Talk:The Washington Times: Difference between revisions

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What is conservative is acknowledging climate change and working to CONSERVE the climate.

Shows how in politics, words are used to designate the opposite of what they mean. ---Dagme (talk) 06:47, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is for discussing article content, not debating The Washington Times editorial policies.
(see: WP:NOTAFORUM). Also, I removed the dozens of exclamation marks and question marks from this section heading, they were unnecessary. FYI - ^theWOLFchild 10:39, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The particular text in question:

The Washington Times has published conspiracy theories that President Barack Obama was not born in America and that he was a secret Muslim, promoted conspiracy theories about the murder of Seth Rich (which the paper apologized for and retracted after a lawsuit), and published numerous columns that reject the scientific consensus on climate change. Under Wes Pruden's editorship (1992-2008), The Washington Times was noted for its association with white supremacism, as it regularly printed excerpts from white supremacist publications, published laudatory pieces about white supremacists and the Confederacy, and published racially incendiary commentary about President Barack Obama.[11]

The lead is supposed to summarize the body, not list specific incidents. The Seth Rich incident is literally one op-ed which was retracted, and the Obama issues is based on a handful of op-eds published by one author, Frank Gaffney, who is removed. Plenty of the articles cited about Frank Gaffney don't even talk about The Washington Times. Fox News also covered the Seth Rich incident, and to an even greater extend beyond a mere op-ed, obviously it would be Undue to list that in the Fox News lead. Listing these two controversies in the lead for a newspaper that has existed since the 1980s is akin to listing all the incidents of the "controversy" section of the New York Times article, and is no way proportional, especially since this text amounts to over a third of the lead. No one is questioning the fact that RS has covered these incidents, the issue is about weight. The sources cited report on these incidents no more that what the typical run-of-the-mill reporting of coverage of a short-term news story, and there is nothing that justifies it being in the lead. Furthermore, everything about the Times' alleged past association with white supremacists is based on a single article, which does not justify it being so prominently placed in the lead. Multiple issues with this, mainly not WP:Lead and WP:Recent Marquis de Faux (talk) 00:13, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• You know, it's one thing for a paper to get something wrong. These incidents aren't just "getting something wrong", though. You are welcome to start an RfC on this, I suppose. For now, though, merely saying "it's a conservative paper" is simply not telling the whole truth, so you're also welcome to propose new phrasing for the lead, something that includes spreading conspiracy theories, rejecting science, promoting white nationalism, and printing racist stuff. Seriously? Obama a Muslim, in the paper? Drmies (talk) 00:41, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't foresee a problem mentioning conspiracy theories in the lead but why go into specifics about certain ones? The lead should be a generalization without specifics. The foxnews page dispte the content being full of play-by-play daily Headline News the lead isn't actually all that bad... just a generalization.--Moxy (talk) 00:55, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Moxy, by all means, propose a statement. I'm not opposed to a general statement, but the difference between this and Fox is of course that Fox has a laundry list of issues. The lead, which right now mentions all the ones in the article (I think), isn't unduly long, but you do have a point of course. I wonder also if this isn't a bit recentist, but I can't judge that easily right now. Drmies (talk) 01:07, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you are referring to climate change, that is hardly a unique feature among US news publications, look at the article for Wall Street Journal for example. The Seth Rich stuff is indeed a specific incident that is also not unique to the Times (Fox News and others covered it as well), and also stems from one opinion piece. Worth mentioning in the body, certainly, but certainly undue for the lead. The Obama Muslim stuff came from a few articles by one columnist, Frank Gaffney, who was a Reagan administration official who was featured prominently in a number of conservative publications before he went nuts. The dude was writing for the paper since the 1990s, and was slammed by the Times' opinion editor in this piece for being a conspiracy nut https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/17/david-keene-when-conspiracy-nuts-do-real-damage/. Again, something worth mentioning in the body, but not in the lead. The "white supremacism" stuff is also pretty much all based on one anti-Pruden article, most of which is opinion rather than reporting. For example, the source claims the coverage of the American Renaissance conferences as "laudatory", citing one article from 1998, however whether coverage is "laudatory" or not is certainly up to interpretation. Again, this is an opinion that is worth citing and attribution in the body, as has been done, but does not have due weight for specific mentions in the lead. I am not opposed to a brief mention, however, in the context of summarizing the Times' general history. For example, "Widely described as a conservative newspaper, The Washington Times has had close ties to Republican administrations and has been described by the New York Times as a "a crucial training ground for many rising conservative journalists and a must-read for those in the movement." Under the Wesley Pruden editorship (1992-2008), the paper was known for its strongly conservative editorial stance and faced accusations of pushing nativism." Marquis de Faux (talk) 16:56, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Leads should be limited to defining features of a subject, as evidenced by a general consensus among sources that such things are crucial to understanding it as a whole. The contentious bit seems undue here, longer than any other lead statement and cited entirely to a single critic from five years past, who made no attempt to hide her bias against Pruden, an editor for less than half of the paper's existence. She also doesn't claim anything about conspiracy theories or racially incendiary commentary, beyond sensing a tinge of animus in Pruden's own opinion writing. This review could make sense (accurately relayed) in Wesley Pruden#Controversies, but doesn't seem to here. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:15, October 30, 2018 (UTC)

The lede should summarize the body. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed so. Marquis de Faux (talk) 17:24, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

agreed... In case it needed any further input... Not that the criticism should not be enumerated and at length according to RS applicability, but the lede is not for a list of specific transgressions.Happy monsoon day 18:27, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Times is mainly known for its conservative, or right-wing, political views. Would it be better to merge the material in the "political views" section with the rest of the article, which is organized historically? Right now it reads like two articles: "The history of the WT" and "The views of the WT." PopSci (talk) 10:01, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Most Wikipedia articles on newspapers have a section for editorial stance. It is clearer that way. Marquis de Faux (talk) 01:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]