User:Cullen328/sandbox/Morgan Freeman

I oppose including this section for many reasons. I reverted using the edit summary "Remove a section that pushes a point of view and gives undue weight to a minor part of Freeman's life and career."

In my opinion, this section is a sophisticated variation of a coatrack article. I would call it a "coatrack section". The purpose of this section is not to improve the biography of an 80 year old actor who has appeared in over 50 major films and has won an Oscar and has been nominated for four other Oscars. No, the purpose of this section of the article is to attack the Committee to Investigate Russia, which is a red link because no one has bothered to write an article about this venture. This is about a two minute video narrated by Freeman, who has starred in many famous full length films. In the context of Morgan Freeman's 80 year life and 50+ years as a star, this section violates our core content policy requiring the neutral point of view, since it devotes undue weight to his two minute narration of an online video. This biography should summarize what the best and most comprehensive sources have said about Freeman's life and career. That core content policy says that "Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all." I submit that only the tiniest percentage of coverage of Freeman mentions this matter, and that it therefore does not belong in this article. This is also an example of recentism, paying excessive attention to a minor 2017 incident in the biography of an 80 year old man, trying hard to whip up controversy.

Another aspect of this effort are repeated attempts to characterize the project as "neoconservative" despite the broad and bipartisan character of the notable people backing the project. If someone was to claim that many were former military and intelligence officials associated with the Obama and Clinton administrations, that would be accurate. A few such as Max Boot and Norman Ornstein have been on the periphery of neocon circles, but I think that both have denied being neoconservatives. Charles Sykes is a former far right social conservative who has broken with that ideology. Use of a term widely considered to be pejorative is more evidence of pushing a point of view. As for Freeman, there is no evidence that he is an actual leader of this venture, but instead only the narrator of a two minute video.

Now, let's take a look at the sources. There are three references for the claim that the video is "controversial", but as far as I can see, none of those sources uses the word "controversial", which seems to be synthesis by the editors tryong to advance that claim. Al Jazeera reports that the video has "drawn criticism". The Variety source is a straight news report with no hint that Freeman's participation was "controversial". The third source is an obvious opinion piece by a highly opinionated but otherwise unknown young writer named Hannah Gais, who really, really dislikes the Committee to Investigate Russia, and is willing to take a swipe or two at Morgan Freeman to advance her polemic. It seems clear that she is not a reliable source about Morgan Freeman, but only for her own fervent opinion. And even though she complains at length, she does not use the word "controversial". There is no reliable source that verifies that Freeman's narration is actually "controversial".

So, what do we have here? A tempest in a teapot. Morgan Freeman narrated a video criticizing Russia and Putin, and quite predictably, Russian spokespeople spent a few days denouncing him, as did a few Americans who oppose hostility between the two countries.

Let's say that some editor went through the list of 50 films Freeman had made, and found one where a few critics were harsh, or people claimed he was overpaid, or mocked him because the film was a box office flop. Would that deserve a section in this biography? Of course not. Including such relative trivialities would be undue weight. That is exactly what this section is.

Instead, people who care should write an actually neutral article about the Committee to Investigate Russia, if that venture is truly notable.