User talk:Valjean/Essay/Reliable sources, Trump, and his editors here

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 * User talk:BullRangifer/Political ideology and sourcing

There is a lot there worth reading, and a lot of support for this content. -- BullRangifer (talk)


 * This essay was also the subject of Arbitration enforcement proceedings here. See my comments about the history of this essay there:
 * Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive234
 * BullRangifer (talk) 04:01, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

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Ping me
If you comment here, please ping me. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:34, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Trump's effect on editorial perceptions of reliable sources.
The "Trump effect" isn't just a "reverse Midas touch", alluding to the fact that whatever he touches turns to crap, whoever he associates with gets their reputation and credibility damaged, and themselves become (more) corrupt and compromised. No, it also has another meaning of special relevance to Wikipedia, because Trump's war on the media has negatively affected some editors' perceptions of reliable sources and fringe sources, and that is a serious problem.

Trump's supporters completely distrust and demonize the mainstream media, and some editors don't see the huge difference between credible sources like ABC News, CNN, NBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times on one side, and Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which are partisan propaganda networks, on the other. They may say the media are all equally biased, yet they completely trust a limited number of very fringe and unreliable sources, most of which are so unreliable that we don't even allow them as sources here.

The Trojan horse in this slippery slope away from reliable sources is Fox News, which they trust, because Fox consistently supports and enables Trump, rarely reports anything negative about him, and parrots one-sided stories from fringe, fake, and Russian sources which defend Trump's and Putin's nearly identical POV and agendas.

Trump's motives for attacking the media are clear. Before a 60 Minutes interview, while Lesley Stahl and her boss were sitting with Trump, he began to attack the press. She then asked him why he kept attacking the press, and she later recalled his answer: "You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you." We actually have editors who are fooled by his tactic.

Worse yet, Wikipedia is complicit in this situation because we refuse to deprecate Fox for political subjects, broadly construed, even though its unreliability and partisanship is well-documented. We should send a strong signal to Fox News that Wikipedia will not lend its support to their deceptive reporting, and also a strong signal to Trump-supporting editors that they need to sharpen their crap detection skills. They should know better than to use crappy sources. Those who don't understand this are fringe editors who lack the competency needed to edit and comment on political subjects, and they should be topic banned if they get disruptive.

What editors believe is one thing, and we allow plenty of divergence there, but when they start advocating fringe views, without using RS, and start endlessly disrupting articles and discussions, we can't tolerate such disruption for long. That is when we use topic bans. That's all I'm talking about. Editors don't get topic banned for their political POV, or for their personal beliefs. They get topic banned because of disruptive behavior.

(Placing a full ref here so it shows up below. )

Three questions
1) How many times total have you posted this essay to RS/N without mentioning explicitly that it is a personal essay?

2) Is there any reason why you have limited yourself exclusively to US media? Is this a weakness or a strength of your opinion piece?

3) Do you realize you have typed the five letters T-R-U-M-P four hundred times in your op/ed?

&mdash; 🍣 SashiRolls t ·  c 13:30, 22 December 2018 (UTC)


 * 1) No idea, but it's obviously a personal essay. My comments, like yours and most others, are our personal opinions.


 * 2) Haven't I used The Guardian or BBC? I often do. Otherwise I just happen to primarily use English language sources here, although I speak, and could translate, from some other languages. Hey, it's an essay. No rule requires how this is done.


 * 3) LOL! What a waste of time. Maybe his name appears often because he's such a danger to RS and the media, so he's a main topic of this essay. BTW,  SashiRolls, what's your counting method? Teach me something. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 01:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Fox News should be deprecated

 * Support. With the exception of Shep Smith (consistently good) and Chris Wallace (he occasionally dares to do a good job), Fox News should be deprecated for politics. Those two hosts are the rare exception which proves the rule. The other hosts are abominable and totally unreliable. We don't save a source because only two out of a dozen+ of its hosts are good.


 * As noted above, Fox employees leaving the company have described the "news" room (not just any room) "like an extension of the Trump White House." The situation is worse now, to the point where the influence of Fox News and Fox & Friends on Trump and the GOP cannot be ignored. The tail is wagging the dog:


 * Deprecate it, which is not a total ban. When Smith and Wallace are accurate, they can still be used for politics. (The rest of the hosts should be blacklisted for politics.) -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:00, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Wow!
I'm just a minor editor on Wikipedia. I saw the link to this page on Donald Trump's talk page, but my eyes popped out. I want to say that this essay is phenomenal. This is a great essay, and there has been so much effort put into this.

Respectfully, Thanoscar21 (talk) 15:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, definitely well-written. -- llywrch (talk) 21:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Essay could use a couple of updates
I know this essay is a few years old but it could use a couple updates. IMO, reliance on WP:ADFONTES is misplaced. I also don't really think that CNN, Wapo and NYT skew left in any meaningful way. CNN of late has taken a sharp turn to the right to appear more even. Bloomberg also skews right IMHO. Andre🚐 04:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC)