Talk:Patrick Lancaster

BLP violation
This edit was a violation of WP:BLP rules that forbid using self-published sources in biographies of reliable persons.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:02, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Good point to remind us that WP:BLP allows self published sources if it is from the subject themselves! Thus we can include anything in the article that is direct from Patrick Lancaster himself. Mathmo Talk 17:23, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Depending on what it is, that's true. But we have to balance whatever Lancaster says about himself with what RS say about him - such as there are.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:34, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of tasikherbal.com or Ivan Farrell. It's not even a self published article by Lancaster so its not reliable for anything. IntrepidContributor (talk) 17:36, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You mean you've never read sterling journalism in impeccable English like "How A lot Does the US Owe in Reparations for the COVID-19 Bio-Assault?]"?! To quote Farrell Usually nations don’t should pay reparations till they badly lose a warfare. They certainly don't should, he's absolutely right.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:40, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Use of the term propgandist
RE: Ermenrich 666hopedieslast (talk) 19:25, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Both editors have violated WP:BLP by using less-than reliable sources to make contentious claims about a living person with attributing those claims. Do not use tabloids like The Mirror or Vice Media as sources to make claims about living people (see WP:RSP). To claim someone is a propagandist, you need rock-solid sources.


 * Thank you for copy-pasting this. I'll add: a single source cannot be used to support such a contentious claim. You can/should attribute that claim to NBC. If, say, BBC, NBC, NPR, and NYT all say someone is a propagandist, then it would not need to be attributed, just cited.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 19:28, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok. 666hopedieslast (talk) 19:31, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * NBC News
 * The most popular of the pro-Kremlin influencers identified by researchers is Patrick Lancaster, a Missouri-born Navy intelligence veteran and self-described independent crowdfunded journalist embedded with the Russian army. Since December, Lancaster’s YouTube channel has grown from 57,500 subscribers to more than 500,000, with daily dispatches from Russian-occupied Ukraine. His videos are often breathless reports with graphic footage of dead bodies, violence for which Lancaster claims Ukraine is responsible. The scene in at least one video was reportedly staged. Lancaster often appears on Russian state media and on the Texas-based conspiracy theory radio show “Infowars.”


 * Below Lancaster’s YouTube videos, he posts, “I show what the western media will not show you.” He did not respond to a request for comment.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:32, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Good source. The attribution currently in the article is good.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 19:35, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Ermenrich you are still not getting it, do you? - GizzyCatBella  🍁  19:36, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * . No, I'm not "getting it". If the RS say he is "pro-Kremlin", why do you keep removing that? There is no argument among any RS that he supports the Kremlin's line. At any rate, I've attributed it and quoted it in the lead. That should satisfy whatever objection you have.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:38, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks . As these edits show:    I added the 2 articles in this 1st few edits of the article. 666hopedieslast (talk) 19:42, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Statement: admin action; do not re-add
 * Admin edits so they are not lost in future edits:

RE:


 * https://zaborona.com/en/from-the-lancaster-family-the-story-of-an-american-reporter-who-settled-in-the-dnr-was-a-friend-of-givi-and-uses-morgue-bodies-for-fake-news/

666hopedieslast (talk) 19:42, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

In this edit, I did not restore the contentious propagandist claim. On what grounds was the source and non-containtesious claim removed? IntrepidContributor (talk) 19:52, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it's unclear if Zaborona is a good source to many people editing here (including me). I wouldn't cite Ukrinform of Ukrainska Pravda on Lancaster if they had written on him, after all. As for the rest, I guess ask .--Ermenrich (talk) 19:54, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you disputing the use of Zaborona for establishing the notability of the Lancaster and what he is known for? If so, please say so in the discussion about this on the reliable sources noticeboard. IntrepidContributor (talk) 19:59, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am disputing Zaborona. It does not indicate who the editor is. Or any staff really. You'd need consensus from RSN to use it.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Article links to YT
Don't work for me atm. Has he been moved or something? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:50, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

works just fine, but for some reason I can't see, the link in the infobox/refs doesn't. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:08, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Alexis Jazz, perhaps you know? It seems the infobox link etc should work, but they don't. Could it be a Wikidata thing? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:40, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Gråbergs Gråa Sång, umm, confusing stuff, but yeah I messed around with the relevant template some time ago. is the channel_url (/channel/) for Patrick Lancaster. The channel_name is what comes after /user/ which I don't know for Patrick. The /c/ channel name isn't directly supported by Infobox YouTube personality unless you enter   for channel_direct_url.YouTube is really confusing with this. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:58, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm, a bit like adding a imdb-EL template. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:49, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Use of Dutch language regional newspapers as sources
Are regional newspapers Leeuwarder Courant, BN DeStem, and Dagblad van het Noorden really the best sources for this article? I'll note that while these three all have headlines about how "remains from "malaysian airlines flight 17" have been found, the headline from NRC (newspaper) is more cautious: "Mogelijk weer menselijke resten MH17-ramp naar Nederland" ("Possible human remains of MH17 disaster to the Netherlands again"). All of the articles are unfortunately behind a paywall, but the NRC one, according to its WP page the paper of record of the Netherlands, is also the one that includes accusations that Lancaster is spreading pro-Russian disinformation.

I highly suspect that Lancaster somehow framed these remains, whether they were really from the crash or not, as a way to claim that Ukraine shot down MH17 or that the passengers were already dead when it crashed, which we for some reason don't mention and is established as Russian disinformation (see []).--Ermenrich (talk) 13:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ermenrich, I added some more details and sources about this. The headlines from July 2017 say that remains were "possibly" found, the Netherlands Forensic Institute analyzed them and confirmed in November 2017 they found remnants of 7 passengers in the remains Lancaster found.Two thirds (193) of the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were Dutch so naturally the subject got more attention in The Netherlands. 43 victims were from Malaysia so perhaps some sources in Malaysian Malay would also exist, but I don't speak that.Not everything is behind a paywall, you might be confusing the mandatory cookie wall they all have with a paywall. (try pressing "Akkoord", "Accepteer", "Selecteer alles" or whichever button is green to eat the cookies) NRC mentions "Lancaster" 7 times, the fact you refer to is "Lancaster wordt er door de Oekraïense autoriteiten van beschuldigd propaganda te bedrijven voor de pro-Russische separatisten in het oosten van het land." (source) — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:31, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. My concern is mostly that the newspapers are regional rather than national in scope.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:05, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Stern article
I notice that, despite having different authors, the Stern article's information on Lancaster is a word-for-word translation of the NBC article. Compare:

Der beliebteste der von den Forschenden identifizierten kremlfreundlichen Influencer ist nach Angaben von NBC Patrick Lancaster, ein in Missouri geborener Veteran des US-Marinegeheimdienstes und selbsternannter unabhängiger Crowdfunding-Journalist, der in die russische Armee eingebettet sei. Seit Dezember sei Lancasters Youtube-Kanal mit seinen täglichen Berichten aus von Russland besetzten Teilen der Ukraine von 57.500 Abonnenten auf über 500.000 angewachsen. Bei seinen Videos handele es sich oft um dramatische Berichte mit grausamen Bildern von Leichen und Gewalt, für die Lancaster die Ukraine verantwortlich mache. In mindestens einem der Filme seien die gezeigten Szenen Berichten zufolge inszeniert worden. Lancaster trete häufig in russischen Staatsmedien und bei Infowars auf, einem rechtsradikalen, texanischen Radio- und Online-Kanal für Verschwörungserzählungen. Er habe ebenfalls nicht auf eine Bitte um Stellungnahme reagiert.

to:

The most popular of the pro-Kremlin influencers identified by researchers is Patrick Lancaster, a Missouri-born Navy intelligence veteran and self-described independent crowdfunded journalist embedded with the Russian army. Since December, Lancaster’s YouTube channel has grown from 57,500 subscribers to more than 500,000, with daily dispatches from Russian-occupied Ukraine. His videos are often breathless reports with graphic footage of dead bodies, violence for which Lancaster claims Ukraine is responsible. The scene in at least one video was reportedly staged. Lancaster often appears on Russian state media and on the Texas-based conspiracy theory radio show “Infowars.”

In fact, it cites NBC as a source.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ermenrich, you are right, I missed that. So as a source it's probably not that useful. I think the Stern article possibly still counts towards notability - not fully sure though. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:33, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

NPOV violation supported by unreliable sources
The dismissive tone of the lead is supported by references to Vice Media (which has itself been found to have published photoshopped images as real) and to Zaborona.com, a Ukrainian site which tries to discredit any voice which disagrees with the official Ukrainian narrative. Neither of these sources is reliable, and material which depends on them should be removed.

The lead-in calls Lancaster "a self-described 'independent crowdfunded journalist'". He is an independent crowd-funded journalist; Wikipedia does not call other reporters "self-described journalists". The implied smear is a NPOV violation in itself.

Lancaster clearly has opinions and a point of view. So do many, perhaps most, journalists. He has made mistakes; so have most journalists. His opinion is different from the editorial positions of the New York Times, the BBC, the Washington Post, the Guardian etc. That does not automatically make his reports less valuable, or Patrick Lancaster less of a journalist. It is all too easy, for those of us who live in NATO countries, to accept at face value the barrage of propaganda all around us, and imagine that everything we read in the mainstream media is unbiased and accurate. Anyone who has the slightest interest in seeing beyond official propaganda needs independent sources, of which Lancaster is one. Insulation2 (talk) 21:01, 7 October 2022 (UTC)


 * There’s nothing wrong with either source. Virtually all reliable coverage of Lancaster is hostile. The same claim is made by NBC news and can be sourced in the lede as well.—Ermenrich (talk) 22:00, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

This entire article reads with a cartoonishly propagandistic tone, I suspect that it's been written by hostile editors from the start. If Wikipedians are incapable of writing a neutral article about a living person, then perhaps it's better not to have an article on that person at all rather than be used as a vehicle to libel them. I'm surprised to find a Wikipedia article about this person of relatively low notability in the first place, it's almost as if the sole purpose of this article is to throw shade on a critic of the Ukrainian government. Honest editors should ask themselves this: if the subject's politics were reversed, would they have an article at all in the first place? 47.45.218.112 (talk) 22:32, 1 December 2022 (UTC)