person with a Wikipedia biography? Wespomeroy (talk) 05:41, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * His sexual orientation is rather relevant as he's a public figure that often opines on the subject of gay rights, and that he's made that information publicly available makes it fair game. The Richard Dawkins page mentions his atheism, and Ellen DeGeneres' page mentions her homosexuality...likewise this page should reference Mr. Kirchick's sexual orientation as relevant to his advocacy. Lowenklee (talk) 08:58, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The Opening Part
I changed it back to reflect his first coming to national attention after the academic free speech controversy. It was his first national appearance, and while not as flattering as the Ron Paul reportage, should be mentioned. The Ron Paul reportage has been moved to where the article discusses his criticism of contemporary Libertarians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.4.17.250 (talk) 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

readding cat
was moved with wrong summary, it was not a unsourced link.

The category was sourced at http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/31319.html as mentioned before, he self-identifies as jewish.Mightyerick (talk) 05:48, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

reverting to remove bias
I reverted back to the version that balances Kirchick's Ron Paul articles by citing others writers who challenge the voracity of his work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rlong19 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You used a source that is not reliable. As per Wikipedia's Policy on biographies of living persons, all claims must be sourced.  The Mark of the Beast (talk) 07:58, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Kirchick Integrity
The article seems to pat James Kirchick on the back because he "exposed racist and conspiratorial newsletters published by Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, a story that gained new prominence in the 2012 presidential election.

An investigative report by "Reality Check," which can be found here, calls into question Mr. Kirchick's journalistic integrity, specifically the validity of his "exposé." It appears that he intentionally left out the page containing the name of the freelance writer who, it seems, authored all of the racist and bigoted newsletters published under Ron Paul's name.

This new information should find its way into the article. Otherwise, that section of the article can always be deleted, and we could avoid the trouble. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Supermaner (talk • contribs) 21:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Since when did random videos on YouTube become reliable sources? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 22:12, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Why don't we just classify every video that don't like as "random." From Merriam-Webster: "lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern." No, definitely not random. This story is found on FOX19 (link). Reality check is an investigative report by Ben Swann of FOX19.
 * Besides, the language of the segment of the article that I deleted was clearly biased, even if one were to ignore this information. In the future, please do some research before removing other people's edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Supermaner (talk • contribs) 10:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The video was uploaded by someone named "matlarson10", who has no evidence that they are the copyright holder of the video. And in fact, their YouTube homepage shows their pro-Ron Paul bias.  You are currently edit warring on this matter, you might want to go to dispute resolution.  Note that I did not revert you, two other editors have done so.  The Mark of the Beast (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Ron Paul info
Writerkid, the thing with the Ron Paul info is that we're not going to just remove it. It was reported on in a number of publications and Kirchick was specifically discussed. What we will do is balance the information so that it neutrally reports on it. However, a primary source like a copy of the newsletter cannot turn over a secondary source like the news reports, not to mention that you can't use it to prove a negative. Silver seren C 02:07, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Every assertion in the last three sentences of the profile is either false or misleading. Fox19 never "revealed" that "Ron Paul was not involved with the newsletters." On the contrary, in 1987 and in 1995 Paul spoke openly about his involvement in the newsletters. There is also no evidence whatsoever that James B. Powell "authored all of the racist and bigoted newsletters published under Ron Paul's name." The most notorious newsletter, the 1992 "Special Report on Racial Terrorism," appeared in 1993 as a monograph entitled "Race Terrorism in America "http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/RTA.pdf). Nor did Kirchick ever "intentionally [leave] out the page containing the name of" James B. Powell; it was posted in 2008 here. Kirchick did respond to Fox19's queries. And it was never "later found that the author [of the "Special Report on Racial Terrorism"] was Jacob B. Powell," (clearly, a sloppy mistake on the part of the editor; the supposed "freelance writer" in question is a James B. Powell, not "Jacob"), nor that the newsletters "were published without Ron Paul's knowledge." Paul may claim that now, but he defended the newsletters in 1996, and repeatedly spoke about them on video. Writerkid08 (talk) 17:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Adding that info now, thanks for the links. See, all you had to do was discuss this. I'm not going to remove the Fox19 info, we don't do that, but I will add this other, contrasting info. Silver  seren C 21:36, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There, better? Silver  seren C 21:44, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, new to Wikipedia editing. The section still contains false information. Fox 19 never claimed that the "Special Edition on Racial Terrorism", had "a byline attached for one of the writers." The newsletter did not have a byline, though was written in the first person so as to give the impression that Paul was the author. And as I noted above, the "Special Edition on Racial Terrorism" was later released as a monograph with Paul's byline. It is also unclear what you mean by "during the 15 months that the 9 newsletters in question had been published," there is no context for this. Writerkid08 (talk) 22:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's what the article says,


 * "I found, when researching this story that back in 1997 the original author of The New Republic article, James Kirchick, explained that most of the newsletters had no byline. Specifically, none of those racist newsletters had a byline, says Kirchick, except for one. One newsletter that contained the byline of someone else, not Congressman Paul. But Kirchick fails to disclose two very important things: whose name was in that byline, and which article they wrote. He only states that the mystery writer wrote "One special edition" of the Ron Paul Report. The only special edition I can find is the 1992 article, "A Special Report on Racial Terrorism." Why is that important? Because this edition of the newsletter that is most often quoted to prove racism. So does that mean the most racist evidence in these newsletters actually has someone else's name on it? I don't know, but I'd like to find out."


 * So, the writer does clearly claim that it has to be that Special Report that has the byline on it. Whether he's right or not, that's what he's claiming. Silver  seren C 22:44, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

21 March 2014 - Post Edited

I've basically tidied the entire section up as it was a mess, containing assertion, a lot of obvious bias, tons of dead links and a corrupted timeline. It is still not perfect, but is a lot better than it was.

Storris (talk) 17:14, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Liz Wahl material
This material is poorly sourced and doesn't belong here. --Malerooster (talk) 02:41, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I have removed this for now. Is there other coverage about this? --Malerooster (talk) 01:10, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Good English, please?
This page is rife with poor grammar, past tense and in general bad English. My apologies if the author is not a native speaker, but this is appalling.

Having written an opinion piece calling for whistleblower Bradley Manning to be executed that got published on 30 July 2013 in the Daily News,[15] Kirchick got invited to appear on RT's live panel discussion awaiting Manning's sentencing on Wednesday, 21 August 2013. He accepted and got connected via remote linkup from Stockholm, however, once it was his turn to speak, Kirchick refused to discuss the subject of Manning's sentencing, instead choosing to protest Russian legislation that he considered homophobic.

Undue weight
This article currently seems to be suffering from 'undue weight' issues, in that it has far too much material about a single controversial interview Kirchick gave in 2013 to Russia Today. I don't know, maybe that was the most notable thing he's ever done, but it still doesn't need seven paragraphs going into detail about what happened 'the day after' and 'two days later' and what other people said about it. Most of that content arguably doesn't belong in this article at all, it belongs in Russia Today. The material in this article should be cut down to a paragraph or two if this is meant to be a biography of a person, not an article about one event. Robofish (talk) 16:53, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Agree. As I suggest below, this article seems be written by his proud mama or a fanboy. Nothing notable. It seems worthy of deletion. --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:D027:DE64:28F5:7ADF (talk) 07:30, 24 March 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

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So What?
quoting: "In 2008, Kirchick wrote about newsletters that contained homophobic, conspiratorial and racist material, published under the name of Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul." That whole section: so what? ...needs a rewrite or removal.

...same with the whole article. The take-away seems to be: Jeepers, he's all grown up now, got a job, and no longer writing for his student newspaper!! Big Whoop. --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:D027:DE64:28F5:7ADF (talk) 07:11, 24 March 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:54, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * James Kirchick.png