Talk:Chloe Melas

BLP issues

A couple of sentences sourced to the opinion of a journalist were removed for BLP reasons, but that journalist has edit-warred to try to keep the content - which I have warned him about. There is a previous discussion above and also at the BLP noticeboard that I opened: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive326#Chloe_Melas. The previous consensus/compromise was to include the cut-down version of the content sourced to two Spanish-language newspapers; now a new consensus needs to be reached, with reference to the earlier discussions, as the content is again being challenged on BLP grounds. I am not acting in an admin capacity here, because I was involved in editing the article earlier this year to reduce and make neutral the wording about the Freeman controversy. Fences&Windows 20:49, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for opening this discussion. The content in question is "On December 4, 2018, El Mundo reported on a post on the Red Etica blog published by Fundación Gabo (es) that accused Melas of racism and fabricating the report on Freeman. Two years later, La Opinión also noted this accusation." The first source, El Mundo, says "En un artículo publicado por el portal Red Etica de la Fundación de Gabriel García Márquez para el Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, se describe cómo una periodista de entretenimiento de la cadena CNN, Chloe Melas, fabricó evidencias para acusar a Freeman. 'Todo fue un fraude de una reportera racista de CNN', asevera Tomoo Terada, escritor y autor del artículo.'" All this establishes is that Terada accused Melas of racism and fabrication ("It was all fraud by a racist CNN reporter"). The second source, La Opinion, links back to the El Mundo source. So, a writer named Tomoo Terada accused Melas of being a racist liar. His accusation was mentioned briefly in two news stories. For this type of exceptional claim, it's incredibly undue to include this opinion. What makes Tomoo Terada's opinion particularly noteworthy here? It didn't get much traction in mainstream media. It's an exceptional claim. And it certainly isn't appropriate for Tomoo Terada himself to keep trying to insert this content into the article. Marquardtika (talk) 14:12, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I had not read your statements Fences so maybe I´ll have to change part of my opinion about you again. In fact, you were the one who raised a consensus/compromise as you wrote to me at my talk page "We might compromise to include El Mundo and La Opinión: they're in there now." Then I´m going to put at the previous discussion those words because I accepted those words by you in good faith as a compromise even if you did not put at the noticeboard.

That´s important because this guy Marquardtika did not say a thing at the time about the editing done by you. So, he implicitly accepted it, but now suddenly, months later, he erased it with an erasure entitled "yikes, this is a major WP:BLP issue with dubious sourcing." So, it´s not true "the content is again being challenged on BLP grounds" as it´s exactly the same content you edited and he didn´t show any disagreement then. This absolutly disingenuous, and the bad faith is overwhelming

Now it´s clear, from the beginning, the idea it was to pretend to get a"consensus" months ago to now quietly erasing it. In fact, I don´t check Chloe Melas entry, but for a coincidence I saw that erasing. But no surprises, at all. In now more than three years since I published my piece, I have experienced how many people Chloe Melas have in her pocket.

What I challenge is your misrepresentation that you do now, that it was already clarified in the previous discussion, that this is a matter of opinion. That´s a lie. And if you have any doubt, please read the previous discussion and if have any doubt about it, then ask me.

And other journalists and writers would not clearly refer to the fabrication done by Chloe Melas as a fraud, montage, accusations that lacked evidence, etcetera, after reading my piece if I was not convincing on that. https://web.archive.org/web/20210812045258/https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard

LOL. Guy claims to be "a former journalist from Houston, Texas." Poor thing, if that´s true then must be hard to swallow to see how the one that he is attacking it had the repercussion he clearly never had. I was mentioned in media of 10 Ibero-american countries (search for it), including the main newspapers of Spain, no matter the undue pressures of CNN, that never dared to refute me, in three languages. So I´m gonna call main newspaper of Houston The Houston Chronicle, asking if that´s "didn't get much traction in mainstream media." LOL. How I can answer to blatant lies that continue with the gaslight against me? Tomoo Terada (talk) 05:38, 12 August 2021 (UTC) Tomoo Terada

I received a warning by Masem for supposed "personal attack" against Marquardtika because I pointed out he was lying when claimed without any objective base that the investigation on the fraud by Chloe Melas against Morgan Freeman "didn't get much traction in mainstream media." He does not elaborate or provide evidence of that.

So it seems Masem wants to start a polemics that I will be answering. Of course,this is blatant one-sided biased editing through threats (and recently even there was the attemp of the erasing of a CNN reference), but if they want to be so obvious, what can I do? So I will answer Masem. https://web.archive.org/web/20210812175342/https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Masem Tomoo Terada (talk) 18:07, 12 August 2021 (UTC) Tomoo Terada

RFC on allegation of making a false allegation

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

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Are the following assertions not supported by WP:Reliable sources?

Difference between revisions

1. Article asserts: "The claims were later proven false when video footage surfaced, showing Freeman hadn't made the alleged remark toward Melas" and cities: Rubin, Brent Lang, Rebecca (29 May 2018). "Morgan Freeman Lawyer Hits Back at CNN, Demands Retraction on Sexual Harassment Story". Retrieved 2024-11-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. Article asserts: "Melas falsely claimed that Freeman made several inappropriate remarks to her." with no inline citation.

The cited article does not support the assertion that the allegations were proven false; it rather quotes Freeman's lawyer stating that the allegations were proven false. I haven't seen any WP:Reliable source asserting, as a matter of fact, that the allegations were proven false. I see this as an allegation and a counter-allegation, and neither has been proven. Inability to prove an allegation is not proof of falsity.

Prior discussions on this topic here and here. Buffalkill (talk) 04:29, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Buffalkill this is a very long-way from the instructions given at WP:RFCOPEN which states "Include a brief, neutral statement of or question about the issue in the talk page section, immediately below the {{rfc}} tag". Please close this malformed RFC and start a new one which is in the form "Should x wording be replaced by y wording?", or "Should x wording be removed?", or something like that, without providing what your opinion is on the reliable sources. You can state your position in the proceeding discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 05:47, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I echo TarnishedPath's comment about how to proceed here and have slightly 'pruned' the content so as to make it more neutral in this hesays/shesays. The Freeman coverage is probably now half the article and may be disproportionate and 'recent'. Pincrete (talk) 07:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC on allegation of making a false allegation (resubmission)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a consensus that the article should avoid commenting on the truth of the allegations. Concerns about the size of the lead can be addressed via normal editing processes. (non-admin closure) —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 13:42, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

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Is the revision supported by WP:Reliable sources and otherwise consistent with WP:BLP?

Difference between revisions

Prior discussions on this topic here and here. Buffalkill (talk) 14:34, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (RFC)

See TarnishedPath's response to your first go. It's spot on. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 14:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I do think the current revision is good. "Disputed" is much much more accurate than "proven false". I don't think there was an attempt at discussion before opening this RfC, which should have been done. Pinging Maineartists Justiyaya 15:56, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Justiyaya Thanks for your input. Previous discussions can be found here, here, here, here, and here. The contentious material appears to have been inserted and re-inserted without being supported by inline citations. Buffalkill (talk) 16:43, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the discussions you've linked are rather stale. While it is inserted and re-inserted, I think it could've been helpful to discuss this with the few editors that were involved before the RfC was opened. Justiyaya 23:54, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The unsourced statements are stale. WP:BLP is evergreen. The statements were a BLP violation in 2021 and they still are. Buffalkill (talk) 03:07, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• This is of course a difficult case, where we have two opposed BLP interests, Melas' and Freeman's, and so we need to be careful not to violate BLP with respect to either person. At this point, there does not seem to be a consensus among reliable sources that the allegations are either proven true or proven false. So, the article should just note the facts (Melas made the allegations, Freeman denies them), without "taking a side" as to which is correct. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
• I agree with Seraphimblade, the prose that "The claims were later proven false when video footage surfaced, showing Freeman hadn't made the alleged remark toward Melas" should stay removed as the sources don't reflect that, they merely quote Schwartz as stating that the claims were proven false. Of course Morgan's lawyer would say that regardless of whether the matter has been adjudicated by a court. Likewise any wording in the article that states Melas' accusations are false should be removed or stay removed. To misrepresent sources like this is a BLP violation. All we are entitled to say in wikivoice, given the sourcing, is that the claims are disputed. TarnishedPath^talk 03:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
• All we are entitled to say in wikivoice, given the sourcing, is that the claims are disputed. per TarnishedPath. The disputed content should stay out. Pincrete (talk) 07:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
• Agree with the above editors the disputed content should stay out. I also think it needs to be summarized better and shorter, as is, that section alone comprises 47% of the total article content, which makes it UNDUE–ISH. Isaidnoway (talk) 13:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
• Keep LEAD as is, or even reduce this a bit. I think the article lead should note the Freeman story and that it would be incomplete without lead mention that it was countered with video evidence and alleged victims saying they were misrepresented by her, but that this could be done in just one line and the details shown in the lead are not represented in the body so it's a bit beyond what WP:LEAD supports.

First, I'm against the strong judgemental language of "False" as there is no judicial conclusion saying that, but I'm not wholly comfortable with using a WEIGHT evaluation here since the fact of accusation got enormous coverage which then tailed off to minor mention of countering facts and some about CNN then hired Morgan for voiceovers. Arguably she/CNN made a false story because it would get lots of readers and personal fame (and this article is continuing to do so) -- but there is no justification to declare that as fact.

Second, I'm thinking the body a bit flawed for supporting so much of the LEAD about this. In looking at the article about this I noted that her career section seems to be thin and have some gaps -- it is almost entirely the Freeman story and the sequence of positions says she left CNN long before this story with nothing shown between 2015 and 2023 and could use some more about her chronology or other works. My looking for the Freeman story also turned up a piece on someone else she accused here, which could be put in her career section, but again it's not clear what she did between 2015 and 2023. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:42, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.