User:Chas zzz brown/proposedChanges

Refactor Intro/Content a little
First 2 sentences are basically duplicated at the beginning of the "Content" section. Suggest combining (more footnotes in the second), and then moving to intro.
 * First sentence of "Operations" section is un-cited; also, if it is a mystery, then that mystery is solved in the "History" section. Recommend delete.


 * Add reference PR Syria Article

Content Section needs more focus on the subject of the Article
The Content section has several paragraphs structured like this:

During the 2017 Syria missile strikes ordered by Trump, the Palmer Report suggested, without evidence, that Trump spared the runways of the Shayrat airfield due to Russian collusion.[44] MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell echoed a Palmer Report conspiracy theory that Syria's chemical weapon attack was orchestrated by the Russian government in order to allow Trump to appear distant from Putin.[12][45] The story contained no evidence.[4][46]

The Article is about the Palmer Report.That first sentence sure seems relevant! But was O'Donnell directly influenced by Palmer? Did the PR "suggestion" encourage others to repeat similar stories, which then indirectly came back to O'Donnell? Did O'Donnell come up with his theory completely independently? Was the idea already kicking around prior to the PR article, and that's where both PR and others got the idea from?

Those would all be good reasons to discuss O'Donnell in this context and so we should expect to see some supporting evidence in the references [4], [12], [45], [46].

Failing that, I don't see why he's referred to here at all - it tells us nothing definitive about Bill Palmer or The Palmer Report, and encourages the temptation to make the Article an argument about certain contentious issues by way of The Palmer Report acting as proxy.

TLDR: There's no such supporting evidence to be found. Details follow.

First off, the NYT Fact check article at 44 says that PR's theory of collusion as published here is pure speculation, and rated it as "NO EVIDENCE" for the claim. (Hey, why don't we link to the original PR article here? Original sources should be included with interpretations. Easily fixed!)

4 is a buzzfeed article about Lawrence Tribe. The only O'Donnell it mentions is Rosie O'Donnell. Wrong Lawrence! :)

45 is a WaPo Opinion page, not a news article. Still, it doesn't claim that Lawrence O'Donnell based his report on PR. The only mention of Palmer is:

The chemical conspiracy, as The Post’s Avi Selk noted, debuted on a left-wing site called the Palmer Report.

The linked Avi Selk Opinion page is in fact our reference 46. It doesn't mention Palmer Report by name, but contains a link to the PR Syria page noted above in this context:

That theory — evidence-free — was laid out on a small anti-Trump website shortly after the missile strike. But it went mainstream Friday night, when Lawrence O'Donnell advanced similar speculation on his MSNBC show, “The Last Word.”

It makes no claim that O'Donnell referenced or used PR as a source; calling it a "similar speculation", and later adding "O'Donnell didn't offer any evidence on his theory, promising only that 'you won't hear ... proof that the scenario I've just outlined is impossible.'."

Finally, 12 is an article from the newrepublic. The relevant sentence is:

In April, MSNBC’s Laurence O’Donnell echoed a Palmer Report theory that Syria’s chemical weapon attack had been orchestrated by the Russian government, so that Trump could appear to distance himself from Putin.

The embedded link is once again the same as our reference [46] above, which describes O'Donnell as "advancing similar speculation". So, "echoed" here means "proposed a similar conspiracy theory".

This article is about The Palmer Report, not a discussion of one or more left-wing conspiracy theories and how they start / propagate / continue etc. It makes sense to include that Palmer Report published the evidence-free speculation; but the rest is off-topic here (IMO).

Along similar lines:

In August 2020, the Palmer Report predominantly "[led] the charge" against MSNBC host Chris Hayes after he reported on the Tara Reade sexual assault accusations against Biden. The Palmer Report commented, "I won't stop going after Hayes until he retracts his false story or he's off the air." According to The Daily Dot, "All Hayes did was address the story. But Biden supporters...are throwing their arms up at a member of the media for covering it, demanding he be fired, calling it fake news, and searching for conspiracies, refusing to interrogate that a candidate who has a history of making women uncomfortable could do something like that."[65][66]

"But Biden supporters...". This wiki article is about specifically the website "Palmer Report", not "Biden supporters" in general, and not The Daily Dot's opinions on aspects of the Tara Reade matter which are not strictly factual. Certainly "a candidate who has a history of making women uncomfortable" is a pretty contentious assertion and outside the scope of this Article. I would delete everything starting from "According to The Daily Dot..." to end of paragraph as off topic.