Talk:The Washington Times/Archive 3

Conservative stance
An editor has re-added the qualification in its editorial pages to "The Times is known for its conservative stance on political and social issues." The editing notation given was, "Source?If so, then NYT art needs to say liberal stance in its lede." Besides the fact that discussion of the NYT does not belong in this article, the Washington Times has a clear American conservative stance in its reporting. I will provide a reliable source. Please do not re-add the qualification without providing a reliable source. The Four Deuces (talk) 04:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree (I'm a UC member BTW). The only reason people read the Times is to get a conservative view on the news.  Many people, far from DC, have told me so over the years.  Only stupid people think that newspapers' reporting does not reflect their political views.  The fact that the NYT's article does not admit it (perhaps it is written with stupid people in mind) is no reason for the WT article not to give an honest picture of the Times and its importance in society and recent history.Steve Dufour (talk) 05:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * BTW the Times' conservatism is well documented in the body of the article, its own section. No need for a footnote in the lede. Steve Dufour (talk) 06:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

inaccuracies in article - edits deleted
the wash times does NOT print on Sunday (or saturday either anymore)

therefore the circulation is ZERO on Sunday

the article erroneously states a large number and edits to bring this up to date have been deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.72.29.88 (talk) 18:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I took out the whole section. Mere numbers for one short period are not so important. Of course the fact that the Times has always had a small circulation compared to the Post should be reported. It would probably be better to put a general statement to that effect, sourced of course, rather than report numbers for a short period. Steve Dufour (talk) 02:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I put back some of the information, without definate numbers. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I put general numbers back in (100,000 vs. 800,000) as reported by the NYT. Without them I felt the reader is left waiting for the other shoe to drop. I also think this should be mentioned in the intro but people keep taking it out. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:41, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Over detail on current happenings?
I took out a couple of the last sentences. It seems like the bottom line is that the Times will be sold. I would also like to remove these two paragraphs and the subheading. Readers are probably not so interested in reading about every twist and turn and everyone who got fired:


 * On May 31, 2008, the Times announced that its Civil War section, which some commentators had said was too sympathetic to the South, would be expanded to include coverage of all America's wars and would be renamed "America at War."[50] At the same time the Times laid off about 30 employees [51] and also stopped printing a Saturday edition as cost saving measures; it still produces an electronic version of the Saturday paper.[52] In August 2008, the Times announced it would outsource its printing operations to the publisher of The Baltimore Sun in order to avoid the expense of overhauling existing presses.[53] In March 2009, the Times announced that it would soon launch a syndicated radio talk show.[54][55] In October 2009 the Times partnered with the Heritage Foundation to launch TheConservatives.com, a website aimed at conservatives.[56]


 * Layoffs and restructuring
 * On November 9, 2009, the Times' chairman and CEO, Dong Moon (Douglas) Joo; its president, Tom McDevitt; and its chief financial officer, Keith Cooperrider—all members of the Unification Church—were abruptly fired and Jonathan Slevin, a Times vice president, was appointed Acting Publisher. Thereafter, Solomon resigned as executive editor.[57] Richard Miniter, editorial page editor and vice president of opinion at the Times, was also fired during the shakeup. After his termination, he filed a discrimination complaint against the paper, saying he was coerced into attending a Unification Church religious ceremony that culminated in a mass wedding conducted by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. [58][59]Kitfoxxe (talk) 10:52, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * On second thought maybe we should wait till we find out who the new buyer is. Kitfoxxe (talk) 00:42, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Good idea. When (or if) that happens the whole article will need some major rewriting.Steve Dufour (talk) 19:23, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality
I would suggest a rewrite of the "Founding" section due to bias as well as improper tone. The first to paragraphs are fine but the third:

"In 1998 Scott McLemee commented: “During the '70s, media coverage of the Moonies aroused tremendous public anxiety. Then they launched the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper that pretty much printed Reagan administration press releases under a reporter's byline. Suddenly you didn't hear very much about the sinister Unification Church anymore. Good business practices—like buying Utah real estate when it was cheap, or giving the Republicans a newspaper of their own—can bring a cult into the mainstream with alacrity.” "


 * 1st highlight: obviously biased against the paper, also using improper tone.
 * 2nd highlight: Using second person, also, "Suddenly" - improper tone - and either calling the Unification Church sinister or sarcasm, can't tell which (neither of which are acceptable).
 * 3rd highlight: biased, calls WT creators a "cult", improper tone, also refers to "buying Utah real estate"; I'm not sure what that's about.

Also, no references are included. -- 00:16, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Stance on gay & transgender people
No secondary sources for this one:

In 2010, the Times published an editorial opposing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because of its legal protections for transgender people. In the editorial, the Times called transgender people "weirdos," "disordered," "psychologically troubled," and "unnatural." The editorial also said that a conscious decision to choose a new or different sexual identity was a choice, not an innate characteristic, and lamented that schoolchildren were being exposed to "she-male" teachers.

Kitfoxxe (talk) 09:03, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I added a revised version of this paragraph after adding secondary sources. It is placed in the political section because gay and transgender rights are a current, significant political topic in America.  It's located in the political section after the paragraph on other minority groups.  This section begins and is organized topically, then becomes chronological. Per the original edit, I readded the paper's general stance toward gay and transgender people and added sources. This lends the paragraph toward placement as a general topic rather than chronologically on one event, i.e., the ENDA editorial. The "cherrypicked" quotes to which one revisor objected have been removed. The original language about gender identity and whether it is a choice or innate is reverted. It was not confusing per a revisor's explanation of edit.  The revision away from gender identity is confusing because it is worded to be tautologically true.  Language describing gender identity as a choice answers the question of whether it is a choice or an innate trait.  In addition, the Wikipedia Manual of Style states that in disputes over identity, the terms the group most commonly uses for itself should be used.  See MOS:IDENTITY.  The term gender identity is commonly used in the gay and transgender community. Joe Jarvis (user, talk) 19:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's much better with sources rather than just quoting the editorial itself. Steve Dufour (talk) 19:31, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is a reference from HRC. Native94080 (talk) 17:19, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Jesus made him do it?
Is the statement, regarding Moon, "who has said that he is the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ and is fulfilling Jesus' unfinished mission" intended to explain why he decided to start a newspaper? If so, I don't see the connection. I'm not a Moon observer so I don't know if his religious pronouncements serve as the basis for his decision to start the Washington Times. Is that the case, or is there another reason to include Moon's religious expressions with the historical fact that he founded a newspaper? It seems to me that statement has nothing to do with the rest of the sentence. 72.81.139.113 (talk) 17:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you are right. I will take off that part. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Washington Star
While we're at it, someone should do an article on the Washington Star, the last rival to the Post.

The Times, when it's good, is very, very good, and the rest of the time it's mediocre -- GABaker BTW, I wonder how many other pages have a now-obolete "/Talk" link in the article body? User:Ed Poor
 * Lot's of pages, I try to remove those links when I find them. Would be great if it was possible to search for /Talk or Peter Winnberg

Skeptical links
Added skeptical links. There are probably too many external links relative to the article content now, but that just means that summaries of the linked content should be folded into the main article. k.lee

Discrediting the Times
Hey, thanks for trying to discredit the Washington Times, but including an Associated Press story that the Times picked up will hardly accomplish that goal. "Gore raised eyebrows when he said...I took the initiative..."


 * ...on Al Gore's "creating the Internet" quote

racist sources
http://mediamatters.org/items/200508170001

Original research
Things have got to be discussed in secondary sources before we can put them in the article. Borock (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

"capital of the United States"
This was originally put in to remind readers of the importance of Washington DC. (OF COURSE I KNOW THAT "EVERYONE" ALREADY KNOWS THIS!!!!) This gives context and a clue to the reason for the Times being founded where it was, as well as to its ongoing greater importance in public affairs -- as compared to its fairly small circulation. Steve Dufour (talk) 17:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

A new article
I've created an article on James R. Whelan, the paper's first editor. It certainly needs a fair bit of improvement, so any effort is much appreciated.--Yaksar (let's chat) 03:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Reliability for WP?
A short pointer to a WP discussion on the Washington Times as a reliable source would be helpful. Kiefer .Wolfowitz 16:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There is some in the Archive 1 pointer at the top of the page. The Washington Times meets reliability criteria for news organizations, although any opinion pieces need to be evaluated regarding statements of fact. Ideally, the author would be identified, and the facts would be corroborated in non-opinion pieces. Jokestress (talk) 17:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. (I was checking a reference, which may have been an opinion piece originating in the WSJ.) Kiefer .Wolfowitz 17:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Edits by 70.114.51.13
This contributor has altered sourced direct quotes in this article, distorting their content politically (i.e. what s/he made them say in this article isn't what it says in the sources). I have restored one of the quotes to its original accurate and sourced form, but maybe someone else might want to go through all of the edits by that contributor (to this and possibly to other articles) and review them for accuracy. Here are some edits I ran across in which 70.114.51.13 falsified quotes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Washington_Times&action=historysubmit&diff=408279298&oldid=407093521 (bottom two edits in there) 31.16.117.157 (talk) 17:13, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

RfC
An RfC: Which descriptor, if any, can be added in front of Southern Poverty Law Center when referenced in other articles? has been posted at the Southern Poverty Law Center talk page. Your participation is welcomed. – MrX 17:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Picture of building?
How about a picture of the Times' building? It would be much better than the ones of the vending machine and the plastic bags. :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 03:17, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Stephan Ninan needs an Article
Appears regularly on C-Span and in the media. Why would he not have a page? --Wikipietime (talk) 12:34, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on The Washington Times. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110107074820/http://www.mediachannel.org/originals/moontranscript.shtml to http://www.mediachannel.org/originals/moontranscript.shtml

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 19:32, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Attribution Needed?
The comment: "The Times has also been criticized for using the word 'homosexual' rather than 'gay'" needs to be attributed.

In the first place, the term used is the correct term.

In the second place, use of the passive voice intimates that there is something wrong with using the correct term.

Finally, were the "criticism" to be attributed, one undoubtedly would find the critic to be a member of the militant homosexual community which doesn't like the newspaper in any event.

Would the Washington Post be concerned in the least by criticism from G. Gordon Liddy?

Would Wikipedia countenance someone saying, e.g., "The Post also has been criticized for using the phrase 'Watergate burglar' rather than 'Watergate national-security operative'?

As things stand, Wiki is spinmeistering.

RBC 208.83.74.242 (talk) 19:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 15:58, 1 May 2016 (UTC)