Talk:The Washington Free Beacon

Reliability: Wikipedia or David Brock?

Just wondering who is more reliable for determining whether the Washington Free Beacon is reliable, David Brock or Wikipedia?

The following content was deleted by a member of the Arbitration Committee as being "unsourced" (Wikipedia is not a source / What happens at Wikipedia stays at Wikipedia), WP:UNDUE (not sure why it would be undue that readers be informed of Wikipedia RS standards), and WP:POINTy.

A verifiable claim sourced to an article by Alana Goodman was repeatedly deleted from the Wikipedia article for the Clinton Foundation, on the grounds that the Free Beacon was an unreliable source.

I admit to being perplexed. SashiRolls (talk) 15:19, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

References

• And I'm perplexed by your perplexment. Are you suggesting User:Doug Weller was acting for the Arbitration committee in reverting your addition to the article? That's a new one. He's an arbitrator and admin, agreed, but is also a diligent editor of articles (just look at his contribs), in which quality he of course neither uses nor mentions the powers these flags give him, because they are not relevant to ordinary editing. If you think arbs should abstain from all regular editing during their tenure, good luck proposing that as policy. Several of them are in fact proportionately more content contributors than arbs; besides Doug, Casliber comes to mind. As for your addition to the article, it was undue and pointy and most especially it violated WP:SELF. Bishonen | talk 16:12, 6 November 2016 (UTC).

(edit conflict)My being a member of the Arbitration Committee is irrelevant. Have you read WP:UNDUE? "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Wikipedia is not a reliable source by our criteria. WP:VERIFY states that "Do not use articles from Wikipedia (whether this English Wikipedia or Wikipedias in other languages) as sources." You were reverted there for adding the WFB and you should be aware that discretionary sanctions apply to the article, given the big notice at the top of the talk page, hence my comment about being WP:POINTy. In case you've missed that, I've put a DS alert on your talk page. And of course Wikipedia determines what is a reliable source by our criteria . Doug Weller talk 16:20, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

To clarify, you were reverted for adding the Washington Free Beacon as a source for the Clinton Foundation article, an article which is under discretionary sanctions. You were in fact replacing material that had been reverted earlier. There doesn't seem to be a consensus to restore this material and the Arbitration Remedies warning at the top says clearly " All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). If in doubt, don't make the edit." Or, to put it another way, "A verifiable claim sourced to an article by Alana Goodman was repeatedly deleted from the Wikipedia article" because it lacked consensus and to enforce an Arbitration Committee decision." Doug Weller talk 17:43, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Since you've moved the discussion to WP:RSN I've replied there to keep the pertinent information all in one place. (diff) Best, SashiRolls (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Category:News_aggregators?

Why is this in Category:News_aggregators? 129.120.178.56 (talk) 16:27, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Politico

@Snooganssnoogans: Why is content which is being verified by a reliable source being removed, along with an attack summary? The content removed stated:

In 2015, it reported on close ties between Clinton and the New York Times, such as it receiving $100,000 from the Clinton Family Foundation prior to its endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

, the source stated:

In recent days, the trouble is being caused on the Times' doorstep. Two Free Beacon reports have called the Times' integrity into question: One alleged that the Times used opposition research from a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC to publish a negative article about Sen. Marco Rubio; another revealed that the Times accepted a $100,000 donation from the Clinton Family Foundation in 2008, the same year that it endorsed her in the contested Democratic presidential primary.

It is taken from a secondary source, and can be corroborated by The Weekly Standard, and then later confirmed by NYT to Buzzfeed News (as reported by Politico) as a mistake that should have been done in 2007, but had occurred in 2008 instead. Is the summary wrong?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:25, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

First, The Weekly Standard is not a RS. Second, "that the Times accepted a $100,000 donation from the Clinton Family Foundation in 2008, the same year that it endorsed her in the contested Democratic presidential primary." is stated as if it were a bad thing. Keep reading the article and you'll see there was no causative connection. The Free Beacon was implying that there was a causative connection, and unreliable sources like the Beacon, Standard, Breitbart, Daily Caller, etc. would likely paint that inaccurate picture.

That's how propaganda works. Although the Beacon was "factual" about the amount, it's their implication that is misleading. Note this wording from Politico:

"The two Free Beacon reports on the Times are factually sound:..."

"However, both stories only imply possible causation, rather than providing hard evidence of it. Last week, the Times Washington bureau chief denied that its report on the Rubios was fed to them from an outside source, and provided the name of the document retrieval service the Times used to obtain the court documents. "We came across this on our own," she wrote. On Monday, Murphy categorically rejected the Free Beacon's report about the Clinton endorsement: "The Free Beacon story is preposterous from start to finish," she wrote.

"The Times is no stranger to reporting on possible lines of influence without hard evidence of causation."

That's why it's unsafe to even read unreliable sources. They have a strong agenda, and the further out they are on the left- or right-wing fringes, the stronger the agenda tends to twist things to the point of being misleading. Stay closer to the center and one avoids this. BTW, the Politico article is a real put down on The Free Beacon. It doesn't help their reputation. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:52, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

"Far-Right" vs "Conservative"

Stop with the far-right label. All RSs refer to it as "conservative" [1] [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 20:05, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I don't see any reason to change the longstanding "conservative" description, it's what the preponderance of reliable sources say. Marquardtika (talk) 20:51, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, the two are largely synonymous now anyway. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

User 'Dosafrog' falsely says they have consensus: [7]. Remove "far-right" and reinsert "conservative" Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 04:16, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

In case you've forgotten from your AE here is a list of everyone who disagrees with you.

curprev 14:29, 9 October 2020‎ Marquardtika talk contribs‎ 18,121 bytes +683‎ what RS say undo

curprev 10:52, 9 October 2020‎ Praxidicae talk contribs‎ 17,438 bytes -1‎ Reverted 1 edit by Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk): It's not edit warring and this is what the sources say, take it to the talk page undo Tags: Undo Twinkle

curprev 09:05, 9 October 2020‎ Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d talk contribs‎ 17,439 bytes +1‎ Undid revision 982345590 by Praxidicae (talk). Stop edit warring and stop referring to it as "far-right." All RSs describe it as "right-wing" or "conservative" undo Tags: Undo Reverted

curprev 15:51, 7 October 2020‎ Praxidicae talk contribs‎ m 17,438 bytes -1‎ Reverted edits by 2600:387:A:3:0:0:0:35 (talk) to last version by Rdp060707 undo Tags: Rollback Reverted

curprev 15:47, 7 October 2020‎ 2600:387:a:3::35 talk‎ 17,439 bytes +1‎ undo Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit Reverted

curprev 03:26, 3 October 2020‎ Rdp060707 talk contribs‎ 17,438 bytes +80‎ Reverted good faith edits by 47.201.225.5 (talk): Not far-left undo Tags: Undo Twinkle

curprev 03:24, 3 October 2020‎ 47.201.225.5 talk‎ 17,358 bytes -80‎ undo Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit Reverted

curprev 12:57, 2 October 2020‎ Praxidicae talk contribs‎ m 17,438 bytes -3‎ Reverted edits by 2601:603:1E80:AE90:7972:B0F2:DFF1:FA89 (talk) to last version by Dosafrog undo Tag: Rollback

curprev 12:54, 2 October 2020‎ 2601:603:1e80:ae90:7972:b0f2:dff1:fa89 talk‎ 17,441 bytes +3‎ Fixed a biased opinion about this group. undo Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit Manual revert Reverted

curprev 19:04, 30 September 2020‎ Dosafrog talk contribs‎ 17,438 bytes -3‎ undo Tag: Reverted

curprev 00:43, 26 August 2020‎ 107.77.202.208 talk‎ 17,441 bytes +4‎ wl undo Dosafrog (talk) 05:50, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Who disagrees with me? The IP editor and Marquardtika both agree with me. Only Praxidicae can't seem to read the cited sources. Show me a RS that calls them "far-right"?? If not, then I will reinsert "conservative". Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 09:38, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Harvard University Shorenstein Center https://shorensteincenter.org/conservative-media-influence-on-republican-party-jackie-calmes/

Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/03/14/the-far-right-media-have-a-meltdown/

NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/opinion/republicans-investigation-fusion-gps.html

Slate https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/kamala-harris-right-wing-talking-points.html

I'm not sure what these sources are meant to show. The Harvard source lists the Free Beacon in an appendix of "Conservative Internet Sites." The Washington Post oped says the Free Beacon is part of "conservative journalism." The NYT oped is by people who, per their op ed, were paid by the Free Beacon to "do Trump research." The Slate article doesn't appear to say anything about the Free Beacon's ideology. Marquardtika (talk) 14:49, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

New Yorker Footnote placement

The mention of the Clinton Rape defense cited a New Yorker article that doesn't actually mention that case. And the sentence on Jack Hunter had no citation, even though it was mentioned in that New Yorker piece. I moved the citation to the proper place. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 00:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)