User:S Marshall/Daily Telegraph close expansion

This page answers requests for an expanded version of my close of the Daily Telegraph reliability RfC, here.

In this discussion, the community once again considers whether the Daily Telegraph, a UK Newspaper, is really "Generally reliable" on trans issues. The Daily Telegraph is a Newspaper of Record, and to decide that it's unreliable on a topic is quite a big step for Wikipedia. The discussion has attracted a great deal of interest and comment, some of it very passionate indeed.

Editors on both sides agree that the Telegraph is biased on this matter. It is a willing warrior in the war on wokery. It gives platform to the most flagrantly gender-critical tracts by anti-woke activists. But of course, most sources are biased in some way. Our task as encyclopaedists is to construct neutral articles from biased sources. The point at issue in this discussion is where "bias" ends and "unreliability" begins.

The Telegraph's unashamed embrace of the widely-debunked Litter boxes in schools hoax is discussed at great length. The disputed article, here, is exhaustively dissected by the community, and, on the basis of scholarly sources and an Ofsted report, various misrepresentations contained in that article are noted. It's questioned whether these are really "misrepresentations" or confusions between fact and opinion. Towards the end of this, the "generally reliable" camp is reduced to a bold-face statement that reliable sources are allowed to make mistakes, which I receive as a concession that the article is misleading. And if the Telegraph has published a correction, then the "generally reliable" camp hasn't unearthed it.

There is also discussion of the Telegraph's use or misuse of gender pronouns, its historic homophobia and advocacy for conversion therapy (neither of which is the paper's current editorial position), its decision to give a platform to prolific author of anti-trans advocacy pieces Julie Bindel, and a very deep dive into the claim that trans-women can express nutritionally complete breast milk.

We label a source as "generally reliable" when there's widespread consensus that the source can be trusted to publish fact and retract error. Although some members of the community have confidence that the Daily Telegraph is reliable on trans issues, this view is strongly disputed by significant numbers. In fact Wikipedians are deeply divided about this. Wikipedians simply do not have the level of confidence in the Daily Telegraph's trans-related coverage that would justify its "generally reliable" listing on WP:RSP. We must, therefore, qualify our WP:RSP entry saying that the Daily Telegraph is generally reliable. We must say instead that the Daily Telegraph is generally reliable, except as regards trans issues and gender-critical views, where the Daily Telegraph's reliability is disputed. I leave it to others to make the consequent edits.

There is discussion of a moratorium on repeating the questions raised in this RfC. I leave that discussion un-resolved, not least because a moratorium is procedurally unfeasible. If there were a moratorium, there would be no route to challenge this close.

I hope that this helps and is sufficient to fully resolve the dispute. Questions, comments, and criticism of this close is welcome and should be directed to my talk page in the first instance. You can also challenge the close, in which case you can raise your challenge on my talk page but you're also welcome to proceed directly to the Administrator's Noticeboard if you prefer. Nobody should continue the discussion on this page, though.—S Marshall T/C 13:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)