Talk:Scott Horton (radio host)

List of people interviewed
Hi. As you are working on this article, it will probably become necessary to do some paring back of the list of people interviewed. For most tv, radio and web commentators, this list is restricted to a few persons of notability. Please view Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Rikki Lake for some examples, or feel free to search your favorite interviewers to see how those pages look. For some additional suggestions, you might also check WP:STYLE. Best regards -- Oliver  Twisted (Talk) (Stuff) 07:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Oliver, can you help me with how to change "Scott Horton (activist)" to "Scott Horton (radio host?"--Newsgods.

Contributions and Book Reviews
Hey, I work with Scott and his Institute, so I am hoping for some outside help to review for neutrality/quality and add the following to the entry to start addressing issues with sources. Thanks!

sources citing Fool's Errand reviews in prominent publications: Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan has reviews featured in: The American Conservative, The Future of Freedom Magazine and The Sandusky Register.

sources citing websites Scott has contributed his work too (not including his own Websites): Scott's writing has been featured in several prominent digital publications including: The Christian Science Monitor, The American Conservative , The Future of Freedom and The National Interest.

Fancylogin21 (talk) 18:17, 25 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for these links and for adhering to the conflict of interest guideline by refraining from editing the article directly. If the AfD discussion results in the article being kept I'll take a look at these and think about which of them can be worked into the article. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've now had a look at these sources and have concluded that there's no benefit to adding any of them to the article. Two of the links above are to coverage in independent reliable sources (#1 and #3); these were already in the article. #2 is neither an independent source, as it's a publication that Horton has a connection to, nor is it, as far as I can see, a reliable source of the kind that Wikipedia articles are expected to be based on. I'm not sure in what capacity you're suggesting the articles by Horton (#4–#9) be added to the article, but Wikipedia articles are not résumés and lists of people's publications in periodicals are generally not considered to be encyclopaedic material. Others may of course disagree with any or all of this. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

In an edit summary, @Arms & Hearts wrote:

"the hill article doesn't support the claim you're making"

I disagree. I claimed the article in question said Horton's thesis about Osama Bin Laden was vindicated by the publication of the Afghanistan Papers. That's precisely what the article says, with the author quoting from Horton's book to support this claim -> "The real winner: Osama bin Laden." All of this was said in the context of "the lessons of the Afghanistan Papers." WKPorter (talk) 08:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Grammar Edits, Condense biographical sources
Looking through the recent edits I noticed a couple of grammar errors that make portions of the entry read poorly. I am requesting a 3rd party update these issues because of my connection to Scott Horton and out of respect for the Conflict of Interest guidelines. Unfortunately I am unable to load the edit history to determine if the previous sentence structures could be partially or fully restored to fix these mistakes. Considering the current syntax here are my observations:

In the third paragraph of "Writing and broadcasting" the first sentence is missing "end" to complete the thought.

Horton's book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan (2017) is an account of the War in Afghanistan, which argues that the United States should end[sic] its presence in the country.

'''The following sentence has an extra word. Currently reading:''' Philip Giraldi of The American Conservative which described the work as a "masterful account of America’s prolonged Afghan engagement."

'''but should probably read: ''' Philip Giraldi of The American Conservative described the work as a "masterful account of America’s prolonged Afghan engagement."

I also see there is a logical way to condense some of the biographical information to a single source. ''"Horton hosts Antiwar Radio for Pacifica Radio's KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles and KUCR in Riverside, California,[1] as well as the foreign policy interview podcast The Scott Horton Show.[2] Horton has conducted over 5,000 interviews since 2003.[3] He is also the director of the Libertarian Institute.[3]

Horton is the editorial director of the non-interventionist news portal Antiwar.com.[4]"''

all of this biographical information is supported by the subject's about page on his website source:, currently [3] in the article. This might also address the flag for primary sources and the claim made that the multiple primary sources are being used to inflate Horton's importance. Thank you for your help improving the article editors.

Fancylogin21 (talk) 17:28, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. I've left in place the primary sources tag, however, as there are only three independent sources cited in the article, out of eight sources cited and 13 citations total, and one of those three is the very brief blurb in the Austin Chronicle. Wikipedia articles should be based primarily on reliable secondary sources, i.e. independent published works discussing the topic. The tag might have to remain in place indefinitely, because very few such works seem to exist. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Regarding undue weight and the Soho Debate
I don't really know how to address this. I did not know who Scott was until I found the debate but my anecdote has no bearing on the significance of that event in a BLP. I feel like his debate opponent may make it a worthy inclusion. Bill Kristol was a prominent, and very vocal political supporter of America's interventions in Iraq etc. and defended that position in this debate. In doing so, in the context of a debate with an anti-war activist such as Scott, he has given some weight to this event.ConfusedAndAfraid (talk) 03:46, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

A note on the warning about primary sources at the top of the article
I've added a number of independent sources referring to the subject since the warning went up. What's the threshold for removing something like that? ConfusedAndAfraid (talk) 07:11, 27 October 2022 (UTC)


 * What sources are you referring to? The article currently contains three independent reliable sources, one of which is very insubstantial. Opinions may vary but I'd say that's generally insuffcient for a biography of a living person. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a weird comment for someone who just deleted a sentence of the article with 4 references. Are you talking about the references that remained after your unhelpful edit? If not, then I'll address your snarky edit summary; the notes on deprecated sources indicate that they are fine to use if another source confirms what they claim. Only 1 of the 4 sources was deprecated. Just because you don't like what you call "garbage" sources, doesn't mean their content doesn't independently verify the existence of the events described in the sentence. --ConfusedAndAfraid (talk) 22:30, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * zero hedge and wtf some of these other websites are are not reliable sources.
 * Also, in case it’s relevant, you know about WP:COI, right?  Volunteer Marek   23:50, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. I know about conflict of interest. Check my IP. I'm an Australian editor who came across the Scott Horton / Bill Kristol debate via Youtube's algorithm.. Please cease with your baseless and egregious personal attacks. You are WAY out of line.--ConfusedAndAfraid (talk) 14:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I did not make any personal attacks. Falsely accusing others of personal attacks is a personal attack itself. We’re not using junk sources here or other articles.  Volunteer Marek   04:51, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you're confusing two separate but related matters. The fact that a source isn't deprecated doesn't mean it's an independent reliable source. (I'd suggest clicking those three links and reading the pages they take you to.) Not being deprecated is sort of the bare minimum for a source to be cited; independence and reliability are tougher hurdles to clear. The Libertarian Institute, for example, isn't a deprecated source and could be a reliable source in some circumstances, but an organisation run by Horton isn't an independent source in an article about Horton. Does this clear things up at all? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not confusing anything. The obviously partisan user Volunteer Marek has been reprimanded for his bad faith edits in this sphere. Acknnowledge this fact please.--ConfusedAndAfraid (talk) 13:11, 6 November 2022 (UTC)