Talk:Oprah Winfrey/Archive 5

Top Rated U.S. Talk Show?
Would someone with edit ability be able to change this to top rated US talk show. Remember not everyone is american. ''Italic textI HAVE LOOKED EVERYWHERE AND CANNOT FIND ANY MENTION OR PHOTOS OF OPRAHS' MOTHER VERNITA LEE WINFREY>> OTHER THAN SHE GAVE BIRTH TO OPRAH. OPRAH HAS HER FATHER "VERNON" SET UP IN A NICE HOME, AND SHE TALKS ALOT OF HER GRANDMOTHER, BUT WHY THE BIG SNUB REGARDING HER MOTHERWHO BY THE WAYOPRAH HAS NEVER ONCE MENTIONED HER PUBLICLY** SHE IS STILL HER MOTHER AND WE WOULD LIKE TO READ ABOUT HER AND HER ROUGH LIFE>>EVERYTHING IS ABOUT OPRAHS' ROUGH LIFE, MY GOODNESS.. I AM IN MY MID 40'S AND MY MOM AS WELL HAD TO WEAR OLD SHOES AS A CHILD THAT DIDN'T FIT, THEY HAD TO STUFF PAPER IN THE TOES OF HER SHOES.. MY MOM AND SIBLINGS COULD NOT EAT THE MEAT OUT OF THE DINNER-MEAL SOUP, BECAUSE HER FATHER WAS THE HARD WORKING DAD..WHO MY GRAM SAID NEEDED THE MEAT..WE HAVE ALL HAD SOME NOT SO PRETTY LIVES AND OUR ANCESTORS ALSO..BUT I WOULDN'T SNUB THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO ME.'' I JUST FIND IT AWFULLY STRANGE SHE HAS NOT ONCE MENTIONED HER MOTHER.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.24.1.121 (talk) 18:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Exaggerated Audience Numbers
Under the heading "Influence" and the subheading "Rankings as world's most influential woman" is the following statement:


 * Winfrey's reach extends far beyond the shores of the U.S., where 49 million U.S. viewers see her talk show weekly. The show airs in 117 countries around the world "from Australia to Zimbabwe."[87]

The citation has a busted link. Also, the "49 million U.S. viewers" were actually the same 10 million viewers who watched the show 5 days a week. Since that overstatement was made, viewership for the Oprah Winfrey Show has fallen in half. Currently, Nielsen reports that the number of viewers is just over 5 million. See http://nielsen.com/media/toptens_television.html

Exaggerating audience numbers by a factor of 10 is embarrassing to Wikipedia and to Oprah. I'm changing the paragraph if there are no objections.

Wikeye (talk) 02:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * How do you know the 49 million per week consisted of the same 10 million every day? Also the 5 million figure per day you cite is from summer reruns that are competing against the olympics and thus is probably much smaller than her audience normally is. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 19:49, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I will answer your question if you will tell me how you know that the 5 million viewers counted by Nielsen Media are from Summer reruns that competed against the Olympics and thus are "much smaller" than her audience normally is.


 * The Olympics are over and the numbers are still just over 5 million. So what's the excuse now?  Her reruns are competing against Sarah Palin and the Republican National Convention?  O.K., but Judge Judy, Family Guy, 2 1/2 Men, etc. are doing just fine.


 * The fact remains that Oprah's audience is nowhere near "49 million U.S. viewers." I'll wait until after all the convention numbers pass through Nielsen, and then I'm fixing the article.


 * And what about that busted link?
 * Wikeye (talk) 03:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The total number of viewers used in the article should reflect the normal season numbers and not the summer reruns. Kman543210 (talk) 04:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to include a range (i.e. between 5 million and 10 million, or whatever it is) in order to accurately reflect her actual audience, since the reruns play more often than the "normal season". Would anyone care to find a credible link to an accurate source for the "normal season number"?
 * Wikeye (talk) 22:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The source currently in the article is credible (reuters news source) and it says 46 million U.S. viewers a week

So that 49 million statistic was probably viewers per week? So basically there were an average of 9.8 million viewers per day. Is the 46 million a current number from the summer or an average from last season? The show's new season just started this week. Kman543210 (talk) 10:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * My point is that the original 49 million statistic or the "credible" 46 million are both misleading. 40+ million different people do not watch Oprah each week.  The only reliable count is from Nielsen, and that count is just over 5 million.  In other words, 5 million people tune into Oprah each day, on average.  5 million/day * 5 days/week = 25 million a week -- not 40+ million.


 * The quote from Reuters is a Wiki-echo or Wiki-warp: they are quoting Wikipedia, which was incorrect in the first place. So let's not quote an inaccurate quote.  Advertisers are not paying for commercial time on Oprah based on the Reuters figures; they're paying based on the Nielsen numbers, which are the most accurate sources available.  Nielsen trumps Reuters, so let's stick to that.
 * Wikeye (talk) 21:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * They're not quoting from wikipedia. Wikipedia said 49 million and reuters said 46 million so obviosly different sources. The problem with using Nielsen is it changes all the time.  Ratings are twice as high during sweep weeks than reruns that are aired opposite the olympics. It's the sweeps ratings that are relevant in the industry.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.137.2 (talk) 18:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, Reuters says that the show "boasts a weekly U.S. audience of 46 million". That's "boast", as in "To glorify oneself in speech; talk in a self-admiring way."  Wikipedia and Reuters are different sources of the same boast which needs to be corrected.


 * Yes, Nielsen numbers change all the time, but that is not a "problem"--unless you're Oprah or one of her gushing fans who want to claim viewership of 46 million people. The Nielsen numbers change because the audience changes.  As I said, we just need to state a range for the audience of between 5 and 9 million, which is a better approximation of Oprah's true audience numbers than the 46 to 49 million that is being carelessly thrown around here.


 * During the week of August 25 (no Olympics), Oprah averaged just over 5 million viewers, behind syndicated shows Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, 2 1/2 Men, Judge Judy and Family Guy. Just ahead of CSI-Miami.  Even the top broadcast show, Sunday Night Football, got <18 million viewers, so you can see what an embarrassing stretch it is for Oprah to "boast" 46 million viewers. http://nielsen.com/media/toptens_television.html
 * Wikeye (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me explain a few things to you. August is in the summer. In TV reruns are aired during the summer. Reruns get lower ratings than new broadcasts.  This is because people don't like to watch the same shows twice. Wheel of Fortune, Judge Judy etc are not talk shows.  You haven't named a single talk show with higher ratings than Oprah.99.224.137.2 (talk) 11:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Here are a couple of more pieces to the puzzle of what happened to Oprah's audience:

A Few Tremors in Oprahland (NY Times, May 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26oprah.html

Obama numbers up, Oprah ratings down (Chicago Tribune, May 2008) http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/obama_numbers_up_oprah_ratings.html


 * "Ms. Winfrey’s daytime audience has also declined, to about 7.3 million this year [2007 - 2008] from 7.8 million a year ago and a peak of nearly 9 million in the 2004-2005 season. (Those Nielsen figures include viewers who record the show and watch it within seven days.)"

We'll see how the numbers hold up this coming season (2008 - 2009).

As far as Oprah being referred to as "arguably the world's most powerful woman" or "the most influential woman in the world", this piece has some interesting facts:

Obama supporter Oprah takes a big dive (Politico, April 2008) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9427.html


 * "according to a national survey of Democrats conducted in December 2007 by ABC News and The Washington Post, 82 percent of respondents claimed Oprah’s endorsement would make no difference in their vote"

Not what you would expect if Oprah actually IS the most powerful or influential woman in the world. Quite the opposite.

Also this, from the same source:


 * "Ten years following the launch of her talk show, the January 1996 Survey on American Political Culture found that more than three-quarters (78 percent) of Americans held a favorable opinion of Oprah."

And then:


 * "Oprah announced on Nov. 26, 2007, that she would go on the stump for Obama. To woo voters in crucial primaries, Oprah made appearances in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire in early December 2007."


 * "But by the time Fox News/Opinion Dynamics asked Americans about their attitudes toward Oprah in a survey conducted about 10 days later, Dec. 18-19, Oprah’s favorability ratings had dropped even further — to 55 percent — the lowest level of favorability ever registered for Oprah in opinion surveys. Oprah’s negatives also spiked, with one in three respondents (33 percent) reporting unfavorable impressions of her."

So much for Oprah's claimed popularity, influence and power. Still notable, but not as much as she and her fans claim. Wikeye (talk) 00:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually the fact that so many of in the media went out of their way to discredit her & claim her popularity was slipping out of fear that her endorsement would have an impact (and in fact it's now been proven that she got him over one million votes) suggests she's extremely influential indeed. One in three Americans reported most people they know would be more inclined to vote Obama because of Oprahand she increased his visibility enormously. If she were not influential the media would have just ignored her as they did with other celebrity endorsements, but as your links suggest, there was an active effort to discredit her. And while getting political obviously offends those who don't share your political views, Gallup's most admired people poll finds that Oprah's more popular now than any other point in her career. As of Dec 2007, Oprah was named the woman in the world they admired most by 16% of Americans (making her statistically tied with Hillary as the world's most admired woman by Americans); a 78% increase in popularity from Dec 2006 where Oprah was named by only 9% .  And even if Oprah lost all her popularity, she would still be one of the most influential people in the world on the strength of the impact she's already had and the strength of her enormous bank account.  And Oprah and her fans did not claim she popular, powerful and influential. Those claims were made by folks like Time magazine, Forbes magazine, Bill O'reilly, and Maureen Dowd. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 11:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No one has "proven" that Oprah got 1+ million votes for Barack. If you bother to read the article you cite, you would find that it was merely a "contention" or guess by a couple of economists.


 * "Their conclusions were based partly on a county-by-county analysis of subscriptions to O: The Oprah Magazine and sales figures for books that were included in her book club."


 * They "extrapolated an effect of 1,015,559 votes". "Extrapolated" is another word for "guessed".


 * There is no guessing with my source, which indicates that favorability ratings for Oprah plunged from 78 percent to 55 percent when she started campaigning for Barack. She can't even get votes for herself, let alone Barack.


 * Ask yourself this: If she was able to garner 1+ million votes in such a short amount of time, why did she stop and why did Barack distance himself from her as he did that radical racist preacher and mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-kD0QdRJk


 * Your other arguments are just as specious. They don't even pass "the smell test."


 * Most telling is your avoidance of the main issue of this discussion: Oprah's exaggerated audience number claims. Although I do admit that your avoidance and exaggerations in the issues you do raise only prove my point that Oprah's fans have greatly exaggerated her reputed power, influence, intelligence, etc., etc.


 * Oprah is rapidly losing audience and popularity because of the incompetent people whom she tries to "anoint": an overweight, divorced pop psychologist who lost his license to practice but still gives people advice on weight loss and marriage; an inexperienced stock salesperson who also lost her license and who was never certified in financial planning but still gives advice on investments, retirement planning and any number of other topics; a candy store clerk who never worked at a restaurant but teaches people how to cook 30-minute meals in < 2 hours; and a poor black girl who, with only "the strength of her enormous bank account", founded a megachurch with 5 to 7 million followers--oh wait, that would be Oprah herself.


 * Let's stick to the issue and quit slinging around numbers that are pulled out of thin air. Oprah herself rises and falls on the Nielsen numbers.  If they say her audience is 5 to 7 million people, then her audience is 5 to 7 million.  That is considerably less than the 46 to 49 million claimed on Wikipedia.
 * Wikeye (talk) 23:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually the one million votes Oprah got for Obama is as much a statistical reality as the polls you cite and actually based on far more sophisticated statistical methodology, one you appear not to comprehend as evidenced by you describing it as a "guess". If anything the true figure is much much higher than a million if her book club is any indication (6 million copies of A NEW EARTH sold when Oprah picked it) not to mention a third of all Americans reporting most people they know would be more inclined to vote Obama as a consequence of her endorsement.  As for her approval rating dropping, you're cherry picking polls from different sources (including dubious sources like Fox News).  What you need to do is look at the same poll conducted by the same credible polling company repeatedly such as the Gallup most admired poll which has been asking Americans who they admire most every December for half a century.  As of Dec 2007, right after she campaigned for Obama, Oprah was named the woman in the world they admired most by 16% of Americans (making her statistically tied with Hillary as the world's most admired woman by Americans); a 78% increase in popularity from Dec 2006 where Oprah was named by only 9% . The fact that Oprah is the one woman statistically tied with Hillary as the most admired is what made her endorsement so valuable to Obama, though once he won Iowa he was viable and no longer needed her.  And even if her approval rating had dropped, that would only prove that she had transfered her popularity to him.  In fact a decline in her popularity after endorsing him would suggest that she appeals to a different demographic than he does which would make her endorsement all the more valuable to him.  If Rush Limbaugh decided to endorse Obama, Limbaugh would suffer a huge hit in his ratings precisely because Limbaugh appeals to the demographic most resistant to Obama, but for that reason the endorsement would be especially useful to Obama, even if it hurt Rush.  Another term for popularity is political capital; like economic capital, once you spend it on someone, you don't have as much, but what good is power unless you have the courage to swim against the current?  And you still don't seem to understand that Oprah's show is in reruns during the summer so the Nielsen figures you cite are of no relevance.  If her ratings have declined so much, why can't you name a single talk show in syndication that can beat her (Judge Judy is a court show) and why did Forbes magazine list her as the most powerful celebrity of 2008, why did Time magazine name her one of the world's most influential people for the sixth consecutive time, and why did TV Guide just report that she earned $385 million this year? 99.224.137.2 (talk) 02:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Blah, blah blah. You're funny.  I'm "cherry picking polls?"  I'm quoting the NY Times, the Chicago Tribune, Politico, etc., and you're quoting Maureen Dowd.  Very funny.


 * Of course you say the Nielsen figures are "of no relevance." Yes, that's true.  If we pay attention to them, we have to admit that Oprah's audience ranges from 5 million (reruns during the Summer) to 9 million (peak in 2004-2005 season) or 7 million (last season's peak)--not the 46 to 49 million that gushing fans claim.


 * Let's give Oprah credit for being about as popular as Billary-like that's saying anything. She (Billary) wasn't even really in the race, so how popular does that make her?  Perhaps Sarah Palin is more popular and influential than both of them put together ;^)  I guess she's garnered 46 to 49 million votes for McCain, since those are the numbers we're throwing around here.


 * Obviously, verbal blab is your forte, but let's just stick to the numbers, shall we?
 * Wikeye (talk) 18:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You do realize that Oprah doesn't put shows on in the summer? Those are reruns.  As for the hit pieces in the NY Times and Politico, you do realize that then when you're as influential as Oprah (and you get political) a lot of people try to take you down (as your comments demonstrate) by chery picking numbers.  The 46 million figure comes from reuters, not Oprah's gushing fans.  It is based on new shows, not reruns, and it is based on the whole, week, not daily numbers. You are comparing apples and oranges. Please keep your facts straight and your logic clear. Globeclotter (talk) 19:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Reruns? We don't need no stinking reruns. Yes, of course there are reruns in the Summer. Read my previous comment:

"Oprah's audience ranges from 5 million (reruns during the Summer) to 9 million (peak in 2004-2005 season) or 7 million (last season's peak)--not the 46 to 49 million that gushing fans claim."

Yes, let's keep the facts straight and the logic clear. Let me slow down and give it to you one more time:

Oprah's daily (per show) viewership is between 5 million (those Summer reruns) to 7 million (specials like when she hosted dozens of Olympic athletes in a failed bid to piggyback on NBC's promotion of the games and boost her flagging numbers through her own brand of cherrypicking). Those are the numbers. Reuters reported that Oprah "boasts" about an audience of 46 million. It never reported that, in fact, the audience was that large. And for good reason. Read on.

Here is the logic: generally, the same 5 million hard-core viewers watch the show faithfully each day. The other 2 million fluctuate over the season. Therefore, Oprah's audience is generally 5 to 7 million. We don't report an audience of 25 to 35 million because those are cumulative weekly numbers--not her audience for each show. Otherwise, we would report that Oprah's audience is 100 to 140 million (cumulative monthly numbers). Or, we could just as well report that her audience is 1.3 to 1.8 BILLION (cumulative annual numbers). But then we'd have to rename the show McOprah's.

That's a thought. Maybe on Monday, 5 million new people watch the show, are disgusted and never watch it again. Then on Tuesday, another 5 million new people discover the show and so on and so forth. In that case, you could make a McDonald's-like claim of "Billions and Billions Served". However, it seems more straight and logical to report (as Nielsen does) the average audience PER SHOW. That's the number that means something. Unless you're a former auditor for Enron, Tyco or WorldCom or something like that. Wikeye (talk) 21:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * According to Nielsen, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" audience consists of 8.6 million viewers daily, 75 percent of whom are women. Now if it’s a different 8.6 million each of the five days she broadcasts, then her total number of weekly viewers would be 8.6 million * 5 = 43 million.  Not all that different from the 46 million a week reported by Reuters.  I think the source of your confusion is that you are looking at ratings during the summer reruns, but the  ratings of relevance are during sweeps period because these decide advertising rates.  Also, you’re assuming that it’s mostly the same people who watch every day, but that’s just speculation on your part. My mother and I both watch Oprah every week but we seldom view the same shows because we work on different days. I think this is quite common for daytime TV.  Millions of people watch Oprah whenever they get a day off, and thus the audience could be completely different each day.  99.224.137.2 (talk) 02:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In other words, you're advocating the "McOprah" approach by speculating that her audience is "completely different each day." Again I ask:  why don't we report that her audience is 1.8 BILLION?  That is little more of an exaggeration than the 46 million figure you claim Reuters reported.


 * Just read the Reuters piece and you will see that they were merely reporting that Oprah "boasted" an audience of 46 million--not that her actual audience is even close to that number. But you know that and are misrepresenting the facts by quoting an editorial that is misquoting the Reuters piece.  How silly.  If you're going to pretend to quote Nielsen, at least provide a link to something on the Nielsen web site and not some speculative editorial.


 * FYI, we are not deciding advertising rates here, so the Summer reruns are just are relevant as the regular shows and the specials designed to temporarily boost ratings. As you know, no one has actually measured Oprah's weekly unique viewers.  The only factual assertion we can make is that Oprah's average daily audience is between 5 and 7 million, as actually reported by Nielsen.  Anything else is clearly speculation.


 * Perhaps it would be more helpful and clear to express the audience share in percentages. There are 305 million people in the U.S.  If 5 to 7 million of them watch Oprah each day (on average), her U.S. audience is 1.6 to 2.3 percent of the population.


 * Here's a news flash: 97.7 to 98.4 percent of people in the U.S. do NOT watch Oprah on average. Hardly impressive for the most influential or popular or powerful woman on the planet, wouldn't you say?
 * Wikeye (talk) 03:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I think reaching 2% of the world's sole super power five days a week for 22 years is sufficient to be the world's most influential woman especially when you consider all the innovative ways Oprah has used that reach, but we're getting off topic, and the numbers you cite are contradicted by reliable sources. And just so you know, when reuters says Oprah boasts an audience of 46 million a week, they're not literally saying Oprah is boasting. Saying she boasts an audience is just a stylish way of saying she has an audience; it's a matter of rhetorical style on reuters' part, and I'm shocked I need to explain this to you but here's a useage note from Dictionary.com: Some have objected to the use of boast as a transitive verb meaning "to possess or own (a desirable feature)," as in This network boasts an audience with a greater concentration of professionals and managers than any other broadcast vehicle. This usage is by now well established, however, and is acceptable to 62 percent of the Usage Panel.  And I'm not advocating a McOprah approach because I don't think she has a different audience every weekday of the year, but I do think during a typical week, different people have different days off so her audience on Monday is probably mostly different from her audience on Tuesday.  But it's not for us to speculate, we have a reliable source claiming she's watched by 46 million a week.  The only evidence you've offered to contradict this is her audience during one month of reruns which changes the issue from how many people watch Oprah, to how many people watch Oprah twice. The latter is of little interest. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 12:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Her ratings seem inconsistent. For example you have the show about the pregnant man that got a 7.1 rating .  Assuming each rating point is equivalent to 1.318 million viewers, that’s an audience of 9.36 million people for that episode.  If you assume a different 9.36 million  each of the five days of the week, you get 47 millions per week, but not all of her shows our as popular as that one and some of her audience must be the same people day to day.  Hence, the figure 30 million a week as cited by The Independent sounds more believable  than the 46 million a week cited by reuters, and I will alter the article to reflect it. SamanthaG (talk) 16:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * And here's another source confirming the 30 million U.S. viewers a week figure. SamanthaG (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Following your logic, we would have to admit that Marge Simpson is the most influential woman in the world, as she has been reaching a greater percentage of the world for a longer period of time than Oprah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons

I appreciate your explanation of the word "boast" but in this case, it is obvious that you and Oprah are literally boasting and boosting the numbers to suit your preconceived notions of what an audience is. I trust Webster over Dictionary.com, but if you want to continue "boasting", that's up to you. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boast

Now if the issue of UNIQUE weekly viewers is of little interest, why don't we just say that Oprah's audience is 1 1/2 BILLION a year? Other than Nielsen, you can cite no source that has actually measured unique viewers; only a report that echoes the false claim that Oprah "boasts" an audience of 46 million, which is patently absurd.

The only reliable measurement of Oprah's audience is Nielsen, which is in the business of measuring audience size rather than selling newspapers and entertaining people, which is what Reuters and the other "news" papers do for a living. Therefore, we should indicate that according to Nielsen, Oprah's average daily audience ranges from 5 to 7 million, which is only about 2 percent of the U.S. population. Wikeye (talk) 18:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually Wikeye Time magazine ranks Bart Simpson as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Out of respect for your concerns, I have changed the 46 million per week figure to 30 million per week as per these sources.. This suggests 10% of America watches Oprah at least once a week. As for daily numbers, Nielson estimates Oprah's audience to be 8.6 million viewers per day. The Washingtonpost is a reliable source and they got their figures from Nielsen. As you have already been told repeatedly, your five million figure is from repeats.SamanthaG (talk) 19:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy that you caught my Simpson allusion and followed up on it. I didn't want to appear disrespectful of Oprah, so I said Marge (a woman) instead of Bart (a brat). But yes, Oprah is right up there with Bart and Sponge Bob Square Pants as far as audience goes.

Too bad you glossed over the article on Oprah http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/winfrey.html that was part of the Time 100 article that you cited. It states:


 * "When Winfrey talks, her viewers - an estimated 14 million daily in the U.S. and millions more in 132 other countries - listen."

That's 14 million daily viewers ten years ago. Now, as I said early in this discussion, her audience is 5 to 7 million, depending on whether we are talking about repeats or specials. So quit whining about the 5 million for heavens sake! Your own source confirms my contention that Oprah has lost 1/2 of her audience over time.

You and the Washington Post are clinging to Oprah's past glory days. As I said before, have a look at more recent numbers.

A Few Tremors in Oprahland (NY Times, May 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26oprah.html

Obama numbers up, Oprah ratings down (Chicago Tribune, May 2008) http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/obama_numbers_up_oprah_ratings.html


 * "Ms. Winfrey’s daytime audience has also declined, to about 7.3 million this year [2007 - 2008] from 7.8 million a year ago and a peak of nearly 9 million in the 2004-2005 season. (Those Nielsen figures include viewers who record the show and watch it within seven days.)"

The 8.6 million figure you cite is almost 4 years old (2004-2005 season). Her numbers have been dropping every year since then and will probably follow Oprah's recent approval rating dive. We will have to see. For now, the only current, objective assessment is that Oprah's daytime audience is about 7 million or about 2 percent of the country. To suggest that 10 percent of America watches Oprah at least once a week is groundless. There have been no reports of unique weekly, monthly or annual viewers for the Oprah show--only daily audience. The weekly figures that you keep computing are just guesses which are misleading and not supported. You might just as well report monthly or annual numbers that you compute based on incorrect assumptions about unique viewers. I ask again: what is stopping you from claiming 1 1/2 BILLION annual viewers? Wikeye (talk) 02:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don’t think Oprah’s ratings have anything to do with her approval rating. Rosie O’Donnel had extremely low approval ratings when she was on the view, yet she gave the show its highest ratings ever.  And while Oprah’s approval ratings may have declined, the percentage of Americans who admire her has hit its highest point in her entire career, nearly doubling from Dec 2006 to Dec 2007 .  I do agree that her ratings have declined but this reflects an audience shrinkage that has afflicted the entire daytime syndication industry as viewers are forced to work during the day, and the web, youtube, speciality channels, and election coverage compete for eyeballs; the fact that Oprah remains the highest rated talk show suggests that other shows have been declining as much or more than she has.  You say the 8.6 million per day figure is from several years ago, but it was reported in the Washington post earlier this month, and as recently as last Spring Oprah hit the ratings stratosphere with her pregnant man show got a 7.1 rating .  Assuming each rating point is equivalent to 1.318 million viewers, that’s an audience of 9.36 million people for that episode.  But even if Oprah’s audience is only 7 million a day (actually your source says 7.3 million), how does that make the 30 million a week figure wrong?  You ask why we don’t go assert 1.5 billion viewers per year.  The answer is because we don’t have a reliable source reporting any annual figures.  Daily shows are reported in terms of how many viewers watch them at least once a week to make them directly comparable with shows that air only once a week.  For example, fans of Donald Trump would boast on the web that his show was getting higher ratings per episode than Rosie on the View, but Rosie fans would counter that it’s much harder to get viewers five days a week than it is to get them only once a week,  so to make the comparison fair you would have to look at The View’s weekly numbers. The number of people who take the time to watch Oprah at least once a week is a much more reasonable measure of her regular audience than the number who watch her everyday, simply because millions of her fans are too busy to invest five hours a week watching one show.  Now you say that the 30 million figure a week is guess work, but where the hell is your evidence for that?  For all you know they could have contacted Nielsen which has the data to calculate weekly viewers.   Weekly figures are relevant and reported by two reliable sources so removing them based on your speculation would be incredibly inappropriate.   However out of respect for the points you made I will add to the article that Oprah’s daily U.S. ratings have declined from nearly  9 million viewers in 2005 to 7.3 million viewers in 2008 SamanthaG (talk) 12:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Claiming or implying that Oprah currently averages 7.3 million viewers is misleading. Like all these banks that overstate their assets by refusing to write down their sub-prime loan portfolios. As you point out, even turning to desperate freak-show tricks like the "pregnant man" did nothing to permanently revive Oprah's audience.

Oprah's 2008-2009 season premiere got a rating of 5.0 (just under 6.5 million viewers). http://nielsen.com/media/toptens_television.html

In the second week of the season, Oprah fell 6 percent to a 4.7 rating (about 6.1 million viewers). http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6600716.html?industryid=47171

Really good for an old sub-prime show, but certainly not in the "ratings stratosphere". That would be "Dancing with the Stars" 21 million. Eventually, we're going to have to "write down" the Oprah Show to it's true "market value": about 6 million viewers, which is quite a spectacular one-year drop from the currently-claimed 7.3 million and an even bigger plunge from the 9.36 million that you say were watching her show as recently as April. Apparently, Oprah lost more than 1/3 of her audience in less than 6 months. That's gotta be some kind of a record, don't you think? Wikeye (talk) 21:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Once again you're cherry picking. You can't compare her highest rated show of last season with some random rating period you selected from this month, and then say her ratings declined by 1/3rd. I could just as easily compare her pregnant man show with her lowest rated show of 2007 and say her ratings doubled in one year. Wikeye don't be absurd. If her ratings have declined so much, why does she still have the highest rated talk show in syndication after nearly two and a half decades on the air.  That's gotta be some kind of record don't you think? 99.224.137.2 (talk) 22:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * And just so you know, Oprah ratings are actually up 5% from this same time last year 99.224.137.2 (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You misread the article that you cited to claim that Oprah's ratings are up 5 percent "from this same time last year". The article reports that "Week-to-week ratings for syndicated strips settled down in week two of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games after many shows took hits in the Games’ first week."  The 5 percent increase for Oprah is from week one to week two of the Olympics.  The only shows the article compares to the "same week last year" are Regis and Kelly, Montel Williams and Jerry Springer.  The article is poorly written but if you read it again, you will get it.


 * "Cherry picking" is what gushing Oprah fans do when they toot her horn for unusual episodes like the "pregnant man", claim that she has an audience of 46 million (or even 30 million), and refuse to acknowledge that her audience has, in fact, fallen from 14 million to 7 million (now 6 million) in less than 10 years. They may have good intentions, but they aren't doing Oprah any favors with their wild exaggerations.


 * Yes, I suppose I was "cherry picking" by using Oprah's season premiere (with 175 Olympic athletes, including Kobe Bryant, Misty May Whatever, etc. etc.) as an example of her current audience. My apologies for gushing a bit.  But it's so obvious that if she can only garner 6.5 million with a gimmicky premiere, the average for the season will be less than 5 million.  Still a money-maker, but nothing to gush about.


 * You ask: "If her ratings have declined so much, why does she still have the highest rated talk show in syndication after nearly two and a half decades on the air." The answer is simple: apparently, Oprah's talk show sucks less than the other talk shows.  However, they all suck, including Oprah's.  At least that's what the steep ratings declines suggest.  Many people seem to prefer Judge Judy over Oprah.  And please spare me the lecture: they're all talk shows.  Judge Judy's is just a legal or courtroom talk show.


 * Don't get me wrong. I'm a big Oprah fan.  How she managed to achieve what she has despite her complete lack of assets (and considerable liabilities) in the beginning is the most remarkable success story I have ever heard.  Personally, I rank her above Napoleon Bonaparte, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Bill Gates, Henry Ford and Benjamin Franklin.  The only person I consider equal to her was Sam Walton, and he was never a good actor.  The only fault I find with her is a lack of "accurate thinking", which has caused her to trust some very devious and unqualified people, much to her embarrassment.  But then, "no good deed goes unpunished."
 * Wikeye (talk) 20:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Court shows are a completely different genre than talk shows. They had to create a whole new genre to find someone who could compete with Oprah. And Oprah's ratings were twice as high (actually three times as high at her peak) in the 20th century because it was a much less fragmented media age. People didn't have 200 channels. There wasn't 24 hours news. There wasn't dozens of specialty channels.  There wasn't youtube and web to attract people's attention away from their TV sets.  So please stop blathering on about declining ratings, because as long as she's still #1, she's doing a hell of a lot better than everyone else, an amazing achievement for someone who's been on for a quarter century.  As for her promoting devious and unqualified people, as long as they are good entertainers, who cares if they are qualified.  Talk shows are a free market, all are free to compete; let the audience decide.  99.224.137.2 (talk) 22:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * As you point out, it's all just entertainment, so it doesn't matter if we call it a "talk show" or a "court show." Whatever excuses you come up with, the fact remains that Oprah's audience has fallen by 2/3 from its peak, and it was never as great as the gushing fans claim.  Everything you cite as an excuse (the 200 channels, 24-hour news, specialty channels, youtube, the web) only indicate that Oprah's show became a big bore relative to everything else.  Otherwise, the audience would not have shifted.


 * "Who cares if they are qualified?", you ask. Obviously, the audience cares, or it would not have shifted.  Please continue blathering on about how Oprah's show is "doing a hell of a lot better" than Dr. Phil.  So what.  Who cares if he is qualified?  Right: his dwindling audience.  When this lack of "accurate thinking" carries over from "entertainment" to reality, the result is grand foo-bar.  Who cares whether Oprah or her staff are qualified to establish and run a school for privileged youth in South Africa?  The answer is obvious.  Either you care, or you just don't get it, do you?
 * Wikeye (talk) 04:00, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually Oprah is far better than her gushing fans claim. At her peak she reached 20 million viewers a day. She was so successful, so quickly, it was stunning even to her. She was so successful that they were forced to give her control over her own show, her own production company, her own studio. So successful that she rakes in more money than every other host in syndication COMBINED.  And now a quarter century later, she still has the highest rated talk show in syndication, even after having the courage to campaign for a black man for president, even after having the courage to question the church, and the #2 host Dr. Phil was discovered and marketed by her.  She so successful that she's even wildly popular in Saudi Arabia.  You know a show is successful when they can lose 2/3rd of their audience and STILL be #1.  And the loss of audience is not a reflection of any decline on her part (she's still #1); it's a reflection of the industry's decline.  Broacast TV is rapidly losing its status as the most powerful form of media as the web, youtube, cable, and specialty channels loom larger.  Nothing lasts for ever, but Oprah's star has lasted far longer than virtually anyone's. As for your cheapshot about the tragedy in South Africa, you do realize that South Africa has virtually the highest rape rate in the world, and there's no way to 100% eliminate molestation from any institution involving hundreds of girls, but for you to blame the incident on a lack of qualifications shows a fundamental misunderstanding.  There are no qualifications that can weed out perverts. Some of the most qualified and educated people in the world molest children.  99.224.137.2 (talk) 04:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * 20 million viewers a day??? Please.  You don't happen to have a cite for that do you?  Or are you just gushing a little more than usual?  The popularity of the Oprah Winfrey Show can be attributed to its creative reinvention of the minstrel shows of the 1800's.  Instead of a white person in blackface making fun of black people, Oprah is a black person in whiteface paying tribute to white people and acting like an intelligent, wealthy white woman.  Hence her mostly white, "upscale" female audience and notable lack of a sizable black audience.  Like the traditional minstrel shows, that act has become a bit old for the times and so the audience has moved on.  I suggest that we move on also.  If you have a cite for your 20 million claim, please provide it.  Otherwise, take your gushing opinions to a fan tribute site or something else that the Wikipedia is NOT.
 * Wikeye (talk) 16:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The notion that by being intelligent and wealthy Oprah is acting white is the most racially offensive thing I've seen anyone on wikipedia ever say because you are implying that authentic blackness means being being dumb and poor. And you are also incorrect about Oprah lacking a sizable black audience. Indeed she gets her best ratings in parts of the country where black populations are high like Macon Georgia. So not only are you pushing a very disturbing POV but you're facts are wrong too. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 18:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * So now you're playing the race card. How weak, and shame on you for drawing implications based upon your own prejudices and bigotry.


 * Stick to the issue of exaggerated audience numbers. Again, you have no support for your wild assertions.  Where is your cite for the 20 million viewers a day that you claimed?  Where is your cite to support your claim that Oprah has a large black audience?  Macon, GA has less than 100,000 people, and only 60 percent are black.  http://www.city-data.com/city/Macon-Georgia.html  How do you know the number of black people in Macon watching Oprah?  How do you know they are not white females in Macon watching Oprah?  How racist of you to assume that the 60,000 black people in Macon are all unemployed and sit around with nothing to do but watch Oprah.  You are the one implying that blackness means being dumb and poor.


 * According to Nielsen, Oprah is not and has never been one of the top shows among African-Americans. http://nielsen.com/media/toptens_television.html  Look at the facts and stop your racist rants.
 * Wikeye (talk) 19:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Please don't accuse me of playing the race card simply because I expressed my discomfort with you equating wealth and intelligence with "acting white". If I recall the 20 million per day figure is from the 1980s and early 1990s (back in the days when she set ratings records by pulling out a wagon of fat), but those glory days of TV are long gone, and I doubt I could find any on-line references from that long ago.  Blacks are 12% of America but 19% of Oprah's audience, which makes blacks overrepresented in her viewership. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 20:12, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Please take your own advice and stop drawing conclusions based upon your own prejudices and bigotry. You have a bad habit of making statements that you can't back up.  You misrepresent my intentions.  In fact, it is you who is equating wealth and intelligence with "acting white."  You misrepresent the facts.  You have no support for the 20 million per day figure.  You have no support for your claim that blacks are overrepresented in Oprah's viewership.  You can't support your claims about her large black audience in Macon, Georgia.  You have no support for your claim that Oprah's ratings are up 5 percent "from this same time last year".  And on and on and on.


 * You think the "glory days of TV" were watching Oprah "pulling out a wagon of fat"? wtf?  How racist is that?  Do you even realize how crazy that sounds?


 * Now here are some facts: Oprah is not the most popular talk show of all time http://www.tv.com/shows/top-shows/talk-shows/13/all.html  You forgot about Regis and The View.  Oprah is not the highest-rated talk show http://www.tv.com/shows/highest-rated/talk-shows/13/all.html  Not even close.  You are doing Oprah no favors with your wild accusations and misrepresentations.
 * Wikeye (talk) 20:32, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Your sources are giberish. The polls you cite are based on TV.com member ratings, not Nielson ratings, not a scientific poll of any kind. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 21:12, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Gibberish? Gibberish to you, perhaps, but that gibberish is much more than you have provided to support your wild misrepresentations.


 * The notion that being polled by Nielsen or Gallup is the only "scientific" method of determining popularity or ratings is the most racially and intellectually offensive thing I've seen anyone on Wikipedia ever say, because you are implying that authentic polling means being on Gallup's call list, and most black people in America are not on the list. The TV.com members are a diverse group.  There are even black people and Oprah fans and white females and everyone else.  The TV.com polls are based on thousands of people.  The Gallup poll is based on a sample of 800-1000 people, very few of whom are black.  Shame on you!


 * Now back to the real issues: Where are your sources?  Where are your facts?  You claim that Oprah's audience was 20 million a day back in the "glory days of TV" when Oprah was "pulling out a wagon of fat".  Where is your source.  We know that this season (2008-2009), her audience has been in the 6 - 6.5 million range.  http://nielsen.com/media/toptens_television.html  (That's Nielsen, so you should be happy, right?)  So what you are saying is that Oprah has lost about 70 percent of her audience over the past 10 years.  Please provide a cite for that 20 million figure so that we can change the article to reflect the facts.
 * Wikeye (talk) 22:12, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe Oprah pulled the wagon of fat twenty years ago, not ten years ago. I'm fairly certain she had 20 million viewers a day because this was a figure I heard cited all the time for her show when I was a kid, but by the late 1990s the figure 14 million a viewers a day was heard more frequently.  The next time I visit my parents I'll check out some of the magazines and books I have about 1980s TV shows to confirm the figure. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 22:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

rmv unverified edit by 24.2.254.211; moved here (TALK)
Here's the diff of the edit: "On September 19, 2008, Winfrey was duped into reading a message board post from her site on the subject of child rape which was actually a internet meme was posted by a user from the online community of 4chan.org. The meme originates from a YouTube video from the Japanese animation cartoon 'Dragonball Z'. Over 9000 fans tuned into this episode."
 * Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 05:10, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Glad you removed it. Not only is it not verified, but it's of no significance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.137.2 (talk) 11:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Not verified? Have you not seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G0tuu5z9io?  I'd say this is pretty good verification!  Oprah was indeed duped, as the "over 9000" reference is obvious, as is the reference to Anonymous with "they do not forgive, they do not forget."  I know I laughed over it.  This kind of public humiliation is worth noting, not to mention very lulz-worthy, if you'll pardon the expression.AsatruThorsman (talk) 22:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Please familiarize yourself with WP:NOT. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 23:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry I don't get it. Oprah was duped and humiliated because she read a message board comment on her show??? 99.224.137.2 (talk) 02:55, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I've read WP:NOT. Nothing in what I said that violates it.  Anyhow, Oprah was duped and humiliated because she spouted internet memes she was fed from a comment on her forum and didn't realize they were internet memes instead of a serious pedophile threat.  She talked about them having "over 9000 penises" ("over 9000," of course, being a Dragon Ball Z reference that turned into one of the best known internet memes) that they use to rape children, and that they "don't forgive and they don't forget" (obvious reference to Anonymous, aka most of the denizens of /b/).  Sorry, but Oprah's fact checkers (and Oprah herself) really should've done a Google search for some of those comments just to see if they weren't a joke.AsatruThorsman (talk) 06:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If that was joke it's not very funny. Kinda sick actually, so I think it made sense for her to mention it on the air, especially if it encourages support for the senate bill. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 12:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

(undent) The reason I mentioned WP:NOT is because Wikipedia is not a place to gather/collect trivia. This is trivial internet meme fluff. It will be forgotten next year&mdash;in fact, it will be forgotten next month. It has no place in an encyclopedia article about Oprah. Thanks Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 06:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Both of you seriously need to lighten up. Why can't an article also have a little lightheartedness if it's factual?86.29.227.238 (talk) 22:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Opera has never been the only black billionaire
Look up "Mohammed Al Amoudi". He is also a big philanthropist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.197.113.156 (talk) 12:49, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought about that too but you should add verif. before you delete things. Probably text should refer to African Americans, not blacks. Is she the only African American billionaire, BTW? I thought... someone else...mmm... Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 13:02, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Al Amoudi is actually mostly Arab. His father's from the middle east and his mother is Ethiopian (Ethiopians are mixed race people, part black, part Arab).SamanthaG (talk) 13:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You're venturing bravely into very deep waters when you start trying to define who's black and who isn't. I think the quote is best deleted or changed to African American.. it needs deeper research. 'Til then I say "delete". Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 13:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not for wikipedia to decide who is and who isn't black. Wikipedia's standard is verifiability not truth. There are five references saying Oprah was the only black billionaire. It's POV to remove that simply because some wish to apply the one drop rule of the segregated American south to a man who lives in Saudi Arabia. SamanthaG (talk) 13:40, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * (undent) Hi SamanthaG. I'm not trying to erase info about Oprah; I'm trying to verify info about her. Actually, if this were and article about beans or jump-ropes or something, I wouldn't be so quick to rmv text. But this is a WP:BLP, and some of the sources looked iffy. Let's examine them carefully, shall we? The text was "the world's only black billionaire for three straight years" and the sources were:


 * 1) Oprah Winfrey the richest black person in the world. African Echo Vol. 43, 2006-09-11. Accessed 2006-09-11
 * 2) [http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-03-02-oprah-tolle_N.htm?csp=34 Oprah brings Tolle's 'Earth' to the classroom - USATODAY.com
 * OK, discussing them in turn
 * 1) The first source, "African Echo" is first of all a bad link. The home page has no "search" function". I used google and still came up empty-handed... Secondly, it's not looking like a well-known or oft-cited source; the "Voice of Africa" bit raises POV issues, at least at first glance. I suggest removing this source altogether; it is neither accessible nor does it jump up and scream "reliable." But don't panic, better ones follow...
 * 2) Forbes! Now there's a well-known name, and one that is generally considered reliable. her page there obviously establishes that she is a billionaire. It does not, however, mention that she is "the only black billionaire." OK let's go to the front page of the "Billionaires" story... no mention of Oprah at all; certainly no mention of "only black billionaire". OK, let's look at the whole list. Whew! 45 pages! And not every one of them has pictures.. I was about to give up and try other sources (which might have been much easier anyhow), but I was lucky and found Aliko Dangote of Nigeria. Stop here. Oprah most certainly is NOT the only black billionaire.
 * 3) But the truth is, we can't stop here.  There's a huge temptation to say that Oprah is the only black African American. But we can't do that either, at least not until we've done more research... Aha, there are  only two African American billionaires, and Oprah was the second to become one.. the first was Robert L. Johnson... and there are others elsewhere in the world. Apparently Oprah isn't even the richest.
 * Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 05:54, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ling, the article doesn't claim Oprah is the world's only black billionaire. It claims she was the world's only black billionaire. This is because Bob Johnson lost his billionaire status during a divorce from his wife, though he has since regained it, and others like Aliko Dangote has only recently become a billionaire SamanthaG (talk) 06:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. I stand corrected. :-) Then find reliable references which say precisely that. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 06:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There are five sources saying she is the world's only black billionaire. The fact that she is no longer the world's only black billionaire simply means that it has been changed to past tense. SamanthaG (talk) 06:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, Samantha, I'm sorry. I was trying to make the point very clearly that you must go look at those sources. So go look at them. Tell me if they are reliable. Tell me if they actually say she was the only black billionaire. Do four of those sources simply misquote one of them? Just because the Wikipedia page had 5 sources listed after that statement doesn't mean that those sources really and truly say the same thing as the Wikipedia page alleges. It also doesn't mean those sources are reliable. Please, do research. :-) Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 08:59, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * USA Today is an extremely reliable source and it specifically says Oprah's the world's only black billionaire. SamanthaG (talk) 11:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There are five sources saying she is the world's only black billionaire. The fact that she is no longer the world's only black billionaire simply means that it has been changed to past tense. SamanthaG (talk) 06:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, Samantha, I'm sorry. I was trying to make the point very clearly that you must go look at those sources. So go look at them. Tell me if they are reliable. Tell me if they actually say she was the only black billionaire. Do four of those sources simply misquote one of them? Just because the Wikipedia page had 5 sources listed after that statement doesn't mean that those sources really and truly say the same thing as the Wikipedia page alleges. It also doesn't mean those sources are reliable. Please, do research. :-) Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 08:59, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * USA Today is an extremely reliable source and it specifically says Oprah's the world's only black billionaire. SamanthaG (talk) 11:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Excellent! That's an interesting point. However, there are two problems with that article
 * 1) It was posted exactly three days before the Forbes rankings were... so does the article mean to suggest that Oprah was the world's only black billionaire in 2007?
 * 2) If that's the case, are we sure that USA Today didn't simply make a mistake? I believe Mohammed Al Amoudi was probably on the list in 2007 (and in 2006 as well, I believe). Please also look into  Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim and Patrice Motsepe...
 * 3) Regardless of whether or not USA Today's report was accurate for 2007, it says nothing about "three years"!
 * 4) Even if we use USA Today to say that Oprah was the only black billionaire in 2007 (I have emailed USA Today for an accuracy check.. I hope to rec'v a reply and/or correction soon), do all five of the sources listed support anything resembling that assertion? No, they do not. Therefore, I recommend that 4 of the 5 sources be deleted (at least with respect to that particular statement), the USA Today source kept, and the text changed to "Oprah was the world's only black billionaire in 2007".
 * If you don't get a chance to correct the article, I'll do it soon. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 12:54, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ling Al Amoudi is mostly Arab, so to include him in this discussion of black billionaires is to push the one drop rule of the segregated south and I don't think wikipedia should be advocating racism. Also, USA Today did not say Oprah was the only black billionaire in 2007. It said that at age 54 ("at" means "by or around the time") she's the only black billionaire. She was the only black billionaire listed by Forbes as of 2004, though others have emerged since then. Also, it's not our right to decide whether USA Today was right or wrong and your entire line of questioning qualifies as original research which is in violation of wikipedia rules. Wikipedia's standard is verifiability, not truth. SamanthaG (talk) 14:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Well, regardless of any discussion of any other people, my remarks about the content contained in the sources used in this article (and others as well, apparently) still stand. I'll alter the article accordingly in a little while, and also all other articles that repeat the same assertion with the same sources.
 * I let the "one drop" remarks slide the first time you made them. I should state, however, that I find them (at best) completely irrelevant. At worst, it almost seems as though you are accusing me of making racist assertions. I won't press this point further, since we are colleagues in Wikipedia. I prefer to keep everything positive and constructive.
 * Al Amoudi was born in Ethiopia, and as for whether or not he is black, well, you can see for yourself.
 * I'm not engaging in WP:OR. I clearly stated that I accept (provisionally) the USA Today quote as being a well-sourced statement that Oprah was the only black billionaire in 2007. I say that because:
 * The date I see on that article is 3/2/2008, three days prior to the Forbes posting of 3/5/2008 showing (as we have seen) a few other black billionaires in 2008
 * The article says absolutely nothing about Oprah being the only black billionaire in any years prior to the time that the assertion is made.
 * I also stated that I had emailed USA Today asking them to check their facts, which I assume they will do.
 * I really think we should be looking into those other names, don't you?
 * Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 14:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Aha, Motsepe and Dangote are both newcomers: "Two of the most noteworthy new entrants are South Africa's Patrice Motsepe and Nigeria's Aliko Dangote, the first black Africans to make their debut among the world's richest" Kroll, Luisa (2008, March 5). The World's Richest People: World's Billionaires Forbes.com. Accessed 9/21/2008. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 14:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ling, to me Al Amoudi’s features are classic Arab, so it’s not relevant when he became a billionaire. I agree with you that Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim and Patrice Motsepe and Aliko Dangote are all black.  All three men were first listed as billionaires in 2008. SamanthaG (talk) 15:01, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

(undent). No, two of them are newcomers, but one isn't. I found Ibrahim listed as a billionaire in 2007:. He may have been in earlier years too; the article just refers to him as a billionaire, but doesn't say when he became one. We should keep looking, but it's time for me to go to bed. Good night! Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 15:09, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No Ibrahim was not on their billionaire list until 2008 The star beside his net worth means it's his first time on the list. He may have been a billionaire at some point in 2007, but he didn't make billionaire status quicky enough to qualify for the 2007 list and had to wait for the 2008 list to be officially included on Forbes international billionaire list which comes out about the same time each year. SamanthaG (talk) 15:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Good! Thanks for pointing out the star, which I had overlooked. We're making steady progress... I see the legend, down below the map of "Distribution of Billionaires by Residence". Now according to that legend, "returns to list" is a small arrow at the end of a curved line. But Robert Johnson's indicator doesn't look like that; it looks like a downward-pointing arrow that means "Fortune down". So according to this, Johnson must have been on the list in 2007, although his wealth did decrease. We need to look at Johnson a little further... Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 22:03, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, here's the deal: In 2007, Johnson was still a billionaire, but was dropped from the list of 400 richest Americans. In 2007, a billion was not enough to keep you on the list... see Douglas, Emily. (2008, Oct. 8). When $1 Billion Isn't Enough. Forbes, Vol. 180 Issue 7, p34. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 22:15, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Johnson was a billionaire in 2006 as well. He's on the list of 400 richest Americans for 2006, and the blurb says that everyone on the list is a billionaire: Forbes; 10/9/2006, Vol. 178 Issue 7, p80 (Cover Story). However, it says he is "returning to the list"; it is possible that he was not a billionaire in 2005. When did Oprah hit the list of billionaires? Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 22:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I've got Johnson as a billionaire in 2003: Forbes, 3/17/2003, Vol. 171 Issue 6, p122-140. "The World's Billionaires." Note that this is AFTER his divorce; apparently it wasn't the divorce that knocked him off the list of 400 wealthiest. So we still need more info, but the most we can possibly say (not proven yet) is that Oprah might have been the only black billionaire for 2 (not 3) years. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 22:34, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * But it doesn't matter. Oprah may have been (still unproven) the only billionaire for 2 years, but we have no sources that state that. All we have is our own original research, as per OR. Deleting all mention in all articles of 3 years as only black billionaire. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 22:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Bob Johnson was not on the Forbes international billionaire list in 2004, 2005, or 2006. He did regain his billionaire status in late 2006 (and thus qualified for the Forbes 400 richest Americans list that year) but the American 2006 rich list (which he made) was published AFTER the international 2006 rich list (which he did not make).  So that's three years that Oprah was the ONLY black on the international billionaire list. And even if we don't have a source mentioning three years, we do have sources stating she was the only black billionaire.  SamanthaG (talk) 23:59, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Reports of Oprah's death greatly exaggrated
I found this. Is it true?

Matoro3311 | Talk
 * 4chan trash. Nothing to see here; move along. Half  Shadow  19:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If it happened yesterday, I think it would have been here by now.  KJS77 Join the Revolution  19:34, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That's what I thought. Especially when I 'd seen that page about the hoax of Miley Cyrus's death.

Sick pigs....

Matoro3311 | Talk —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC).
 * We've been getting this all day. Let me write a standard answer. Earlier this week, Oprah spoke out in favour of federal action against child pornography (not a good way to gain geek popularity in the first place, since child porn is the stereotypical way of bypassing rational arguments in restricting freedom). She did so by quoting an immediately obvious piece of trolling that'd been posted on her forums, saying aloud several inside jokes of 4chan's /b/, Internet's center of sick filth that likes nothing better than trying to drown itself in its own vomit and is probably flattered by this description. Of course that gang has been giddy like schoolgirls and responded with the "Oprah's dead" campaign. Since a lot of people appear to be spooked by the false news reports, I've changed the topic of this section from "Oprah Winfrey: Dead?". Changing other people's talk page text is normally considered to be in very bad taste, so I'm announcing it openly and will offer no argument if you wish to have it changed back. --Kiz o r  19:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:O Magazine cover.jpg
The image Image:O Magazine cover.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --07:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I added a fair use rationale. SamanthaG (talk) 12:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Oprah's Popularity
Under the subsection "Fanbase" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey#Fan_base it says:


 * "Despite the decline in TV ratings, Winfrey's personal popularity has increased dramatically. In 2002, 6% of Americans named Winfrey the woman they admired most, but by 2007, the figure had nearly tripled to 16%, making her statistically tied with Hillary Clinton as the most admired woman in America.[104]."

Well, if you can believe it, George Bush was named the most admired man in that same poll. His rating was around 20 percent just 2 years prior and was as high as 29 percent at the beginning of 2004. Oprah only caught up with King George in December 2006. That's some pretty sorry company, don't you think?

It is more correct to say that in December 2007, 16 percent of a sample of 1,011 American adults named Oprah as the woman they admired most OR second most (read the fine print at the bottom of the article). Pretty cool that if 161 people say Oprah is their first or second favorite, by the time the info gets to the Wikipedia, she has become the most admired woman in America and you are claiming that 16 percent of Americans named Winfrey the woman they admired most. The real number is 161/220,000,000 but I can't do math with that many decimal places. So much for polls. The point is that virtually no one actually named Oprah anything and that 84 percent of the 1,011 Americans polled did NOT name Winfrey the woman they admired most or second most.

But if you like polls and surveys, why do you ignore the following?:

Obama supporter Oprah takes a big dive (Politico, April 2008) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9427.html


 * "Ten years following the launch of her talk show, the January 1996 Survey on American Political Culture found that more than three-quarters (78 percent) of Americans held a favorable opinion of Oprah."

And then:


 * "Oprah announced on Nov. 26, 2007, that she would go on the stump for Obama. To woo voters in crucial primaries, Oprah made appearances in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire in early December 2007."


 * "But by the time Fox News/Opinion Dynamics asked Americans about their attitudes toward Oprah in a survey conducted about 10 days later, Dec. 18-19, Oprah’s favorability ratings had dropped even further — to 55 percent — the lowest level of favorability ever registered for Oprah in opinion surveys. Oprah’s negatives also spiked, with one in three respondents (33 percent) reporting unfavorable impressions of her."

Let's try telling the whole truth, like this:


 * "Despite the decline in TV ratings, Winfrey's personal popularity increased dramatically for a time. In 2002, 6% of 1,011 Americans responding to a poll named Winfrey the woman they admired most or second most, but by 2007, the figure had nearly tripled to 16%, making her statistically tied with Hillary Clinton as the most or second most admired woman in America.[104]." However, favorability ratings for Oprah plunged in late 2007 from 78 percent to 55 percent when she started campaigning for Barack Obama and became embroiled in a racism controversy involving her former preacher and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-kD0QdRJk

Wikeye (talk) 17:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually George W. Bush is extremely popular. That's how he got elected twice. But you'll note he went from being admired most by 28% of Americans in 2002 to only 10% in 2007. Oprah showed the opposite pattern, going from being most admired by only 6% at the end of 2002 to 16% at the end of 2007.. Most of the polls you cite are questionable.  The gold standard of polls are scientific polls done by Gallup, just as you were arguing that the gold standard of ratings info is Nielson.  I will incorporate her Gallup unfavorability into the text. SamanthaG (talk) 19:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, your point about only 1,011 Americans being asked who they admire is a poor argument. Earlier you were praising the validity of Nielson ratings, and these too are just based on a small sample that is then extrapolated to represent all of American households.  That's how statistics work. It's very rare that all 300+ million Americans are surveyed about anything unless it's a census. Instead samples are taken.  This is statistics 101.  I've been bending over backwards to accomodate your concerns, but now you're just being silly. SamanthaG (talk) 20:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You're not doing me any favors, dear. I'm just trying to correct some embarrassing exaggerations in the article.  If anything, you would be doing Oprah a kindness by presenting the facts.  But you're so busy running around with a hammer that everything looks like a nail to you.


 * I'm glad to see that you've come up for air and realize that all polls (including the ones you cite) are based on statistics and some very tiny samples. The polls you cite are just as questionable as the ones I cite, so quit pretending you have some kind of "gold standard" that informs your opinion.  Instead, incorporate into the article a phrase which indicates that the numbers are estimates based on small samples only (i.e. "In the U.S. alone her estimated audience is 30 million people a week, based on a poll of 1,011 adults" and "In 1998, her show had an estimated 14 million daily viewers[102], in 2005, her show averaged nearly 9 million estimated viewers per day, and by 2008 it was averaging an estimated 7.3 million viewers").  Same for the favorability numbers as I have suggested above.


 * That's another point. You claim that going from 14 million (estimated) daily viewers to 7 million constitutes "gradually shrinking" and that favorability ratings going from 78 percent to 55 percent (not 66 percent as you claim from a much earlier report) are evidence that "Winfrey's personal popularity has increased dramatically".  I can't help you with thinking like that.  You're going to have to correct it yourself.  And before you quote polls, read the fine print.  The survey measured 1,011 American adults, 16 percent (or 161) of whom named Oprah as the woman they admired most OR second most.  We don't know how many ranked Oprah #1, so you have no basis for indicating that 16 percent of those polled named Winfrey the woman they admired most, not to mention extrapolating that guess to 16 percent of all Americans.


 * I know it's messy and frustrating, but you're just going to have to deal with it if you want an article people won't laugh at.
 * Wikeye (talk) 21:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with citing all of the different conflicting sources as long as they are considered reliable. It removes the opinion, maintains WP:NPOV, and is not in any way embarrassing to Wikipedia to cover all sides. CIGraphix (talk) 22:35, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

OPRAH WINFREY is RACEST and SEXEST. She only likes black women!!! That's Wrong —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.53.176.36 (talk) 05:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the constructive criticism. I have revised the wording to reflect the fact that these are just polls, changed the wording when discussing the most admired poll, and I included the Fox News poll (though if we're looking at trends we should stick to the same poll administered at multiple times). I think mentioning the sample size of each poll is beyond the scope of this article. That's what references are for. And besides 1,011 adults is a sufficiently large poll by most statistical standards. SamanthaG (talk) 22:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Over nine thousand penises?
The controversy over Oprah falling for a 4chan meme and seriously reporting that there was a paedophile ring with "over nine thousand penises" is getting a bit of traction. Should it be included in this article? --121.216.152.150 (talk) 05:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Leaving aside the problems with feeding trolls, what kind of traction? So far it's only gotten the attention of a relatively small number of hapless computer geeks, and the only larger forms of media to make noise about it have been... not all that large, for one thing. It doesn't seem to have affected her or her career. Celebrity 'shops spread across the Internet, film at 11. --Kiz o r  16:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Is it not said that "the geeks shall inherit the Earth", or did I miss something? SRSLY, unless this becomes a major issue, it's a minor blip in the long-term view of things. I despair of editors (no personal insult intended to anyone) who seem to think that an encyclopedia should somehow be a news service or a gossip or fan board. However, it matters little to me, as I don't think I'll be around for much longer, here or anywhere. Maybe I've done some good work here, maybe not. I'll let time be the judge of that. -- Rodhull andemu  23:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it might be mentioned if she starts making a habit of taking obviously false things as true. As it stands now, it appears to be just an isolated incident, and while it's funny (and kind of sad to see someone take something so obviously false as true), it's not newsworthy yet, and probably will never be. Kevin (talk) 03:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Does the fact that it STILL happened not mean anything to anyone? Shouldn't what happened be known? Why not make Wiki be the forerunner of that information. It's truth, there's citations up the wazoo, and to downplay its importance due to lack of "proper media exposure" is a cop out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.181.104 (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Like the photo at the start of the article
It's a great full-body image of Oprah and catches her with a very natural expression. Most free images are usually not that good but in this case wikipedia really got lucky. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 12:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Billy Rizzo
In 1989, Winfrey was personally touched by the 1980s AIDS crisis so frequently discussed on her show when her long time aide, Billy Rizzo, became afflicted by the disease. Rizzo was the only man among the four-person production team whom Winfrey relied on in her early years in Chicago long before she had a large staff. “I love Billy like a brother,” she said at the time. “He's a wonderful, funny, talented guy, and it's just heartbreaking to see him so ill.” Winfrey visited him daily during his last days.

But when did Billy Rizzo die and why doe wikipedia.org not tell his tale? He deserves his own page. Somebody make one for him now. How much does it cost? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.199.147 (talk) 18:39, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sad though his death may have been, Wikipedia is not a memorial and he would have to be notable in his own right to merit an article here. And articles do not "cost" in a financial sense, since the aim is to provide free content, and all editors are volunteers here. If you think he may qualify for an article, you may register an account and start one, or ask at this page. Rodhull  andemu  18:40, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from CharmyonneBailey, 1 April 2010
Oprah Winfrey was also sent to a juvenile detention center after running away at the age of 13 but was denied in because of the overcrowded space and inconvenient amount of beds.

CharmyonneBailey (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Please provide a reliable source and the actual text you would like inserted. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 21:00, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Changing "Democrats" to "Democratic Party"
I will change the term "Democrats" because Democratic Party is more appropriate plus Democrats isn't a party.-- An d Re w 02:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Animal Rights
PETA giving a celebrity an award is to buy publicity. It does not make Oprah an animal right activist.

Exposing poor agriculture and breeding practices also does not mean you're an animal rights activist. These are welfare issues and deal little with animal rights, who's goal is to elevate animal to the legal equal of humans and banning domestication of animals.

A more appropriate term is animal welfare activist. Sorry if it sound nit picky, but welfare vs rights is a big deal to people concerned about animals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.142.103.70 (talk) 22:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Strange.
In a section of the OW article it says "On January 15, 2008, Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Health Channel into a new channel called OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN will debut at an unspecified time in 2010." OWN will debut in January 2011. 2010 has to end before OWN can begin. 23:03 31 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.227.26.78 (talk) ALLAN LOVES ALEXANDRIA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.44.218 (talk) 22:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Aug 10 2010 -- Death Hoax currently underway
Ebaumsworld is currently trying to get "Oprah Winfrey Dead at 56" to the top of Google Trends. Monitor article closely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.219.27.27 (talk) 16:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Tone of the article
Despite the fact that Oprah is famous for her confessional style, we must remember that this is an encyclopedia article and is subject to the normal rules for Notability and Reliable sources. Too much of the article focuses of biographical details that are not significant enough for an encyclopedia, and in many cases the sources are not authoritive enough to support the sweeping statements they are linked to.

I am going to start going through and trying to clean it up. Please discuss here you have a problem with my edits. Ashmoo (talk) 12:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed this because being a vegan for 3 weeks is not notable. If she was vegan for a long period, or the veganism caused some sort of health problem, or fame, maybe... Ashmoo (talk) 18:02, 26 April 2010 (UTC) In 2008 Winfrey decided to become a vegan for three weeks.

I also removed the following, as having a relative who shares a name with someone famous is not really notable. If there was proof, or even the suggestion that they may be closely related, maybe. But just sharing a name is trivia. Ashmoo (talk) 10:00, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Winfrey visited Graceland in 2006 while on her cross-country trip with Gayle King. While having dinner with Lisa Marie Presley and her husband Michael Lockwood, she told Presley that her grandmother's last name was also Presley.

I removed this, because it is just one of those Top 20 TV filler shows, VH1 is an MTV station and in the same poll JFK Jr scored 20 points higher than JFK (as an example of how arbitrary the poll was). In 2003 Winfrey edged out both Superman and Elvis Presley to be named the greatest pop culture icon of all time by VH1. Ashmoo (talk) 08:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I also chopped this, because it doesn't really say much, but more importantly it was said, in a Vogue magazie interview, by an actor in the movie Winfrey was producing/directing while they were promoting the film. The vaguely positive words of an actor who is trying to sell their movie is hardly a Reliable Source. I'm going to put the quote in the movie's article. Working with delicate subjects, Winfrey managed to keep the cast motivated and inspired. "Here we were working on this project with the heavy underbelly of political and social realism, and she managed to lighten things up", said costar Thandie Newton. "I've worked with a lot of good actors, and I know Oprah hasn't made many films. I was stunned. She's a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a mind like a razor blade." Ashmoo (talk) 11:11, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ashmmo, I think you're half right. The fact that she was promoting the movie certainly subtracts from her credibility, however it's highly cynical to imply that her comments were insincere.  Whatever credibility she loses from the promotional context of her comments is negated by the fact that Newton is a gifted actress known for her high intelligence who spent a summer working with Oprah, making her a reliable source on acting skill, smarts, and Oprah. And I disagree that the comment tells us nothing; it gives insight into Oprah's intellect, the relationship between acting and intellect, and the surprising fact that Oprah is a technical actress as I would have assumed her to be a method actress. Still, you are quite correct in asserting that comments made in a promotional context should not be given undue weight, however because of the unique perspective and expertise Newton brings, I think she should be given a tiny amount of weight.  That seems like a reasonable compromise. SamanthaG (talk) 19:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. But this isn't about finding compromises, it is about making the best article possible and abiding by WP policy. And the fact that she is a 'gifted actress and known for her high intelligence' in no way makes her a more reliable source. Any intelligent person is going to say the movie they have a financial interest in promoting is good. This is in no way cynical, that is the purpose of promoting a movie. Ordinarily, I'd just let this pass, but this article is so full of weak sources, such as this one. The comment wasn't part of an article she was asked to write where see could think about Winfrey's actress technique, but just an off-the-cuff answer to a Vogue magazine interview. Any uncynical highly intelligent person is going offer vague platitudes to avoid saying something the reporter can use against them.
 * Anyway, I can accept it staying (although I will add some context) but we need to try to lift the level of source in this article. Ashmoo (talk) 08:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Inspiring prosocial behavior
I removed this section because the text is not supported by the sources. The sources describe a study that links viewing positive behaviours to prosocial behaviour. The fact that the short clip was from an Oprah show is incidental. Ashmoo (talk) 13:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Since the mid 1990s, Winfrey’s show has emphazied uplifting and inspirational topics and themes. A scientific study by psychological scientists at the University of Cambridge, University of Plymouth, and University of California discovered that simply watching an uplifting clip on the Oprah Winfrey show caused subjects in their experiment to become twice as helpful as subjects assigned to watch a British comedy or nature documentary. The authors of the study concluded that "by eliciting elevation, even brief exposure to other individuals’ prosocial behavior motivates altruism, thus potentially providing an avenue for increasing the general level of prosociality in society."
 * What exactly is not supported by the source? They did an actual experiment where they showed a clip from her show & found it increased prosocial behavior.  That's a pretty amazing and important result that should be documented.  Actual scientific data of this quality is hard to come by so when we have it, we should include it, especially in an encyclopedia. SamanthaG (talk) 18:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * But if you read the sources, the authors of the studies never claim that Oprah or her show are the cause of the prosocial behaviour. It just happens that they needed a clip of someone thanking someone else and used an episode of the show. There is no indication that it is anything specifically related to Oprah's show. And at any rate, it is about the show, not Winfrey herself, so should be argued over in that article. Ashmoo (talk) 14:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes the study does claim that Oprah's show CAUSED the prosocial behavior. It was an experimental design and the point of expiermental designs are to allow one to conclude causation.  And it is specific to Oprah to the extent that the prosocial effect was not observed from watching other broadcasts (i.e. British comedy, nature documentary).  And this is relevant to Oprah herself to the extent that an article about her should document her impact on the culture & this is one of the few examples where that impact is documented by real experimental research. SamanthaG (talk) 15:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Nowhere in the sources does anyone state that Oprah's show specifically caused the effect. In all mentions of causality, they use the generic term 'uplifting clip'. The fact that it is a clip from Oprah is only mentioned once, in parentheses. The researchers only ever make a link between viewing uplifting behaviour and prosociality, and when citing sources we can only use what other researchers say. The most we could say from these sources is that Oprahs show was used in a study linking viewing uplifting behaviour to prosociality. Making a link directly from Oprah to prosociality is not supported by the cite and verges on WP:OR or WP:SYNTH Ashmoo (talk) 10:49, 22 April 2010 (UTC).
 * The study very clearly showed that the uplifting clip caused the prosocial behavior. That uplifting clip was from an episode of Oprah's show.  Thus the study provides clear scientific experimental data that a scene from Oprah's show causes prosocial behavior while scenes from other broadcasts they studied do not.  SamanthaG (talk) 12:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * We seem to be going around in circles. The fact that the clip is from Oprah is incidental. The other clips were from British TV shows, while the uplifting clip was from a US show. Does this prove that US shows cause prosocial behaviour over British shows? Of course not. We can't start taking minor details of scientific studies and start developing our own casual relationships, we have to base it on what the authors of the study itself say. And the authors never state that Oprah is linked to prosocial behaviour, just uplifting clips (which they say many times). Making the link is WP:OR on your part. Ashmoo (talk) 14:18, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It proves that this U.S. show (Oprah) caused prosocial behavior. Obviously that conclusion can't be generalized to all U.S. shows, but this article is just about Oprah.  I understand that the study was not about Oprah per se & that the researchers were not interested in Oprah or her show, but because her clip was used in the study, the study provided very strong empirical evidence that what she broadcast causes prosocial behavior. SamanthaG (talk) 15:52, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't. It proved that watching a specific clip from a specific episode of Oprah's show was correlated with prosocial behavior.  It did not prove that Oprah's show in general causes prosocial behavior, which is what you are arguing.  The other poster is right.  You are overgeneralizing the results of the study.  It would be misleading to imply that just watching any episode of Oprah's show is a scientifically proven way of increasing prosocial behavior, which is how the article read before.  The way the quoted section of the article was phrased, it sounded as though watching any uplifting clip, as long as it was from the Oprah show, would increase altruism.  But that was not proven to be true.72.66.78.33 (talk) 04:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I just saw the request for a third opinion, so I came and checked it out. I've read both the sources listed above. and. While both mention that the clip was part of an episode of the Oprah show, neither draws the conclusion that the show has a positive effect. Rather, both make the point that uplifting material creates prosocial behavior.

For us to draw the conclusion that all Oprah shows are generally proscial would mean we have to accept that someone even checked the weight of material on various episodes (uplifting vs other categories), that this clip is typical of the show, etc. I don't see anything like this in the sources. Such extrapolations are usually considered to be WP:OR. We should only put such information if that is what the sources are writing about.

If positioned properly, I think it would make a very interesting addition to the article about the show itself. Something brief about the research and that they used a clip from Oprah as their "uplifting" clip. Maybe more sources have written about this study. This link has more indepth and a link to the full study at. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 22:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your time AliveFreeHappy. Would you have any time to make the edit to the article? It would be nice to have text written by a 3rd party, so that we don't enter another impasse. Ashmoo (talk) 13:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Size of the article
SamanthaG, the article is currently over 100kb long, WP:Article size recommends articles be between 30kb and 50kb. When you edit the page, it even says that the article is too long. As such, I'm trying to pare down the repetition in the article to get it to a readable size. Remember, this is an encyclopedia article which is supposed to be a succinct summary of someone's life, not an exhaustive autobiography which documents everything they ever did, everything that almost happened to them and everything anyone said about them.

Anyway, I chopped the senate seat nomination non-event, because it was in the lede, but I don't think anyone, if they had to summarise Oprah's life in 3 paragraphs would include this. The info is still further down in the article, under political influence, so nothing is lost, except repetition. Ashmoo (talk) 15:23, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ashmoo, the 40kb is just a general guide line and doesn't apply to extreme cases when you're dealing with a figure as influential as Winfrey. Look at Bill Clinton's article, that's 125kb.  I was already unhappy about some of the other content you removed but I decided not to object but this time I feel strongly that the senate seat consideration is significant enough for the intro.  I respect the fact that you disagree & there are valid arguments on both sides, but this article has been very stable for a very long time and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. SamanthaG (talk) 22:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Just because Bill Clinton's article also violates the guideline doesn't mean this should too. She may well be influential, but unfortunately most of the article doesn't document the things she has done to influence, but is mostly magazine articles making general comments about her and things she has thought and said. Yes, the article has been this way a long time, but unfortunately, I think it is broken. There is far too much repetition (including the last thing I removed) and the most of the article is spent just saying how great she is and not documenting the things she has done which are so great. Honestly, if someone who knew little about her came and read this article, they wouldn't leave knowing a lot about her as much as knowing that there is a wikipedia editor who thinks she is wonderful.
 * I'm sorry if I'm sounding rude, I don't mean to. I think Oprah is an amazing woman, but the undiscriminating way the article currently documents this really needs to be brought to Wikipedia's high standards. If you have any problems with my other edits, I'm happy to discuss them. Ashmoo (talk) 16:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Specifically regarding my last edit. The info is in the article further down, it is about something that NEVER HAPPENED. And the man who claimed it might have happened is currently under federal prosecution for fraud, not exactly a reliable source. Ashmoo (talk) 16:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to get into your general criticism of the article as general discussions are not productive here. With respect to the senate seat consideration, you keep describing it as something that never happened but what did happen is that the sitting governor of the state CLAIMED he considered Oprah for the seat.  It's the claim itself that is of historical significance and we have tons of reliable sources as well volumes of video tape showing that he did make the claim over and over again.  You think this is not important enough to be in the intro.  I strongly disagree.  And so we have a difference of opinion. SamanthaG (talk) 18:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, if you are not interesting in discussing the article, maybe wikipedia is not for you, as that is one of the foundations of the endevour. We can't just say we have a difference of opinion, editors are obligated to try to reach a consensus.
 * Specifically regarding the senate thing. I'm not totally against it's inclusion, it's just that it appears in the lede, and takes up about 20 lines further on too, which is mostly just long quotes of people saying that would be cool. Ashmoo (talk) 19:22, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the senate thing has no place in the head of the article (and possibly no place in the article at all). It has little if any encyclopedia value. --Bhickey (talk) 10:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * WOW! I just couldn't disagree more Makewater (talk) 17:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Care to elaborate on your disagreement? Just because the section includes references doesn't make that section relevant or appropriate. For example, back in 2008 the pundits suggested that Meg Whitman would be tapped as the Republican VP candidate. This never materialized and isn't included in her Wikipedia page. --Bhickey (talk) 17:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * But the difference is, a sitting governor actually considered Oprah. Did McCain ever consider Whitman? If not, your example's not analogous. Makewater (talk) 17:39, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Just because it's not in Whitman's article, doesn't mean it shouldn't be. Perhaps Whitman's article hasn't been given the attention it deserves and important details are missing.  Perhaps someone needs to add that to Whitman's article. SamanthaG (talk) 18:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Intro: Generally admired reasons
I changed another statement, this time in the intro because the sources do not seem to support the assertion. One source says she scored highly in a poll about 'favourite TV celebrities' the other is Mandela praising her. There is no cite that says she is 'generally admired' for the reasons given in the article, the 1st poll just says she is a favorite TV personality but doesn't include the criteria people used to make the decision (other people on the list include Glenn Beck & Jon Stewart). Ashmoo (talk) 09:58, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I noticed the tone of the article [early life section] is negative also and not very professionally written. i'm new to this and don't know how to edit sections which i would do. the last time i was on wiki you just clicked edit and started typing! i agree with your assesment though. Denij2005deejay (talk) 08:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)Denij2005deejay
 * In what way do you find it negative? Granted, her early life was difficult, but I think the description is very neutral. Ashmoo (talk) 12:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

World Influence
I don't understand why she is cited as being one of the most influential people in the world. I live in the UK, which, apart from Canada soaks up the most American culture of any country in the world. And I can say as a fact, I have never heard anyone say Oprah's name or mention anything to do with her that isn't American. Oprah is not part of UK culture, nor is it part of our celeb culture (the trash that some people read), and nor does Oprah influence anything that affects any part of my life. AND I live in London, so its not as if I live buried in a sand pit somewhere. 86.174.170.24 (talk) 23:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't confuse influence with fame. Influential means that you've changed the world, not that people know who you are.  Many of the most influential people in history are completely unknown. SamanthaG (talk) 13:53, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 86.174.170.24, wikipedia expects all assertions in the article to be supported with reliable sources, so unfortunately, your general impression of her influence doesn't count. Are there any parts of the article do you think are inaccurate and have no supporting sources? Ashmoo (talk) 09:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * This is getting ridiculous now. Practically nobody knows her in continental Europe as her shows are neither translated/synched/subtitled into local languages nor broadcasted anywhere. Being a purely American media phenomenon, she is neither influential nor even famous anywhere in Europe (and I am pretty sure in all other Non-English speaking parts of the world). Germany, just for example, has a female head of state who has moved things (to the better or worse I will not evaluate) with effects on the world. Even Jaqui Smith MP of Britain has had a bigger impact nationwide and more than Europe-wide than this American TV show presenter. Obviously, the writer above lives within the TV reality of the United States without access to international journalistic media. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.158.206.120 (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Most influential woman in the world does not mean she has influence all over the world, it only means that no other woman in the world has been as influential. And just as Oprah would go unrecognized in Europe, the European women you mention would go unrecognized in North America.  And unlike the women you mention, Oprah has a following in countries as diverse as South Africa and Saudia Arabia.  As for global influence, for the first time in history we have a black leader of the free world (Obama) and that's largely because of Oprah's endorsement. SamanthaG (talk) 10:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Where in the article exactly do you feel the problem is? The assertion of her being 'the most influential woman' has three non-US sources, and although the sources aren't extremely strong, I still feel they qualify to support the assertion. Ashmoo (talk) 10:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Cars & taxes
From the article: The show received so much media attention that even the taxes on the cars became controversial. I don't like the inherent POV "of course you have to pay income tax when someone gives you a car". The morality of income tax on gifts is always controversial (which btw also holds for any income tax, and actually for any tax), so this controversy was not caused by media attention. Since this article is semi protected I'd like to hear more opinions. Joepnl (talk) 22:32, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I never heard of any controversy on all the free cars given away on the "Price is Right" SamanthaG (talk) 13:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Those cars are not given away. Joepnl (talk) 16:33, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Joepnl, it doesn't seem POV to me, but a statement of fact. As long as the assertion that it was controversial is properly sourced, WP allows it. Ashmoo (talk) 10:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't mind the fact that it was controversial to be included (it should be), but I doubt the causation "much media attention" -> "taxes became controversial", which is not properly sourced. It might very well be the other way around, "The show received much media attention, and even more when it was found out that the winners had to pay up to $ 7000 in taxes", which is the sole reason for media attention like this. Joepnl (talk) 13:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm happy for you to edit the statement in a way that is supported by the cite. Ashmoo (talk) 16:19, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Not sure which cite you're referring to, but is this edit acceptable to you? Joepnl (talk) 20:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That look fine. The cite I was referring to was the CNNMoney cite that you mentioned in your previous post. Ashmoo (talk) 15:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Odd article
Hi, It seems odd to see this article on Oprah in such a ragged state, with 500 watchers. Is it in the midst of a re-write project by a main editor, has there been large content controversy, or is it that nobody has got around to copy-editing? Puzzled best wishes Spanglej (talk) 20:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * From my perspective: I've been trying to get it into better shape, but SamG is very protective of it in its current form (see Tone... and Overreaching... talk sections), and I haven't the time or energy to argue. Please note, this is no slight on SamG as an editor or person, just how I see the situation regarding editing this page.
 * If you would like to add another perspective to the existing debates or make edits, that would be great. Ashmoo (talk) 08:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah. I thought it must be something like that. 'Too tired to argue'. I know how that goes. I (belatedly) saw your clean up notice from April, Ashmoo. Best of luck. Spanglej (talk) 12:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ashmoo's assessment of the situation. I'm hesitant to change anything. --Bhickey (talk) 08:52, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:MOS discourages single line paragraphs. Also the use of ccquotes (with the big blue quote marks) is seeming to hinder readability. Don't know if you have gone through for readability edits as yet... Best wishes Spanglej (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Bodnotbod, your edits look good, thanks. I think your outrage at Donahue is to do with a difference sense of grammar. Perhaps it was a more American way of phrasing. Copy editing is always good. Go gently. Span (talk) 19:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Australia Giveaway
Just seen a newsreport about Oprah giving away holidays to Australia to all of her audience, would add it in, but am unable to log in from Wiki here. http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/news-extra/article/56290/oprah-winfreys-suprise-gift.html < Source. 77.86.115.215 (talk) 14:25, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Although interesting, I would be against adding it according to WP:NOTNEWS. Ashmoo (talk) 16:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Senate question
I think this is the place to discuss the senate question, rather than by edit reverts. Spangle (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I'm happy with the version SamG put in on 17:32, 26 September 2010. Any editors who want to discuss this further should quickly read the 'Size of the article' discussion above, which has SamG's and my positions. Ashmoo (talk) 10:01, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm happy with it too. Spangle (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Notable employee
I removed this sentence from the Books & Publishing section, as it is not clear why Sara Nelson should be mentioned in Oprah's article. Oprah has hundreds if not thousands of employees, why should this one be mentioned in her article? Ashmoo (talk) 11:21, 11 November 2010 (UTC) Winfrey hired former Publishers Weekly editor–in–chief Sara Nelson in 2009 as books editor at O.

Oprah Actually Lied About Being Molested and Her Living Environment
While Kitty Kelley is known for not being completely honest, Katherine Esters, Oprah's much older cousin, conceded that she did reveal to Kelley that Oprah lied about her childhood past.75.72.35.253 (talk) 01:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * It's very common for sexual abuse victims to not be believed, especially if the alleged abuser is a member of the family. People don't want to believe it, they don't want to destroy the family relations by confronting the alleged abuser, they don't want to admit their own potential complicity in not doing anything to stop it.  Much easier to just call the child a liar.  This is why so many kids never tell.  Oprah would have no reason to lie, especially since at the time she revealed the molestation in the mid 1980s, it was an extremely taboo stigmatizing topic.  Her show has helped change that.  Even Kitty Kelley believes Oprah, saying Oprah's family is in deep denial like a lot of families where sexual abuse occured, and that Oprah shows all the scars of a woman who has been sexually abused. Makewater (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

No, read Kitty Kelley's book and her cousin's confirmation. Her cousin was even willing to say that Kelley lied about Oprah having a different father than the one who raised her, but conceded that she did tell Kelley that Oprah lied about the level of poverty she endured while growing up and that she was molested. Oprah lied about this so people would watch her show. It's good business.75.72.35.253 (talk) 22:39, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * This is not the place for this discussion. If you have a question or comment about the article please note it, if you have citations from sources not given, please offer them. Span (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's a source that claims that her cousin confessed that Oprah's sexual abuse was false and that her father Vernon wavered about her claim when asked. [] While Kelley also claims she believes Oprah's side of the story, it's not 100% believable either. As I typed earlier, she is known for not being completely honest. It's really hard to believe, from a neutral perspective, that Oprah "shows the full scars of sexual abuse;" Kelley is not a psychologist and she does not see Oprah on a regular basis. She might have said she believed Oprah's side of the story so Oprah fans would buy her book. You should also consider the fact that Oprah first made this claim during the first season of her show, and if Oprah's relatives wanted to protect a family relative and deny this to press, why didn't they do so soon after she made this claim public? They sure didn't stand her way when she was using it as a market ploy and even one of Bing Crosby's own sons, Phillip, tried to refute what his brother Gary wrote about Bing's abuse soon after Gary came public about it.75.72.35.253 (talk) 23:15, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * This sort of thing needs very careful sourcing. We cannot just take disparate sources and combine them into a misch-masch of a point we would like to make. It seems that the sources are disputed, so some closer investigation would seem to be indicated. Meanwhile, taking the larger viewpoint, why is this important? Rodhull  andemu  01:49, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, but the sources are news articles from MSNBC and the San Francisco Gate. They do comply with the reliable resource policy. Also look up the fan page policy. It is also important to type this in the article because her own family has disputed her claim.75.72.35.253 (talk) 16:27, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * But the MSNBC source just quotes Kitty Kelley (who you claim is dishonest) quoting Oprah's supposed aunt (who Kitty Kelley says is dishonest) who is biased against Oprah because Oprah refused to promote her memoir, and who lives in a totally different region of the country from where the alleged abuse took place and has no way of knowing whether it happened or not. As for Kitty Kelley quoting her father (who Kitty Kelley says is not her father)as "waivering", that could mean anything, and he's not exactly objective because his brother is one of the people Oprah accused of molesting her.  In addition to the problem of denial, people don't even know what sexual abuse is.  Oprah once quoted her father as asking her "Did he rape you?  Was it RAPE?".  That's when Oprah said she had to explain that when you're 14 having sex with an adult man, that IS rape.  Also, remember Whoopi Goldberg infamously making the distinction between rape and rape rape.  I also think it's incredibley far fetched to say Oprah lied about sexual abuse as a marketing ploy, not because I think she's super honest, but because in the 1980s the stigma around sexual abuse was so great.  I think it's far more likely that her family was is in denial like so many other families, or that they don't even understand what sexual abuse really is.  Often when people say a child lied about sexual abuse, what they're really saying is the child was asking for it or enjoyed it, and that's why people keep it a secret and there is so much shame. Also, the level of interest, knowledge and passion Oprah shows when discussing the topic strikes me as very authentic.  And Kitty Kelley is correct in saying Oprah shows all the scars of abuse (weight problem, drugs, promiscuity in her teens, trust issues etc) and considering how biased Kitty Kelley is against Oprah, her taking Oprah's side on this says a lot.  Saturdayseven (talk) 17:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Before this discussion goes off around the houses, just a reminder that Wikipedia is not interested in 'truth' but in 'verifiability' see Verifiability. If a consensus is reached it maybe possible to overtly and openly discuss the different biographers and their accounts, not weighting one account in favour of another, although WP:BLP constrains this. The article is not about our opinions, it's not a soapbox or a means of advocacy. Span (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

"Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball"
In this edit made over four years ago, somebody changed a substub on "Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball" into something of the length of a regular article by plagiarizing an article on abc.com that advertised a TV program about it. What resulted was of course mere advertising, plagiarized. The perp openly admitted this several months later.

Since that time the article hasn't changed that much, though it did spring an extra section of mere hearsay, which didn't even say where the hearsay was reported (if it was reported and wasn't merely invented by the editor).

My own inclination is to have the entire article deleted as partly based on advertising and partly unsourced, and anyway about a media event of no obvious significance. However, as somebody who rarely watches the telly and has little interest in pop music, I may not appreciate significance that may be obvious to fans of Winfrey. Perhaps somebody here would like to revise the article to a state where it would be less unlikely to survive AfD. -- Hoary (talk) 08:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Whose "warmth, intimacy and personal confession"?
Regarding this sequence of edits—1, 2, and 3: I reverted because the word "purported" carries negative connotations which need to be well sourced in a BLP article. SamanthaG's compromise, leaving Zomputer's revised sentence but omitting "purported," is fine with me in theory, but I want to note for the record that (1) it changes the meaning of the sentence entirely, reassigning qualities to Winfrey's show that were previously applied to the genre in general, and (2) neither of the two cited sources appears to support either version (and, in fact, the "TIME 100" ref is stale and leads to an irrelevant 2010 page). I don't regularly watch this article, so I leave it to the regulars to decide how best to proceed. Rivertorch (talk) 23:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I found the Time 100 article and it does indeed assign those adjectives (or their synonyms) to Winfrey, rather than the genre. It says: She didn't create the talk-show format. But the compassion and intimacy she put into it have created a new way for us to talk to one another….Women, especially, listen to Winfrey because they feel as if she's a friend. Although Phil Donahue pioneered the format she uses (mike-holding host moves among an audience whose members question guests), his show was mostly what I call "report-talk," which often typifies men's conversation. The overt focus is on information. Winfrey transformed the format into what I call "rapport-talk," the back-and-forth conversation that is the basis of female friendship, with its emphasis on self-revealing intimacies. She turned the focus from experts to ordinary people talking about personal issues. Girls' and women's friendships are often built on trading secrets. Winfrey's power is that she tells her own, divulging that she once ate a package of hot-dog buns drenched in maple syrup, that she had smoked cocaine, even that she had been raped as a child. With Winfrey, the talk show became more immediate, more confessional, more personal. When a guest's story moves her, she cries and spreads her arms for a hug.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by SamanthaG (talk • contribs) 01:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Great. Thanks for updating the link! Now about that other source . . . Rivertorch (talk) 04:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

No Controversies Section
Oprah is certainly controversial in some quarters. Why not a section on these controversies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.111.71.197 (talk) 01:03, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The controversies are within the article text if you read it. For instance, look for the Franzen controversy, or the beef industry controversy. WP style is to avoid putting all the controversies into one section. Ashmoo (talk) 10:13, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

THIS WOMAN OFFENDS ME !!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwGLNbiw1gk&feature=related I think it is horrible that she uses her money to spread such horrible words about another's God.A loving God who will even forgive her for what she said (denying His existence).Never the less It offends me very much!!!. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.22.64.236 (talk) 21:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Huh? What is this commenter talking about? I watched the video and it makes Oprah look mature,tolerant, and very spiritual. The Christians in her audience are the ones who look bad! (They INSIST that there is only one way - their way - to worship god). Oprah DID NOT say anything terrible about "anyone else's god". It was the Christians in the video who were insisting they had all the answers and by implication said bad things about how others worship. 70.126.98.155 (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That video actually shows one of the better thought out things she's said. I do think there should be a Criticism heading, and it should show things that she has promoted that are highly dubious, such as giving anti-vaxer Jenny McCarthy a show or promoting The Secret or any number of quack health treatments. Rolf Schmidt (talk) 05:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rolf, all the things that you mention here are in the article. Ashmoo (talk) 10:08, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Mad-cow lawsuit
Yes, I remember this happening. However, aside from the fact that Wikipedia statements in general must be verified with reliable-source citations, we absolutely cannot make lawsuit claims about a living person without blatantly violating WP:BLP. I've commented out the passage rather than removed it, since editors more familiar with this article might readily find a cite for these claims &mdash; plural, since the Roseanne Barr claim probably needs its own cite. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

siblings
Why is there no mention of her 2 sisters and brother? Thismightbezach (talk) 16:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

If you want to provide information about her siblings, it would be useful to also state that her brother, Jeffrey, died in 1989 of AIDS. It is on the same page of the biography that is quoted for footnote 34. Would someone please edit this. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.65.208.138 (talk) 07:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I took care of it. SamanthaG (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Reunited with half-sister
Who she claimed to know nothing about, even though she is 9 years older than her? Considering she had a kid herself at 14, how can she claim with any credibility not to know that her mother gave birth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.48.155.6 (talk) 05:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Because Oprah's mother sent her to live in Nashville during the time her mother gave birth to this baby. I  added an explanation to the article. SamanthaG (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Addressing the half sister
Where the article now says:
 * While Winfrey was in Nashville, Lee gave birth to a third daughter.[26] This Patricia was given up for adoption because Lee wanted to get off welfare.

It may be more correct to say
 * While Winfrey was in Nashville, Lee gave birth to her 4th child, a daughter who was given up for adoption.[26] This child was also named Patricia. Lee claims she did not name this child. As Lee already had a daughter named Patricia living with her, that would seem credible.  At this time the person who named Lee's 4th child Patricia is unknown.  Lee gave her 4th child up for adoption because she wanted to get off welfare. rosebud (talk) 00:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Can't say "that would seem credible" &mdash; that's a POV assertion. "At this time" is [{WP:DATED]], and the rest of the sentence gives an unknown when we only add what is known. --Tenebrae (talk) 02:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

unclear bit in "Early Life"
"...joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation..." Question: did the team place second or Winfrey herself? (And since there's no specific citation for this, I can't check.)--  TyrS  chatties  12:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Child-free (new section?)
I'm not sure what subsection to put this under (besides Personal Life, of course), but I think it might be worth including: ...in a December 2010 interview with hannah made her go crazy when she sang born this way cuz she is gay, [Winfrey] said, "I have not one regret about not having children."  TyrS  chatties  05:32, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We used to have a section on motherhood, where she talked about viewing her girls at her shcool in South Africa as her daughters, so if we brought back that section, we could include her comments about having no regrets about having no living biological children. But if we don't bring the whole motherhood section back, I don't see the point in creating a section just for this one comment. SamanthaG (talk) 11:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Andrewkno, 19 February 2011
edit semi-protected

On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey:

Oprah's full name has been spelled as Orpah Gail Winfrey (in bold text) while it should clearly be Oprah Gail Winfrey.

andrewkno@hotmail.com

Andrewkno (talk) 14:29, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Oprah's name should actually be spelt Orpah, as she herself admitted during an interview, : my Aunt Ida had chosen the name, but nobody really knew how to spell it, so it went down as "Orpah" on my birth certificate, but people didn't know how to pronounce it, so they put the "P" before the "R" in every place else other than the birth certificate. On the birth certificate it is Orpah, but then it got translated to Oprah, so here we are. Salvio  Let's talk about it! 16:01, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Remove Categories "American Christians" and "American Congregationalists"
Among the Categories associated with this article are "American Christians" and "American Congregationalists". However, I've looked around and it looks like Oprah doesn't claim to be a Christian and is not a member of any church. Some background:

Oprah grew up in Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville and joined that church before age 15. (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/april1/1.38.html?start=3)

In the 1980's, Oprah requested to become a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago according to Trinity's senior pastor Jeremiah Wright. However, she never completed the membership classes and after awhile her attendance dropped off. (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/april1/1.38.html?start=7)

Oprah does "spiritual" New Age stuff and calls her show a ministry, but I have not seen anything to indicate that, since the 1980's, Oprah identifies as a Christian or is a member of a church. Therefore, I propose to remove the Categories "American Christians" and "American Congregationalists". Wideangle (talk) 02:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * In accordance with the above, I today removed categories "American Christians" & "American Congregationalists". Wideangle (talk) 01:57, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Editor removing RS citations
User:Saturdayseven, who has made very few edits and appears to be essentially a single-purpose account devoted to Oprah Winfrey, has been making unsubstantiated accusations of libel, essentially, against biography Kitty Kelley &mdash; who, no matter what one thinks of her brand of journalism, is a major author at a major publishing house, and whose Oprah biography was vetted by a legion of lawyers and has never been the subject of a lawsuit. For this editor, who has a history of edit-warring, to summarily remove well-cited claims to a major biography seems a clear case of white-washing. I'd like to get others' opinions on this. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * First of all, I am not a single purpose editor. I’ve made HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of edits unrelated to Oprah that are very clear in my edit history.  Second of all, why are citing my history of edit wars when you’ve been accused of the same?]  Thirdly, I was in edit war in another article for the same reason I got in a dispute with you.  You are violating wikipedia’s living person policy, which states that contentious material must be well cited by a reliable source.   Oprah’s cousin (who lived in a completely different state from where Oprah’s alleged abuse took place) is not a reliable source on Oprah’s abuse history.  Even Kitty Kelley (who has been sued btw and settled out of court) says Oprah’s cousin lied about their interview and is in denial about Oprah’s abuse so why would should an encyclopedia give her denial weight? Saturdayseven (talk) 21:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You keep making accusations about Kelley, but I see you offering no evidence of her alleged wrongdoing. You are removing an RS source simply because you don't like what it says.


 * There are not, in fact, hundreds of edits at your history, virtually all of which lately have involved Oprah Winfrey. --Tenebrae (talk) 22:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You’re only looking at the most recent page of my edit history. None of the earlier pages include any Oprah edits at all, as my original interest was anthropology articles.  And I feel like you are accusing Kitty Kelley of wrongdoing.  Kitty might be known for portraying her subjects negatively, but she never denied Oprah’s abuse.  She may have interviewed others who allegedly denied the abuse (though not on the pages you cited), but Kelley herself believes Oprah so I revised your edit to make that clear.  And as Kelley says, families where there’s sexual abuse suffer from great denial so the fact that abuse is disputed goes without saying, but since you insisted on saying it,  I made it clear where Kelley stands, since she’s the one you consider a reliable source. Saturdayseven (talk) 03:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am actually in favour of Saturdayseven's edits. The accusation that Oprah is making it up comes from a single source, which Kelley even admits isn't terribly reliable. I think the problem is applying WP:UNDUE weight to a very minority view. If pressed, I could say that her cousin's view could be included in the article, in a single sentence noting that some of her extended family doubt the claims, but putting it in the introduction and multiple other locations in the article is giving undue weight to a very minority view. Ashmoo (talk) 11:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 75.22.56.199, 26 February 2011...regarding mis-spelling ?
Top of page says she was born "Orpah" Shouldn't that read

" Oprah" or was she really born with the name "Orpah"?

75.22.56.199 (talk) 20:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

She was indeed born with the name 'Orpah'. Thanks for being diligent, though. Cdg123 (talk) 05:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Where's the Claim I Made About The Dispute Of Oprah's Molestation?
Someone appears to have erased it and now I will put it back in. This is not a fanpage and it needs to be reported that Esters and her is known for not being completely honest; Esters even disputed Kelley's claim that she told Kelley that Oprah had a different biological father, but did not dispute that she told Kelley that Oprah lied about being molested and exaggerated the level of poverty she endured while growing up. Kelley very well may have made this claim about Oprah having the scars of a rape victim to please Oprah fans. I don't really care that Esters and her daughter told this to Kitty Kelley, but I do care that they disputed Oprah's claim.

To also claim that Oprah's family is trying to cover up family abuse doesn't make sense. Oprah first made this claim during the first season of her show and her family never disputed her claim until the Kelley interview nearly a quarter of a century later. I will not deny people try to cover up family abuse, but it's really hard to imagine that they would wait this long to dispute such a claim to protect a family member. Oprah had already humiliated her uncle and cousin by claiming they molested her and waiting nearly a quarter of a century to dispute this doesn't exactly demonstrate that they would be willing to dispute it so they could protect the image of a family member. Even Phillip Crosby tried to dispute his brother Gary's claim that their Bing Crosby abused him greatly, but he disputed it soon after Gary made this claim.JoetheMoe25 (talk) 23:42, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Joe, did you read the previous section 'Editor removing RS citations' in talk, where this exact issue is discussed? Ashmoo (talk) 14:35, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Joe, I think the problem with your edits is they violate WP:BLP and as Ashmoo has said, they give undue weight to extreme minority view points, and do so in a very long winded way that gets the article off topic. Further your source (the daily beast) does not seem to even mention the sexual abuse.  And Katherine Esters is not a reliable source on Oprah's sexual abuse history.  She was living in a totally different region of the country from where the alleged abuse took place, she has an obvious bias (Oprah refused to promote her memoir), and she's not a journalist.  As for her waiting so long to deny the abuse; she didn't have a forum to deny it until Kitty Kelley gave her one.  That's one reason why Kitty Kelley is controversial.  She's gives a forum to people who most journalist would say are not credible. Saturdayseven (talk) 16:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to break it to you both, but I am not stupid and I know when somebody is lying and typing in fanpage content. Saturdayseven, I am not violating the BLP at all. The Daily Beast is a big non-tabloid news site that is very reliable. You also have nothing to show that suggests that Esters told this to Kitty Kelley because Oprah refused to promote her biography and since Oprah made her claim of being molesting in the first season of her show, there were many news reporters and even talk show hosts out there whom she could have told this to; she could have even disputed Oprah's claims on tabloid, celebrity-trashing shows like Entertainment Tonight, A Current Affair and Hard Copy, but did not. I will report you further if you continue to type in biased, unneutral fanpage content.JoetheMoe25 (talk) 21:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC) The news article, in fact, states that Esters concedes that everything Kelley wrote- with the exception that she told Kelley that Oprah had a different biological father- about their conservation was accurate. He's a quote from it: "The 82-year-old Esters, who still lives near the central Mississippi town of Kosciusko—where Oprah spent six years of her childhood—was quoted several times, usually attached to non-flabbergasting statements that, she concedes, Kelley conveyed accurately."JoetheMoe25 (talk) 22:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC) Read this too: Fancruft
 * Joe, no one is disputing that Katherine Esters denies Oprah's abuse, however wikipedia is not a forum to libel alleged abuse victims by citing everyone who thinks they lied. WP:BLP clearly states that material about living persons, especially contentious material, must be given by a reliable source. Katherine Esters is not a reliable source because (1) she lived in a different region of the country from where alleged abuse took place (2)she gives no explanation for how she could know whether Oprah was abused or not (3) she has a conflict of interest because Oprah refused to promote her memoir as documented in the very Daily Beast article you cited (4) Kitty Kelley who spent more time interviewing her than any other journalist, says she's in denial (5) she's not a journalist who has published about Oprah, she's simply someone who was interviewed.
 * Now in the interest of compromise, I did edit the article to include the fact that Oprah has family who deny the abuse, however in the interest of full disclosure, I included the fact that Kitty Kelley believes they're in denial and I also included the fact that Oprah refused to promote Ester's book because the reader has the right to know about previous conflicts she's had with Oprah. If we are going to include something as contentious as accusing an alleged abuse victim of fabricating abuse, we can't withhold relevant information from the reader. Saturdayseven (talk) 01:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

You're right, we can't hold back revelance. That's why we got to be neutral. Esters hasn't demonstrated she's an unreliable resource. Where she lived doesn't demonstrate this, as Oprah or one of her family members, even possibly her deceased half-brother, could've told her that she was making it up. If Oprah was the one who told her, she couldn't say this because Oprah would likely deny it. You better find another sucker, because I will never buy into your nonsense. Kitty Kelley also argued it was her opinion that she was in denial. She said “I think Oprah’s family is in denial about the sexual abuse” and “her father and her Aunt Katharine are like the families of other sexual abuse victims; they’re in great denial. But I believe Oprah; she’s a woman who shows the scars of sexual abuse.”

The fact the Oprah refused to promote her memoirs also is a vague and unverifable. The source says Esters criticized Kelly and she implied she would never do such an interview with her again and Oprah, believe it or not, lived in the same area as Esters for six whole years; she was also close to Oprah and was known as "Aunt Katherine." Not even Oprah's father, who she did live with, disputed Esters' claim. You better find another sucker to fool, because I will keep standing up to you and edit with the words of truth.75.72.35.253 (talk) 03:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The onus is not on me to prove Katherine Ester’s is unreliable (though Kitty Kelly believes she is unreliable and has stated so), the onus is on you to prove she is reliable. You are the one who wants to use her as a source accusing an alleged abuse victim of fabricating her own abuse. WP:BLP states: The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests with the person who adds or restores material.  You claim that Esters could be reliable because someone might have told her that Oprah lied (conveniently you mention someone who is dead), but by that standard everyone is a reliable source because anyone might have told anyone anything, but repeating gossip and hearsay violates WP:BLPGOSSIP. You also state Ester's lived in the same area as Oprah for 6 years, but you leave out the fact that these were the first 6 years of Oprah's life, three years before the alleged abuse took place, at which time Oprah and Esters were living in different states and in different regions of the country. WP:BLP also states: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives, and the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment.  WP:BLP also states when dealing with individuals whose notability stems largely or entirely from being victims of another's actions. Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization. (emphasis mine)  You could liter the articles of any well known abuse victim with dozens of people who claim they are lying but such reckless innuendo is beneath the level of scholarship wikipedia aims for.
 * And Esters admits Oprah refused to promote her memoir. Did you not read the Daily Beast article you cited?  It says:..Oprah repeatedly said "no" when Esters asked to be invited on her TV show to publicize Esters' self-published 2005 memoir, Jay Bird Creek and My Recollections.  "She did refuse to have me on the show," Esters told me in her distinctly non-whiney way. "She said my book was mediocre. That it was not something that would interest anybody to read." If Ester’s is cited as accusing Oprah of something as contentious as fabricating sexual abuse, we should not conceal from our readers her tumultuous history with Oprah because omiting that gives the false impression that Esters is a neutral unbiased source.Saturdayseven (talk) 13:05, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I will not waste my time with this. You also have nothing to prove that demonstrates Oprah and her have had such a feud. Refusing to promote a book doesn't indicate a she has a "tumultuous history" with Oprah. I know what the article says, but it does not indicate she would say this to Kelley for that reason. Oprah could very well had lied about being molested so more people would watch her show; it tends to make celebrities-one example being Maya Angelou(not that I'm disputing her rape claim at all)- more money when they claim this, because the public feels sorry for you when make this claim.JoetheMoe25 (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that Oprah could very well have lied, though it seems unlikely given how taboo sexual abuse was in 1986, especially sexual abuse involving incest. There's no way to know why Katherine Esters accused Oprah of fabricating abuse, though in the interest of full disclosure, the reader should know about disputes she had with Oprah.  However I propose we avoid all the complexity about Katherine Esters, her relationship with Oprah and Kitty Kelley, what she did or didn't tell Kelley, and what Kelley concluded, by simply making your point with a different source.  My recent edit makes your point about some of Oprah's family not accepting her molestation, without going into all that confusing complexity that's beyond the scope of this artice, and without giving the opinions and speculation of one estranged member of Oprah's extended family too much weight. I think it's a good compromise. Saturdayseven (talk) 01:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)