Talk:David Bergstein

Business Development

Bergstein is involved with the investment banking business and financial supporting. Working for Solomon Brothers and Bear Stearns, David worked as a research analyst seeking out and evaluating undervalued and distressed situations.

In 1993, Mr. Bergstein became a partner in a specialized investment bank (now called Cyrano Group), performing a range of services including private and public debt structuring, seeking out and financing distressed and undervalued situations, handling workouts and crisis management.

While Bergstein has been involved with hundreds of transactions in many industries; locating, structuring financing for and/or restructuring companies which are undervalued, distressed or have complicating factors in their business. Past transactions range in size from $10 Million to $3 Billion in a variety of industries, with a concentration in technology, services and entertainment. Recent transactions include the acquisition of Miramax from Disney (US$660 M) and Financing for Broadway 4D Theaters (US$ 55 M.)

References

 Not doneIt is unclear what your request actually is. Please state in the format "Please change X to Y" or "Please add Z (and here are the reliable sources).

Note that LinkedIn profiles are a self published source and can only be used for non self serving, non promotional claims. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Added Reliable Resources, Want to Publish — Preceding unsigned comment added by LevilRowe (talk • contribs)

you still have not specified in an actionable manner what you want to happen. If you mean that you want that content placed wholesale into the article, the answer is: No, Wikipedia is not here to host an online resume or promotional content for anyone. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:16, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

This is not for promotional content, this is a biography about a public financial figure in Los Angeles.

You may not think it "for" promotional content, however, it IS promotional content and will not be added in anything like the way you have presented here. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:23, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The sources both go into detail about the legal issues surrounding Bergstein. If you wish to use those as sources, then we must also go into the details about the legal bits. We cannot cherry pick and present only the content that make Bergstein look good. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:45, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Is there still something wrong with the content here? 76.91.201.25 (talk) 22:39, 17 January 2014 (UTC)Max Tracy

@TheRedPenOfDoom: You made mention to "legal bits". Is there some other side to the story that isn't getting covered in the proposed text? —C.Fred (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the tail end of the Hollywood film biz legal issues are outlined here [1] IIRC, there were essentially a series of leveraged buy outs and projects with each one requiring a whole lot of cash coming in from the next one on floating loans, and then the "next one" didnt come in and the loan rates got jacked up and no one was willing to throw more good money after bad and these really big deals collapsed on each other and people ended up in court. I think there is some more info in the AfD discussion. In any instance the glowing financial history in the proposed text is not the full story. WP:NPOV covering all sides and all of that. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:12, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

• Not done: Please establish a CONSENSUS before reactivating this request. Thank you. Technical 13 (talk) 00:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

(post script) the above content had originally been requested with [2] as one of the sources. The final paragraph sums up the situation and identifies what has been covered most about the subject; but the sources that covered the issues were not of the quality that meet the required authority needed to satisfy the BLP issues and so the AfD essentially ended with an unspoken consensus to leave the article as a stub -not the advertorial advocated by the subject/supporters, and not the list of scandal after scandal proposed by the flamers. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:03, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Selected Filmography

Bergstein has help produce 18 films from 2004 to 2013. Most recently, David has help facilitate the largest transaction of independent films in the last 20 years when Disney sold Miramax to a group that includes Ronald Tutor and Colony Capital for $660 million. The purchase included the rights to 700 library titles, plus the Miramax name, books, development projects and other assets.

(Post Production) Nailed (executive producer)
2010 Love Ranch (producer – uncredited)
2010/II 6 Souls (executive producer)
2010 Father of Invention (executive producer)
2009 Black Water Transit (executive producer)
2008 $5 a Day (executive producer)
2008 The Edge of Love (executive producer)
2008/IV Blackout (executive producer)
2007 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (executive producer)
2006 .45 (producer)
2006/I Alpha Male (producer)
2006 Bordertown (producer)
2005/II Chaos (executive producer)
2005 Dead Fish (producer)
2005 The Wendell Baker Story (executive producer)
2004 The Whole Ten Yards (executive producer)
2004 Laws of Attraction (producer)
2004 Spartan (producer)

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by MaxJTracy (talk • contribs) 00:02, 4 January 2014‎ (UTC)

The prose in this requested edit should be in a separate section; the selected filmography should be only a list of titles. That said, what's the source for the filmography? —C.Fred (talk) 21:44, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

The list is referenced from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1520491/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 76.91.201.25 (talk) 22:41, 17 January 2014 (UTC)Max Tracy

Philanthropy

David Bergstein along with his wife Sara, formally dedicated the Conejo Jewish Academy’s adult education program as the "Leonard Bergstein Jewish Academy.” This was a tribute to the legacy of David's father. With the academy's format and curricula emulated by Jewish outreach centers from coast to coast, the Leonard Bergstein Conejo Jewish Academy continues as an adult education program.

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by MaxJTracy (talk • contribs) 00:02, 4 January 2014‎ (UTC)

This needs some editing before it can be used; it reads like a promotional piece. —C.Fred (talk) 21:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Tried to edit to be more factual... What are your thoughts now? 76.91.201.25 (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2014 (UTC)Max Tracy

LevilRowe (talk) 16:50, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Film

Bergstein has help produce 18 films from 2004 to 2013. Most recently, David has help facilitate the largest transaction of independent films in the last 20 years when Disney sold Miramax to a group that includes Ronald Tutor and Colony Capital for $660 million. The purchase included the rights to 700 library titles, plus the Miramax name, books, development projects and other assets.

moved this copy into its own section as requested 76.91.201.25 (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2014 (UTC)Max Tracy

Unfortunately, you deleted it from the other section, which is making a mess of other people's comments. Please don't delete or change other users' discussion on this page. —C.Fred (talk) 22:48, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Bergstein has help produce 18 films from 2004 to 2013. Most recently, David has help facilitate the largest transaction of independent films in the last 20 years when Disney sold Miramax to a group that includes Ronald Tutor and Colony Capital for $660 million. The purchase included the rights to 700 library titles, plus the Miramax name, books, development projects and other assets.

Please let me know if there is any issue with sources here and if so what is wrong so I can find you the appropriate sourceMaxJTracy (talk) 22:41, 21 March 2014 (UTC)Max Tracy

References

Proposed changes

Bergstein and partner Ron Tutor loaned money to Elie Samaha, who was unable to make repayments, and so as creditors, Bergstein and Tutor became owners of Samaha's Franchise Pictures' film titles. By 2006 they owned Capital Films and ThinkFilm.As company CEO for the past 20 years, Bergstein has handled a wide array of transactions, spanning many fields and ranging in size from $5 to $1.5 billion.

Beginning in early 2010, David Molner and entities with which he is affiliated (including Aramid Entertainment Fund Limited and Screen Capital International Corp.) filed scores of litigation around the world against Bergstein and his affiliates. These actions include the initiation of five involuntary bankruptcy proceedings regarding film companies in Los Angeles against Bergstein-affiliated entities, well over 50 separate adversary proceedings in the bankruptcy court against Bergstein and his affiliates, as well as lawsuits in New York and California State and Federal court. In fact, Molner and his affiliates have brought more than 100 actions around the world against Bergstein and related parties in just the past few years in attempts at Bergstein's defamation. Ten's of millions of dollars have been spent in these legal proceedings, but Bergstein has won every proceeding that has been concluded; Molner and Susan Tregub (former employee of Bergstein) have not prevailed in a single proceeding. In seeking out the right press contact to participate in Molner’s plan, Tregub recently informed Bergstein that Molner carefully selected Alex Ben Block. At that time, Ben Block was a freelance writer for The Hollywood Reporter. As of March 2014, Bergstein is suing the Hollywood Reporter for $150 million in a defamation lawsuit.

These 5 film companies mentioned above were said to have gone into bankruptcy in 2010, but as of March 2014 recent court cases have dismissed creditor claims against these companies.

Addition of recent legal facts which effects truth of content in current version of articleMaxJTracy (talk) 22:41, 21 March 2014 (UTC)Max Tracy

References

discussion - hollywood reporter : reliable source?

Lets start at the end with source 14 [3]. If we are going to start considering the Hollywood reporter as an appropriately reliable source, then we will also need to start including stories such as [4] and [5] about black mailing judges and gambling debts.

My position is that we maintain the current situation of not using Hollywood reporter. Without a reliable source covering it, primary source court docs in source 15 are not acceptable either.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:35, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I notice that THR article is written by Alex Ben Block who is cited in allegation #12 (page 4) in the court case, so even if THR is regarded as reliable in the general case, this article by this author for this purpose is not independent. As for the court records, we shouldn't be directly sourcing them because they are a primary source and require interpretation which we as editors are unable to provide. They may be ok for for providing direct quotations, but any findings, arguments etc really need to be sourced through a secondary source. Betty Logan (talk) 23:29, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLPPRIMARY may be relevant too, which instructs to "not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." Betty Logan (talk) 23:58, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Non-primary source perhaps not needed?

We read:

He contributes to the Huffington Post, the Times of Israel and the Algemeiner.[1][non-primary source needed][2][non-primary source needed][11][non-primary source needed]

Uh, what? If it's claimed that X is a contributor (NB not a "regular contributor", just a plain old contributor) to website Y, then a link to a contribution by X on website Y strikes me as a perfectly good piece of evidence for this. (Unless, of course, there's a reasonable suspicion that two different people share the same name X.) What's the problem? -- Hoary (talk) 07:49, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

the claims of being a contributing editor to those publications has been added part and parcel with the attempts to shine every knob in any way remotely related to this guy. when looking at the op eds he has contributed one sees that they are almost entirely self promotional pimping his financial acuity and never mentioning oh, the bankruptcies and lawsuits. In no third party sources is his activity as a columnist even mentioned and without such, based solely on primary sources its clear that the purpose of inclusion is to mask content that that doesnt make him look good by adding more trees to the forest and to serve as drivers to the op ed adverts.

We can remove them instead of tagging for third party indication that they are notable aspects about Bergstein. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Forget the (alleged) purpose of adding this stuff, and avoid metaphors such as "pimping". Is the material accurate? -- Hoary (talk) 02:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I dont think there is a factual question of whether or not Bergstein has published an op ed in the publications named. The question is: Is the information about the op eds appropriately relevant in this encyclopedic biography if such op eds have not received coverage by third party sources? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:16, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

There are entire guideline (and policy?) pages about what constitutes notability when deciding if an article is justified. The last time I looked, which admittedly was over a year ago, there was nothing about what constituted significance as a putative part of an article (on a subject whose notability wasn't questioned), or whether insignificance even mattered. So this was, and probably still is, a grey area. I suppose WP:NPOV would rule against having an article show more attention to that in which there was little or no demonstrable interest than to areas clearly of considerable interest. So one should be careful not to overemphasize this person's contributions to websites. But if I were to revert my additions to articles of stuff that hasn't been commented on or even mentioned by others, several articles would lose 90% or more of their content. And yet -- sorry if I seem to boast -- my addition of such content (though usually just ignored, unsurprisingly) has been praised and has never been criticized, and in one case even led to "Good Article" status. So I'd be inclined to leave this material in. If the articles are indeed largely self-promotional, then this too isn't our worry: no matter what we might say about standards or about desperation for kilobytes of content (and we shouldn't be saying it here), these websites thought Bergstein's material worth publishing. -- Hoary (talk) 03:51, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

A paragraph that at least one editor doesn't like

At least one editor wants the following paragraph removed:

Bergstein and partner Ron Tutor loaned money to Elie Samaha, who was unable to make repayments, and so as creditors, Bergstein and Tutor became owners of Samaha's Franchise Pictures' film titles. By 2006 they owned Capital Films and ThinkFilm. Capital was producer of the 2008 David O. Russell film Nailed which has not been released due to financial issues as of 2014. Bergstein led five film companies that went bankrupt, as of 2010 when a court ordered a trustee to oversee the companies during the bankruptcy process.

First, let's get a few (non?) issues out of the way. The edit summary with which this was last removed read:

This is a BLP. Contributor editors have COI and are paid editors with an agenda against subject. Persistent sock puppetry. Page is being used as an attack page against subject BLP.

Comments:

• Yes, this is a BLP.
• If contributor editors have COI and are paid editors with an agenda against the subject, raise the matter at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard, of course clearly identifying the editors in question.
• If the sock puppetry is abusive, raise the matter at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations.
• If this is being used as an attack page, raise the matter at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard.

And now the questions:

• Are the sources for the paragraph above reliable? If not, how so?
• Does the paragraph accurately reflect the sources? If not, how so?

If not, then we have a problem of verifiability. But if yes yes, then continue:

• Does retention of the paragraph (even though factually correct) unfairly bias the article as a whole? If so, how?

If not, we have a problem of neutrality of point of view.

I'd agree that there should be a few minor changes above; e.g. "Griogrieva" should (I think) be either "[Grigorieva]" or "Griogrieva [sic]". But what's the major problem here?

NB this is not a vote. Reasoned arguments from Wikipedia policy, please. -- Hoary (talk) 02:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The section had multiple problems in regards to accuracy. I wasn't the editor who removed it but I have re-written it making sure every detail is sourceable and now accurately relays the facts. I've given it a good copy-edit too. There are some sources I have removed, not on RS grounds, but simply because we don't need half a dozen sources for something that is easily verifiable like a bankruptcy order. However, the sources include other relevant info which can be integrated into the article at some point, so here they are:

1. The Wrap (2010), David Bergstein Creditors Launch Legal Assault
2. The Daily Beast (2010), Hollywood's Biggest Hustler
3. LA Times (2011), Unsealed trustee report puts David Bergstein, Ron Tutor in an unflattering light
4. LA Times (2011), Findings of probe into film financier David Bergstein are briefly unsealed
5. LA Times (2011), Chapter 11 trustee report on Bergstein companies
6. LA Times (2013), Steve Cooley and Alan Jackson join Hollywood legal battle

Betty Logan (talk) 23:46, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

A couple of news indeces for David Bergstein which will help editors keep track of what is going on: Deadline and The Wrap. Betty Logan (talk) 23:21, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clean-up. Seems much better. I corrected some details (now stale given recent developments) and drew a distinction between the BLP subject and associated companies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amytecko (talk • contribs) 02:08, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

PR Newswire is a press release regurgitation site, it is not a reliable source.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 05:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I noticed you culled the content sourced to a press release. That's fair enough, but it does seem accurate at least in stating that the claims of Molner's company, Screen Capital, were rejected. I have found a source credited to Law360 which details the judge's ruling: [6] (source also available through Google cache: [7]). Is that an acceptable source to you for the actual court ruling? Betty Logan (talk) 06:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Law 360 is published by LexisNexis and seems to be widely used as a source, so it probably qualifies. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 07:04, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Sheriff's Youth Foundation

I removed the non-primary source needed template from this material:

Bergstein is on the board of the Sheriff's Youth Foundation, a youth program run by the [[Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department]].<ref name=sheriffsyouthfoundation>{{cite web|url=http://sheriffsyouthfoundation.org/three-new-members-join-foundation-board/|title=Three New Members Join Foundation Board|publisher=Sheriff's Youth Foundation of Los Angeles County|accessdate=19 March 2014}}</ref>

Why is a non-primary source needed for that? Is it in doubt? Does someone think it's doubtful or that the SYF is lying about it? It seems innocuous to me and to be perfectly in line with WP:ABOUTSELF.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:32, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 14 April 2014

We are counsel to the subject of this BLP and request that the career section be removed until redrafted in a neutral manner. Although it cites to secondary sources, it is our belief that many different editors were paid by opposition in litigation and have a conflict of interest. The articles that are cited that are selected because of the negative tone or are untrue - bad reporting on very technical matters (bankruptcy - there is a difference between being forced into bankruptcy and being bankrupt - this is not up to a paper to report correctly but a fact) here the newspaper the wrap is wrong. We are working to correct with these papers.

As a BLP there should be difference provided to the subject. We respectfully request that this page be carefully vetted as it is causing this person great harm by misreporting and rereporting inaccurate information. Thank you.

206.71.55.134 (talk) 21:23, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

 Not done Please identify a neutral source describing the difference between "being bankrupt" and "forced into bankruptcy". Everything passes WP:V and WP:RS. If the sources are wrong, get corrections published, or find reliable sources that provide the alternate viewpoint. If you have SPECIFIC objections, to something stated in the article, and can either show that our current sources do not suppport that statement, or there are better sources showing the alternate, point those out. But "delete the section" is not an option.Gaijin42 (talk) 21:33, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I'd also like to suggest that it seems plausible to me that editors in the past have been paid by opponents in litigation, in the past this article was plagued with editors working to defame the article subject, but that was months ago. At the moment, we have the opposite problem, where one or more editors have been working to promote this individual, and it was just proven that one editor has been doing so by using multiple accounts to pose as multiple people. (Just a note, though the sockpuppet investigation names Amytecko, she was shown to be technically unrelated to the sockpuppets.)

As to what is in the article now, the information we have can only be verified by what are considered reliable sources by the Wikipedia community, as determined by consensus and defined by our policy. If reputable journalistic sources have made mistakes, those mistakes must necessarily be reflected here. We cannot do original research to correct those mistakes ourselves. If and when those sources retract or otherwise correct those mistakes, then we can update our information accordingly. Until then, the very same policies that are meant to protect our biographical subjects also prevent us from changing the information based solely on this request; we have a responsibility to objectively report what we can verify absent any personal beliefs or sympathies. -- Atama頭 21:50, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Comment David Bergstein is currently suing The Hollywood Reporter for "malicious reporting" and has alleged one of their reporters has been taking bribes from one of his creditors. In view of that all THR sources have been removed on the grounds of neutrality (and probably should stay out even if THR win). However, no legal action has been initiated against any of the other news outlets and we shouldn't remove sources simply due to the fact that the subject disagrees with them. Betty Logan (talk) 01:31, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Congrats!

		The Defenders of the Wiki Barnstar
		Congratulations to all the editors involved in bringing what was an article in shambles and under attack from both promoters and defamers into a very nice and well balanced piece! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:39, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Replaced archive link http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:X37hA1y21bwJ:www.law360.com/articles/517185/screen-capital-s-claims-axed-from-bergstein-bankruptcies with https://web.archive.org/web/20140326122315/http://www.law360.com/articles/517185/screen-capital-s-claims-axed-from-bergstein-bankruptcies on http://www.law360.com/articles/517185/screen-capital-s-claims-axed-from-bergstein-bankruptcies
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