Talk:Project Veritas

Implementing RfC consensus

Please make the following changes to the "ACORN videos (2009)" section, per the consensus reached in the above RfC:

1. Remove the unverifiable sentence: "O'Keefe's targeting of ACORN, coordinated with Andrew Breitbart, was due to conservative hatred for the organization significantly motivated by its voter registration drives."
2. Remove the unverifiable part of the following sentence, which I have labeled in bold: "On March 5, 2013, O'Keefe agreed to pay $100,000 to former California ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera for deliberately misrepresenting Mr. Vera's actions, and acknowledged in the settlement that at the time he published his video he was unaware that Vera had notified the police about the incident."
3. In the next sentence, change the unverifiable language - "The settlement contained the following apology:" - to the neutral "The settlement stated:".

Thank you, Sal at PV (talk) 13:16, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

#1 and #2 done. #3 is verifiable to [1] ("the settlement requires an 11-word apology"). Regards SoWhy 09:11, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Deceptively edited

The lead section of this article states that "The group is known for producing deceptively edited videos about media organizations and left-leaning groups." This sentence is formulated in a wildly inappropriate way. It suggests that all or most of Project Veritas's videos are "deceptively edited" as a matter of undisputed fact. In truth, most of Project Veritas's videos have never been criticized for being deceptively edited. Just to go through the list of videos discussed in this article, the New Jersey Teachers' Union video from 2010 was never, to my knowledge, criticized in reliable sources for being deceptively edited. Neither were the Medicaid videos (2011), the New Hampshire primary video (2012), the Patrick Moran video (2012), the US-Mexico border-crossing video (2014), the New York City elections official video (2016) or the New Jersey Teachers Unions Officials video (2018).

Even in the cases most widely criticized in reliable sources for allegedly involving deceptive editing, such as the 2009 ACORN videos and the 2011 NPR video, this contention was not undisputed. This very article quotes a piece by Clark Hoyt, then the public editor of the New York Times, stating that while the ACORN videos were "heavily edited," "the most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context." Similarly, referring to the 2011 NPR video, Mona Charen of National Review wrote that "James O'Keefe's editing of the Ron Shiller NPR video was not 'selective and deceptive.'" (Not to mention the fact that the whole notion that the videos were "deceptively edited" is an empty and unsubstantiated media trope, no matter how many "reliable" sources repeat it. But that is not the focus of my argument here.) This is not to argue that Wikipedia should not present the "deceptive editing" narrative as the mainstream view of media commentators. But Wikipedia should not pretend that this is an uncontested position, or that the position that PV's videos are not necessarily deceptive is a "fringe view."

In view of this, I would rewrite the sentence as follows: "The group is known for producing videos about media organizations and left-leaning groups, some of which have been widely criticized for being deceptively edited."

This version does not erase the fact that "deceptively edited" is the mainstream view in reliable sources, despite Project Veritas's strong objections to that view. But it also acknowledges that this criticism has only been levied at some of PV's videos and not most of them, and that the criticism was perhaps wide but not monolithic to the point where it makes sense to present the criticism as an undisputed fact. Sal at PV (talk) 13:43, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

New Jersey Teachers' Union video, what one of the sources we use says "manipulates interviewees and takes comments out of context to prove a biased point.", yes that read to me like it fits with "deceptively edited videos ".Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: You are referring to this article from nj.com. It's supremely ironic that you are taking this very quote out of context to make a point! If you actually read the article, the full quote is: "Some see it [the NJ teachers' union video] as a videotaped intrusion, a trumped-up attack produced by a self-styled muckraker [O'Keefe] who manipulates interviewees and takes comments out of context to prove a biased point. Others see it as hard proof that the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, couldn't care less about putting students first and see their jobs as lifetime sinecures, as its critics claim." The criticism in the first sentence is directed at O'Keefe broadly, not at the video in question, which the article did not criticize of deceptive editing (except in citing the statement from the teachers' union spokesman, who is obviously not an impartial party in the matter).

The NJ teachers' union video, like most Project Veritas videos, were not called "deceptively edited" by any reliable sources. So it is ludicrous for Wikipedia to make it seem as though "deceptive editing" is what Project Veritas is known for. Sal at PV (talk) 18:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Well they certainly aren’t known for honesty or transparency... I’m not seeing the issue with the current wording of the lead. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

This should be very simple, so I will break it down for you. There is no basis for saying that Project Veritas is "known for producing deceptively edited videos." The group is known for producing videos. A small number of those videos were criticized (wrongly, O'Keefe and others contend) for being deceptively edited. That is precisely what Wikipedia should say in the intro, contrary to the current language. Sal at PV (talk) 13:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 August 2020

As per NPOV, I recommend removing tags suggesting ProjectVeritas is a right-wing advocacy group. ProjectVeritas is project committed to net neutrality, and sources indicating it is right wing. Sources are not reliable indicating this is a right wing advocacy group [1][2][3][4]. ProjectVeritas is non-partisan and is not right wing. Highlighting big-tech platforms methods of stifling primarily conservative content does not make it right wing. It remains dedicated to net neutrality. Ashleybackwoods (talk) 02:58, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Feel free to come back and try this again once you've changed well-established consensus that the Associated Press (WP:RSP#Associated Press), The Guardian (WP:RSP#The Guardian), The New York Times (WP:RSP#The New York Times), and The Intercept (WP:RSP#The Intercept) are reliable. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC)