Talk:Fox News controversies

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Fox News, President Obama and Osama bin Laden

A new section should be added to numerous times Fox News had said "President Obama is dead", "Obama bin Laden is dead" and "Obama is dead", should it be created? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Silver163 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you have source of any respectable figure calling them out on it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.89.137.233 (talk) 00:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Give us a break. There have been multiple instances of various non-Fox News individuals mixing up Osama bin Laden's and Barack Obama's names. The notion that there needs to be a separate section devoted to minor slips of the tongue are why much of the criticism of Fox News is not to be taken seriously.

University of Maryland study

I don't want to quibble about each word used in the description, but it needs to be somewhat accurately reflect what the survey was about. The survey clearly states that it is about misinformation and it also explains what it considers "false" and "correct" information in this context. So no matter how exactly you want to phrase that, you cannot simply state it was a survey of beliefs and fox viewers turned out to have the following believes, such a description would be an utter misrepresentation of the survey and a violation of WP policy.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What policy is being violated? How is it being misrepresented? Also this is a violation of WP:PRIMARY Arzel (talk) 21:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If you describe the content of a source in a false or misleading manner, that's a policy violation. As I said above the study is cleary about misinformation (starting from its very title to lotsa detailed formulations explaning and talking of misinformation) and turning that into mere "opinion survey", as the old description did, is a gross misrepresentation. Note that at this point this has nothing to do with the study's claims being (objectively) true or not or whether it should be critiqued or not. It is just a question of describing its claims accurately.

As far as WP:Primary is concerned, I don't really see a violation here, in particular in this area, where people cite constantly pundits, newspapers and even blogs arguing against academic university publication on the base of WP:Primary strikes me rather odd and the study is not exactly putting forward a novel idea either. Also if you read WP:PRIMARY carefully, you'll see there is usually no issue with citing reliably published (primary) material, as long as you stay away from personal interpretations, which btw was exactly the problem of the old formulation (by ommission) and the reason I complained. Lastly you might not even the consider paper itself as the primary source but rather its raw data/questionaire, whereas the interpretation of that data by the scientist is not really that different from the interpretation of the data by any (other) secondary source.

Lastly if you seriously want to object against the use of the study at all on the base of WP:PRIMARY, then I'm partially the false person to address. I included the study neither here nor in the FOX News article, I merely corrected its misleading description.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Soxwon is probably right, that is better to explicitly put the information in qualifiers (i.e. explicity writing something like "the study claims, that ..."). However the edit was still somewhat problematic, as it what again not fully reporting what the study actually says. I tried to fix that, but I but i think my formulation is still a bit awkward, so feel free to improve it. But please note, that a proper description needs to cover the following points to describe the study accurately:

• It needs to be clear that the study defines what misinformation is (but that definition is not universally agreed and might be subject to debate)
• It needs to be clear that they explicitly classify various voters' beliefs as false or true based on their definition misinformation

Just stating the various beliefs without the study's classification of them is omitting the central point of the study being about misinformation (="false" beliefs).--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that the current wording should work OK. It may be better to use a secondary source to characterize the study, but I don't feel strongly about it. I do think that some of David Zurawik's analysis of the study should be added in another sentence, namely, who defines "misinformed" (already covered in the current text), that certain government agencies are defined as holding the "true" views, and that the study didn't differentiate between the influences of actual news coverage vs. political ads seen on the FNC. Drrll (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Misinformation is a completely unambigious term. believing the answer is not a when the answer is a. it can be defined quantitatively in terms of information theory. notice however that there is a common misperception about information (ironically!), namely it is common to percieve it as something intrinsic, where in fact it is a peroperty of a relationship between things. the information ('signal') "in itself" is not a sufficient definition to evaluate it quantitatively. for instance, one may need to specify a source. having specified a source you can then determine the divergence between the model (recieved message) and the source, e.g. as a kullback-liebler-divergence. in the case of binary values this becomes utterly trivial. e.g. "what number am i thinking of?" "5?". "no." now say i am thinking of the number 7. someone else tells you that i am thinking of the number 3. that is misinformation. (notice they must include a source, "me" in order to evaluate whether it is misinformation or not). this is the universally agreed upon definition and it is not subject to debate. Kevin Baas^talk 19:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The second part: "it needs to be clear that they explicitely...." no it doesn't. that's implied neccessarily. that follows neccessarily from there being information to be informed or misinformed (or not informed) about. to state otherwise would simply be absurd. Kevin Baas^talk 19:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Kmhkmh is correct. describing the content of a source in a false or misleading manner is a clear violation of policy, nto to mention downright unethical. there is nothing ambigiuous or debatable about this issue. it is for that reason that i am replacing whatever the hell that was with a faithfull summary of the content of the report. Kevin Baas^talk 19:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

From the report:

A study of misinformation raises the somewhat delicate question of what is true. When dealing with topics that have been highly politicized, it is common to default to the position that all perceptions are relative and treatment of any position as more or less true is itself inherently political. We believe that such a position is at odds with what is necessary for well-functioning democracy. It is indeed very important for a healthy democratic process to be open to a wide range of positions. At the same time, it is essential that there be means and institutions for achieving consensus about key factors that ultimately affect public policy decisions. On a regular basis government economists come to conclusions about the state of the economy. Such conclusions influence key decisions in the private sphere, as well as government decisions. Such government economists should be, and generally are, open to input from experts outside of government in the course of coming to conclusions. In the course of this study, to identify “misinformation” among voters, we used as reference points the conclusions of key government agencies that are run by professional experts and have a strong reputation for being immune to partisan influences. These include the Congressional Budget Office, the Department of Commerce, and the National Academy of Sciences. We also noted efforts to survey elite opinion, such as the regular survey of economists conducted by the Wall Street Journal; however, we only used this as supporting evidence for what constitutes expert opinion. In most cases we inquired about respondents’ views of expert opinion, as well as the respondents’ own views. While one may argue that a respondent who had a belief that is at odds with expert opinion is misinformed, in designing this study we took the position that some respondents may have had correct information about prevailing expert opinion but nonetheless came to a contrary conclusion, and thus should not be regarded as ‘misinformed.’ It should also be noted that queries about expert opinion were not predicated on the idea that there is unanimity on issues. On some issues, such as climate change, there is a vocal dissenting minority among experts. Thus questions were framed in terms of whether, among experts, more had one or another view, or views were evenly divided.

Kevin Baas^talk 20:09, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

And let me be clear 'cause it seems that you miss this crucial point: they did not ask people what their opinion was, they asked them what they though expert opinion was, whether it was divided or unanimous. not whether the experts were right or wrong, or certain opinions were right or wrong, as you seem to think. while the latter may be subjective, the former is not. Kevin Baas^talk 20:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The inaccurate wording i have removed blatently misleads on these very important points stated clearly and in no uncertain terms in the very introduction of the report. this is a clear violation of policy, and ethics. Kevin Baas^talk 20:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as the study goes, this video pretty much casts doubt on it in the best way possible (with facts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8KHOgyYyHQ PokeHomsar (talk) 21:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

sorry, i watched a few minutes of that video. in short, it's a crock of sh**. it's more egregiously fallacious and opinionated than the people here who want to misrepresent it and add their own synthesis and analysis that's directly contrary to the information contained in the report. and it is the worst example of blatent bias i've seen in nearly a decade. it is just downright disturbing, and i wish you hadn't shown me it. Kevin Baas^talk 22:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

You clearly didn't watch a minute of it. He does analysis to contradict the conclusions of the study by casting doubt on the answers to the questions. The answers to the questions were completely false. There's a reason the MSNBC viewers did better than the rest on most of the questions. PokeHomsar (talk) 00:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it seemed like he set out to find certain answers and cherry-picked the facts that best supported these answers, and although his analysis was vaguely interesting, I would definitely question his methods. Soxwon (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, there is a fair bit wrong with that video, certainly his appreciation of Crowding out (economics) is flawed. un☯mi 02:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well the video does raise some valuably questions in terms of critically questioning the study and provided some interesting background research, but it has some flaw on its own by cherrypicking the background material and somewhat ignoring some context issues and reading things into the study, which it strictly speaking doesn't claim (but only people using it do).

In some way it might just show that the study should have not used some of the economic questions in a murky area where there are no clear answer from a strict scientific point of view to begin with but only people believing to have them. Some ecomnomic arguments occasionally bear resemblance to religion rather than science.

As far as the WP article is concerned the video cannot be used as a source anyway. And the original point of thread was, that the claims of the study were not accurately/adequately described in the WP article. Which is a completely different issue from the question whether those claims are actually true or not. However that problem with the inaccurate description has been fixed already.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: Various recent edits introduced the misrepresentation of the study again. So let me reiterate:

If you reference/cite the study at all, you need to do so in an accurate manner. The description of those views of Fox viewers as misinformed and false is a central claim of the study. It does not matter whether you agree with the study's claims or not and it doesn't matter whether they are truly correct or not. In any case you need to describe the study's claims accurately, anything else is a policy violation.

If some editor here still has problems to wrap his head around this concept, then think of it as a quote. If you quote somebody, then you have to quote his originally statement verbatim, no matter whether it is correct or total nonense. And if you think the content of the is nonsense, you can add some sourced criticism of it afterwards, but you cannot modify or correct the quote to remove the (perceived) nonsense.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Kmhkmh, very clearly stated. I share your frustration that it seems some people are making a straw man of the report, and personally i find making a straw man of anything morally reprehensible. anycase you may have noticed my wording. while you changes are definitely a step in the right direction, i was striving for wording that more closely approaches a "quote", as you say; one that more precisely matches the technical precision of the wording used in the report. e.g. w/phrases like "statistical significance" and "correlation", and clarifying that the study was not about belief, but about knowledge of what the distribution of expert opinion was (while remaining agnostic about the opinions themselves). why be vauge when you can just as easily be a little bit more precise, thus being simultaneously more accurate _and_ more informative? anycase that's just a little overview of the thinking behind my wording, FWIW. Kevin Baas^talk 14:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not necesssarily a big defender of the current wording, but to me that's something like minimal version I might accept to avoid edit warring. Going below that as in the version before is misrepresentation of the study and policy violation or in a more common tongue simply lying (by ommission) about its content. If you want a more extensive description, I have no objections. But I would prefer if you and the other involved editors (azrael, soxwon, PokeHomsar) were to agree on text proposal on the discussion page first, rather than edit warring over it in the article. Another compromise beyond coming up with our own accurate description of the survey's claims and content, is to agree an various literal quotes giving an accurate description in their entirety. It seems a bit artificial/overblown to me, but of nothing else works that might be an option.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I fixed a little something you missed that i'm sure noboby will have any problem with: [1]. Kevin Baas^talk 16:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I also fixed an attribution error and a lie by ommission: [2]. I don't expect these to be controversial, either. Kevin Baas^talk 16:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I noticed the line under, that says "...agencies are defined as holding the "true" positions on issues ...". this is patently false. the report clearly states that agencies are not in anyway presumed (or "defined"!) to hold "true" or "correct" positions on the issues. this is clearly stated in the intro in the text i have quoted above. as this is a matter of verifiable fact (a matter of record, in fact), it should be made clear to the reader. Kevin Baas^talk 17:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I quote directly from the study: "While one may argue that a respondent who had a belief that is at odds with expert opinion is misinformed, in designing this study we took the position that some respondents may have had correct information about prevailing expert opinion but nonetheless came to a contrary conclusion, and thus should not be regarded as 'misinformed.'" Kevin Baas^talk 18:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

"According to the results of the study many viewers of Fox News falsely believe that most economists think that the fiscal stimulus of 2009 caused job losses, that most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit, and that most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring, and this misinformation about the distribution of expert opinion increases with the frequency of watching Fox News." The wording of this is untrue and false. I read the study and the source myself, nowhere in the study does it say any of the things you have written. Nor is any of this quoted directly from the study, because it's not what the study indicates.

I directly quoted from the study when I said Fox viewers were more likely to believe a certain thing. I left out the charged word "falsely" because it was nowhere in the study you have sourced, and I have no partisan agenda here as that word seems to serve. You are distorting the study. As I stated before I could not find anywhere in the study where it says "many fox viewers believe" or that they "falsely" believe anything, only that they were more likely to believe a certain thing. It is not up to you and your original research to decide whether a belief is false or not. The source does not state that any belief is false -- that is something you added in through original research -- and if you have some sort of agenda of proving that, than do so. If you want to prove that the fiscal stimulus of 2009 did not cause job losses, that the health care law will not worsen the deficit, and that most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring you should do it somewhere else where it does not appear that it is simply a partisan injection of liberalness with no real goal. You are trying to use a study about misinformation to disprove certain economic and environmental beliefs among other things; this is not the place or the source for that. Show me in the study where it says something is a false belief. It's not cool to put words in the mouth of a study and claim that it is just and what the study really said.YouMakeMeFeel: (talk) 03:49, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Read the comments above carefully and please refrain from starting the same nonsense all over again.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:54, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The wording from the study is Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:. As YouMakeMeFell stated, the word falsely is not in the document. Arzel (talk) 05:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

That is quote mining and presenting it out of context and this is clearly explained above. The study clearly identifies those beliefs as misinformation or false. Read the comments above carefully in particular the bold print.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:16, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Quote Mining?!?! Seriously?!? That is the quote directly preceeding the section which makes those statements. What we have included in this article is almost verbatim from the study. Arzel (talk) 14:44, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

That is what quote mining is, quoting certain pieces out of a document verbatim but ignoring the context and as a result mischaracterizing the information/content of the overall document. As I said before that those views are false or misinformation is the core context of that document. It is is not just sampling arbitrary views but it is sampling views it considers to be misinformation or not true.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I've no dog in this hunt, but it seems to me your argument (assuming I understand your argument) that, based on this study, "misinformed" is clearly synonymous with "false" may be quite problematic per WP:RS, WP:OR, perhaps WP:SYNTH and, almost assuredly, WP:TRUTH. "Misinformed" is a characterization while "false" is a declaration with considerably more rhetorical mojo.

If your suggested use of "false" as a contextually legitimate synonym for "misinformed" cannot be supported by a specific quote from the purported source (which, IMHO, is the mandated WP:POLICY resolution for "challenged" content), then I must concur with those objecting to its use. JakeInJoisey (talk) 12:44, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you skip frankly somewhat ridiculous rule gaming here and read the explanation below carefully and reread the older discussion as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:21, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Alright due to AGF there is apparently some help in text processing needed here, so let me provide it:

• read page 3 - 4 pay in particular attention to: A note on the the question What is "True" and the key findings under point 2 and 4
• now read pages 6 - 17 carefully and note what the study classifies as a correct answers (correct beliefs) and as misinformation (false beliefs).
• Now read page 21 - 26 and pay in particular attention to page 22. One page 22 the quote mined for the article is "Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched to believe that ....". Now if the suggested reading above still hasn't rung a bell, that the studies considers the listed beliefs as false then pay attention to line directly above the quote mined one, which provides the contexts again: "There are however a number of cases where a greater exposure to a new source increased misinformation on a specific issue."
• lastly some help in plain English. If a person beliefs in claim A and claim A is a misinformation then the person falsely believes in A.

Conclusion:

A description of the study results by simply listing various views being more common among Fox viewers without mentioning that the study classifies those views as misinformation or false beliefs (as YouMakeMeFeel, Arzel and JakeinJoisy apparently prefer) is a severe misrepresentation of the study's results. As I've already mentioned in the older discussion further up, I don't care about the exact wording (be it "false belief", "misinformed belief" , "misinformation",....), but omitting one of its a central aspect in the description of its results is clear no-go. --Kmhkmh (talk) 13:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

You have clearly laid out your original research. The first sentence in the section clearly states that this study is about "misinformation". This is then followed by what FNC viewers believe. You seem to want to belabor the point by repeating the "misinformation" word and then replace that word with your more stronger wording of "falsely believe". Why do you feel the need to emphasize the issue past what the actual study does? It is a correct representation of the wording from the study, you seem to want to impart your own personal opinion into the mix as well. Arzel (talk) 14:41, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

WTF??? he has clearly enumerated pages in the report, asking you to read certain section and take note of certain sentences in there, quoting them exactly. how is that OR? that's called READING THE FRIGGIN' REPORT AND ACTUALLY COMPREHENDING WHAT IT SAYS. that's a prerequisite to saying anything at all sensible and accurate about it. now if you're going to shed doubt on the value of reading comprehension then it behoves us to ask: why, pray tell, should we bother to write anything? Kevin Baas^talk 22:34, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes he clearly enumerated the pages and laid out a perfect reasoning for coming to his conclusion by using several different pages to make his argument. He then followed it up with a clear logical conclusion to his reasoning. In other words he synthesized several section together to present a novel interpretation thus violating WP:OR specifically WP:SYNTH. His primary problem is that the study never says that FNC viewers falsely believe anything, only that they were misinformed based off the definitions used for the questions. The authors of the study attempted at great lenght to not be the judge of the accuracy of the actual statements, which is probably the best thing that can be said about this study. Arzel (talk) 00:28, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Wow, you've got to be frickin' kidding me. What is your beef with reading and comprehending the frickin' study so that its content can be accurately represented? Kevin Baas^talk 13:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what quote mining is, but Arzel and JakeInJoisey have made my points; Arzel, by justly using a quote from the study. The quote that Arzel used is presenting nothing out of context, instead, it is representing it in the context that it is originally made, instead of adding the words "falsely believe". JakeInJoisey reiterates my point that the word misinformed is not clearly synonymous with false. If you want to prove that the fiscal stimulus of 2009 did not cause job losses, that the health care law will not worsen the deficit, and that most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring you should do it on their respective articles relating to those ideas, because that would be the relevant place; instead of trying to inject that here. You have clearly laid out your original research, which is not allowed. As said, it is clearly stated that the section is about misinformation, it does not need to be stated again because that would be wholly redundant. I think the current revision is quite good.YouMakeMeFeel: (talk) 18:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Please read through the discussion in this section carefully from the beginning, before it was started back up again. I do not feel I should have to reiterate what has already been stated very clearly. Thank you. Kevin Baas^talk 22:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, JakeInJoisey's revision was very well written, and very neutral in nature, while your revision is very poorly written and entirely paraphrased in your own opinion.

1. non-sequitor

2. pure opinion with absolutely nothing to back it up

3. also, just plain false, and baldly so

4. why did you bold that?

Kevin Baas^talk 13:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I've seen the previous discussion, and I disagree with your conclusions Kevin Baas; I'm sorry you don't like some of Wikipedia's policies on certain matters such as original research... we all have to work with them here. I, and a few others, opt to use direct evidence through quotes from the source, while you try to paraphrase in your own views and make completely weak and childish arguments like "this is crap". You have a section about critical thinking on your talk page and you make a statement like that? Wow...

How can the revision be cleary biased when it uses direct quotes from the source.. that one of you pulled? Unless of course you are implying that the source or study is somehow biased. Just because you think someone is biased doesn't make it so, and it doesn't diminish their argument either. Instead, it makes you look like the kid who crys wolf, i.e. you call someone biased whenever you have no good argument for yourself or points of your own, and it diminishes your own argument if you have any. Kevin Baas, you are simply showing your inabiltiy to be an effective editor on this matter.YouMakeMeFeel: (talk) 23:41, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

WTF?!?! Now you are making dishonest arguments and putting words in my mouth! When did I say i don't like any of WP's policies on OR?!?! I love them!! When was i trying to paraphase? I never was! I am trying to use direct quotes, and you guys are fighting that! And how can you possibly call "this is crap" an argument?!? Do you even know what an "argument" is?

How does the existence of direct quotes preclude completely the possiblity of being clearly bias? How does it follow that the source is biased? When did i imply that i think me saying something is biased makes it so? What arguments? Who did i call biased? I've refered you to my arguments above, which nobody has even tried to refute yet! Discuss content not contributors! Don't insult people! Don't you find it ironic a little bit ironic that you are the one being disrespectul and patronizing and and all and you are using the word "childish"? And you haven't even made a single argument yet, or discussed any of mine whose "conclusions" you purportedly refurte and thus feel you can hand wave them all withtout saying anything about them and then that's the be-all-end-all-final statement on them, all you have said here is been insults that don't even make any sense! Kevin Baas^talk 13:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

@Arzel: You were confusing original research with original writing, that is to provide an accurate summary of a source in your own words, which is our essential job as editors. The notion, that calling a view false, which the study defines as not being the Truth or misinformation would constitute original research is utter nonsense. I suggest you reread the arguments above carefully . Keep in mind a(n accurate) reformulation in your own words is not original research but drawing your own additional conclusions is, but did not do the latter above but just the former. I didn't draw any additional conclusions but I just explained what the study actually says and which parts you need to consult in particular to understand that (rather than focusing on a single quote).

@YouMakeMeFeel: I'm not sure whether you haven't fully understood the issue (at least judging by your earlier postings). This is not about WP stating whether Fox viewers are more likely to have false views, but about WP accurately describing the content of that study. This means WP needs to state, that the study claims Fix viewers are more likely to hold certain views the study characterizes as false or misinformation. The issue with old version was that it didn't do that. However JakeinJoisey's latest edit has fixed the issue with an alternative formulation, so apparently he has understood the problem now.

@All: Imho JakeInJoisey's new version is acceptable, at least it is not a misrepresentation anymore (contrary to the version he originally preferred). Whether Kevin's or JakeInJoisey's is better is matter of editorial judgment and I don't have strong opinion on that. However the old mischaracterization is a no-go.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you are confused in thinking that they are different. You are not a reporter, WP is not a reporting entity. WP is not an originator of original thought, and if your summary includes original thought or synthesis of existing information then you are breaking core WP policies. Your summarization to "explain" what the study is talking about is your perspective of what the study is talking about, ie, original research. Arzel (talk) 18:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

As I said already there was no original thought involved nor a synthesis of different sources, there was an accurate summary of one source. And it is not "my perspective", but what the study itself says and there isn't really any wiggle room "personal interpretation" on that matter. The study clearly classifies the discussed views as misinformation and as not being the Truth (and I gave you the explicit places in the paper, where it does that). And yes understanding a source is requirement for using it properly and has nothing to do with original research either. To be rather frank, if you're seriously claiming the study doesn't describe those views as false or misinformation, then from my perspective you either haven't really read the study or you're gaming. But be that as it may, if you insist on seeing original research here, feel free to request a third opinion.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I said that there were major problems in the new revision and asked the people making the changes to discuss it on talk first. This is also noted on the boilerplate at the top of this page: "The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. Please discuss substantial changes here before making them.". Emphasis added on "before".

Since they have failed to do so -- not one of them even had the courtesy to ask me what said problems were -- and instead opted to continue revert warring, I have taken it upon myself to change it back to the consensus version and the status quo ante bellum, and point out a few of the problems with the substantial changes, below.

• Changed back: characterized as "misinformation" to considered misinformation" - "Characterized" is a very strong pov word and there was no characterization, making this not only pov but just plain false.

• Removed: While noting that "...false or misleading information is widespread in the general information environment...",

  as this is entirely trivial and insignificant. The goal is obviously to rhetorically diminish the results of the poll; to "weasel"; with spurious information.

• removed: the study concluded that "...those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe..." this single line was not' the study’s conclusion. saying that it is is original research (and clearly false), and it is also clearly intended to diminish the results of the report by providing false information about the scope of the study and its results.

• removed: …assertions characterized by the study as "misinformation"' -again characterized is a pov word and just plain false in this case. Also “assertions” is misleading as it makes one think that they were things like "global warming is real" – an assertion – when actually the questions were with regard to what expert opinion was on global warming, and the report explicitly states that they do not predicate the results based on any assumption of the accuracy of these opinions. Also, WHAT "assertions"? why don’t you just say what the questions where in regard to specifically. Thus, replaced all this with the original "According to the results of the study many viewers of Fox News were more likely to believe that most economists think that the fiscal stimulus of 2009 caused job losses, that most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit, and that most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring, and this misinformation about the distribution of expert opinion increases with the frequency of watching Fox News." as this solves all of these problems.

Kevin Baas^talk 15:05, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted your edit. The purpose of the tag you mis-cited as justification for your undiscussed edit is to encourage dialogue on contentious content so as to preclude edit-warring. "Dialogue" necessitates feedback PRIOR TO execution of a likely contentious edit, not an after-the-fact invitation to "discuss". You can, of course, revert right back if you so choose, but please don't characterize your edit as some specious and transparently pretentious adherence to guidance which your edit, in actuality, totally ignores. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:31, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

As per your correct interpretation of tag i cited, i cited it properly. As you correctly state, ""Dialogue" necessitates feedback PRIOR TO execution of a likely contentious edit, not an after-the-fact invitation to "discuss"." That is why i have reverted, once again, your likely contentious edit. nor please engage in "dialogue" with "feedback" PRIOR TO execution your likely contentious edit. Once again. As you can see from above I have even taken the liberty of starting if for you, having gotten tired of waiting for you to provide any justification in full or in part for your substantial and likely contentious edit. I have clearly stated numerous issues with it. please address these issues. Kevin Baas^talk 17:33, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

This is a key finding of the study. Your claim that it is spurious is quite incorrect.

• 1. Perceptions of Misleading and False Information
• An overwhelming majority of voters said that they encountered misleading or false information in the last election, with a majority saying that this occurred frequently and occurred more frequently than usual.

Your other complaints are similarly incorrect. If than FNC viewers were "misinformed" about certain assertations is not a primary conclusion, then the study is not really worth mentioning, if it is, then it is certainly one of the conclusions. Your version cherry picks specific assertations, where as simply making the general statement removes this bias and is a neutral presentation. There were nine different assertations, listing them all would be undue weight for the section. Arzel (talk) 17:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

A agree that that is one of the key findings in the report. But that is not relevant to any thing here. If you take this finding to verify the statement "While noting that "...false or misleading information is widespread in the general information environment...", then you are woefully mistaken. These are two completely different statements.

simply saying things are incorrect is not sufficient. a rebuttle constitutes specific logical statements directly related to what is being rebutted and based on verifiable premises. not blanket dismissals. Re: "If FNC viewers were..." neither true nor relevant. this is non-sequitor, black-and-white-fallacies, and probably a few other things. and in any case it does not address any of the issues i brought up. you assert that my version "cherry picks" assertions. firstly it is not "my" version, and secondly, though it does not list 9 assertions, it lists 3 out of 9, which is a pretty good ratio and certainly is not cherry-picking. it picked them as they seemed the most relevant and if i'm not mistaken the report might have given these specialattention to, as they were particularly aggregious. but in any case, if that is your beef, i am fine with listing all 9 assertions. making a general statement does not remove any bias and is not a neutral presentation. simply listingthe specific facts is the most neutral and undistorted way to present information. though as you said, listing them all would be undue weight. hence only the most relevant and notable examples were picked. if you disagree on what are the most relevant and notable examples, well that is certainly something we can discuss. but basic writting guidelines are that one should give examples, and one only need spend a few seconds on this article alone to see that this is done quite consistently on wikipedia. Kevin Baas^talk 18:22, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

You say it is not relevant, I say it is and I have the view of the authors since they certainly felt it was relevant to the study as a whole. Not sure how you can claim stating one of their principle findings is a way to introduce weasel words to diminish the study. Your presentation of the material is entirely your point of view, and even if you claim it is not your view you endorse a non-neutral presentation.

You do not seem to understand me. when i say that what is in the proposed version as a preface and what is in the report as a finding are two completely different statements, i mean that the statements are not at all the same statements. i did not present any of the material, and even if presenting material were "entirely my point of view", then you presenting your material is thus "entirely your' point of view" and thus i don't see how that logic even works out in your favor. also claiming something is not my view does not automatically make me endorse that view, nor is accurately portraying someone else view as someone elses view an endorsement. that is just ridiculous on its face. Kevin Baas^talk 01:30, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Whatever. One of the primary aspects of the study is that misinformation was widespread, to not include that statement implies that it was only for FNC. That is clearly a biased point of view. That statement needs to be included to neutrally reflect the findings of the study. Arzel (talk) 02:17, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

To not include that statement would NOT imply that it was only for FNC. The simple fact that the results were not a perfect 100-0 split demonstrate defnitively that FNC was not the only source of misinformation. Well, the others could have been indirectly from FNC through e.g. word of mouth. but the point is that is not implied. in fact, the finding you refer to is a direct logical consequence of the fact that it is not a 0-100 split; that is where they got the "finding". (though FNC is, in fact, the only one they found to have statistically significant correlation with misinformation about the distribution of expert opinion, and that is notable and accurate as far as "only for FNC" is concerned.) In any case, if you want to include the statement that was made in the report, as opposed to the OR statement in the proposed version, and include it as a finding, that is, with the other findings, at the end, i would be fine with that. but i hope you can see how that's completely different than what's in the proposed version right now. Kevin Baas^talk 03:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Watchers if MSBNC and watcher/listener of PBS/NPR were misinformed about the Chamber of Commerce (not suprising) and two TARP questions, so you are misinformed. Arzel (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

While it is true that watchers of said station,s among others, were misinformed about said questions, among others, it does not follow that i am misinformed. in fact, that only goes to demonstrate that i am correct in asserting that FNC viewers were not the only ones that are misinformed. Kevin Baas^talk 14:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

That is quite the logical knot you are tying. Arzel (talk) 19:14, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not even sure how to respond to the following.

• removed: the study concluded that "...those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe..." this single line was not' the study’s conclusion. saying that it is is original research (and clearly false), and it is also clearly intended to diminish the results of the report by providing false information about the scope of the study and its results.

This was obviously one of the conclusions and not sure how this is inteded to diminish the results. What is the false (ironic) information being provided?

i must have copied that from the wrong version of the text. in that case, i'm glad you find some of the original wording to your liking. :) Kevin Baas^talk 01:30, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

As for your final complaint, I don't understand your primary issue there either. Assertations are statements. Statements were provided to respondants with a question do you agree with this statement ie assertation. If you want to change the word assertation to statement go ahead. Arzel (talk) 21:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

That is entirely my point! Statements were not -- i repeat not --- provided to respondants with a question do you agree with this statement ie assertation. which you would know had you read the frickin' report! Kevin Baas^talk 01:30, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, that is only 1 of 3 complaints i made in the last bullet point. the first being a reiteration of the first bullet point, and the last about the value of giving indicative examples rather than interpreting with watered-down generic statements. Kevin Baas^talk 01:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I reverted what was then the current version for two reasons: inappropriate use of scare quotes, especially the repeated use of them around "misinformation", and the removal of specific issues discussed in the study. Gamaliel (talk) 05:37, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

When you revert please make sure that citations are still appropriate and stay in a proper format, I had to fix that twice now in the current back and force editing. Btw I suggest people discuss various summary/description versions here first, before editing the article in a partisan fashion. I might also help to restrain the potential inner partisan views on Fox a bit and focus on the study's content. If there is no way agree on a short summary, then we might need to have a more extensive one simply listing all examined misinformations. I personally don't quite agree or understand the current selection anyhow (why's Obama's citizenship not in there, which is probably the most obvious and clear cut misinformtaion ?).

As far as the "scary quotes" are concerned I somewhat what agree. Although in a way they provided a correct description, they nevertheless create a hacked impression. The original description a few months back describing them simply as false (according to the study's definition of truth on those views) and later Zulawski criticizing the study's notion of truth not being unproblematic provided an appropriate fluent narrative, which somewhat got lost in the edit war over the first part of the study description. It also avoided the stylistically awkward repeated use of misinformation/misinformed in scary quotes.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:20, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The word "Falsely" relating to the statement regarding the beliefs of FNC viewers is not reported in the study. The is clearly WP:OR. Why do you feel the need to opine something past what the study states? Arzel (talk) 02:17, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

If i may try to speak for him - while the word "falsely" is not explicitly used, it is clear that the answers were considered "incorrect" in the report as they did not accurately reflect the true state of affairs, as described in the introduction of the report. where they not somehow considered "incorrect", well then there would be no results to be had; all of them would be "degree of correct information undefined", and the entire study would be an excercise in absurdity. Kevin Baas^talk 03:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. In short, the whole point of the study is that those things are false. Gamaliel (talk) 03:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

As I explained at length further up using the word "falsely" is neither a case of WP:OR nor WP:SYNTH. And it is somewhat incomprehensible to me how someone can read the study and claim the study would not consider those views as false (or believing them as false). The argument line above, that the study does not literally say "falsely believe" in some sentence, is a bit like arguing the the source didn't say "5" but just "2+3" or the source didn't say "false" but just "not true". From my perspective such an argument is utterly nonsensical.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Alright as this seems to turn into latent edit war but more importantly from my perspective some editors either have a serious misunderstanding of the cited source and policies or their are blatantly gaming, it is time to let some uninvolved take a look at the cited source, cited policies and arguments on this page.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

It is the "finding" of the study that certain beliefs are based upon "misinformation" that is "false" (an "opinion" whose basis is also challenged as being fundamentally flawed). To characterize those who might hold with those "beliefs" (attributed, in part, to a purportedly intentional distribution of "misinformation" by Fox News) as "falsely believing" is a POV-inspired semantical misrepresentation of the study's findings and conclusions via WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. To qualify (and clearly denigrate) their "act of believing" as "falsely believing" is to exceed the actual language of the study determination and to erroneously state as "fact" that the study ever qualified the "act of believing" as "falsely believing". First, from the perspective of the believer, one does not "falsely believe" anything. You can "believe" something that others might characterize as false, but YOU are NOT "falsely believing". You either "believe" something or you "don't believe" something. To qualify that act of "believing" as "falsely believing" is to inject a pejorative determination of fact specifically directed at the believer's "act of believing" rather than at the substance of "what he believes". The study MAKES NO SUCH CHARACTERIZATION and it is arrived at ONLY BY WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Either quote it or leave it out. JakeInJoisey (talk) 13:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The study makes exactly such a characterization as explained above. It is not about whether those views can be described as factually false nor about any "acts of believing" (whatever that's supposed to be), but that the study characterizes them as false (again read the explanation further up carefully, in particular the part where the study defines its view of "the truth" regarding those believes). You are confusing understanding and accurately summarizing a source with original research (further conclusions/result not being in the study) or synthesis (combining different sources to suggest a conclusion not being contained in the sources themselves).--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The study makes exactly such a characterization...

Then quote it. Don't POV paraphrase it. QUOTE it. JakeInJoisey (talk) 14:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

This is the wording from the source:

• Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:

This is the wording proposed by those in favor of "Falsely".

• ..according to the results of the study many viewers of Fox News were more likely to falsely believe..

This is the wording proposed by those who feel the previous version to be WP:OR WP:SYNTH

• ..according to the results of the study many viewers of Fox News were more likely to believe..

That the results are statistically significant is also included in both versions. Arzel (talk) 13:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

As explained above you are quote mining and ignoring the context (in particular the section where the study defines what it considers as "the truth", see detailed explanation further up). --Kmhkmh (talk) 14:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - Per comment above, it is the "finding" of the study that certain beliefs are based upon "misinformation" that is "false" (an "opinion" whose basis is also challenged as being fundamentally flawed). To characterize those who might hold with those "beliefs" (attributed, in part, to a purportedly intentional distribution of "misinformation" by Fox News) as "falsely believing" is a POV-inspired semantical misrepresentation of the study's findings and conclusions via WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. To qualify (and clearly denigrate) their "act of believing" as "falsely believing" is to exceed the actual language of the study determination and to erroneously state as "fact" that the study ever qualified the "act of believing" as "falsely believing". First, from the perspective of the believer, one does not "falsely believe" anything. You can "believe" something that others might characterize as false, but YOU are NOT "falsely believing". You either "believe" something or you "don't believe" something. To qualify that act of "believing" as "falsely believing" is to inject a pejorative determination of fact specifically directed at the believer's "act of believing" rather than at the substance of "what he believes". The study MAKES NO SUCH CHARACTERIZATION and it is arrived at ONLY BY WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Either quote it or leave it out. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you are very religous and take great offense when people say that you need to provide evidence to fulfill the burden of proof for your beliefs. While that may not be the modus operandi of religous people in concerns religious stuff, in rational thinking it is the modus operandi. Kevin Baas^talk 15:07, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me put it otherwise: insofar as a belief relates to an empirical testable assertion -- i.e. insofar as it is falsifiable -- it is called a belief precisely because it may be true or false; i.e. because it may be consistent or inconsistent with the true state of affairs. That is why it is called a "belief" and not a "fact". Kevin Baas^talk 15:14, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the notion that "falsely believed" is some kind of slur is bizarre, but I have attempted to reword the sentence to get across the facts while avoiding that phrase. Gamaliel (talk) 16:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

That works for me too.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

That is even worse. Why do you feel the need to wordsmith the clearly stated conclusion from the study? Let the FfC move forward on stop inserting original research. Arzel (talk) 19:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm getting the impression you don't really understand how wikipedia articles or encyclopedic articles are created. Encyclopedic articles are not a collection "quotes", instead we provide something of an accurate illuminating summary of reputable external sources and we primarily reference content and not quotes. Here we're are providing here a summary of 30 pages paper in a few sentences, such a thing normally cannot be facilitated by simply quoting something literally (possibly out of context). So the "quote it or leave it out"-rationale is not sensible approach for most scenarios (unless you have short statements/opinions that you quote literally). It is of course possible that editors disagree on the on the exact formulation of an accurate summary (which might be the case here, though your notion of the study's results is some incomprehensible to me), in such a case that needs to be resolved as a normal editorial dispute about content, i.e. let others editors take a look and comment regarding an accurate summary.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting observation...and it inspired some thought on WP:NPOV (not yet expressed that I'm aware of). IMHO, I'm getting the impression that you don't really understand the concept of NPOV. It also suggests your zeal to incorporate an unquotable, WP:SYNTH constructed denigration of a single, specific group of "false believers" (to use your preferred construct) does not evidence motivation for the presentation of an NPOV, accurate, informed presentation of the study's purpose and findings, but rather a POV manipulated, selective use of those findings in pursuit of an opportunistic denigration of Fox News alone...and by proxy via its viewers.

Even assuming that your "falsely believe" construct was legitimately WP:V, it would, by logical extension, necessarily apply to the entire universe of "false believers" identified by the study as inhabiting the entire population of ALL media audiences. However, your pointedly selected targets (NOT the study's) for denigration as "false believers" are solely those of Fox News. Aren't you deceptively suggesting to the uninformed reader that, via your construct, the findings specifically singled out Fox News viewers as a singular group of "false believers" within what was an unmentioned SEA of "false believers"? And were the actual name of the study to be considered, "Misinformation and the 2010 Election A Study of the US Electorate", why wouldn't "more misinformed" or language rooted in the study TITLE be more representative and reflective of the study focus than the selective, unnecessary, arbitrary POV denigration and labeling of only ONE group as "false believers"? JakeInJoisey (talk) 20:11, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

RFC metadiscussion

Collapse per admin recommendation

(g)ood idea this RfC. I refactored and and edited the language in what I thought to be more clear and NPOV language. JakeInJoisey (talk) 18:05, 10 July 2011 (UTC) If not satisfactory, I'm all ears and certainly encourage discussion or changes to the language if it's unsat for some reason. JakeInJoisey (talk) 14:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC) If there were no "dispute", there'd be no need for this RfC. Unnecessary/redundant language. JakeInJoisey (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC) So what?--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC) LOL! Don't tell me you're now wikilawyering the boilerplate text! Kevin Baastalk 15:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Merely an attempt to help make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. Suit yourself. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:05, 10 July 2011 (UTC) I'm not familiar with that expression. is that like lipstick on a pig? in that case i don't see how that at all relates to anything; it seems totally random. Kevin Baastalk 15:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC) And you're apparently unfamiliar as well with the proper composition of an RfC. This one, rather than posing a question, describes, instead, the substance of the debate...but, again, suit yourself. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Or perhaps I just don't see why anyone would really care. Kevin Baastalk 15:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Either delete the RfC or restore already submitted RfC comments/responses...or it's on to AN/I. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Delete this RfC would be completely inappropriate. I have not seen any third party comments/responses in here yet. And to my knowledge any comment that has been put on this page still is on this page. If you feel it neccessary to escalate this to AN/I, go right ahead, but IMO that would be very spurious. Kevin Baastalk 16:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Again no comment was deleted just moved to the section above, now please have the courtesy and allow 3rd parties to comment here. This section was intentionally split from the original (and ongoing) discussion above to collect the 3rd party comments and provide a better overview of the discussion. Do we really have to argue here on a kindergarden level and completely spam this section before even a single 3rd party comment has arrived?.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Re-looking at the edit history, it appears that Kmh's attempt to purge this RfC of already submitted comment/responses and my attempt to rectify that inappropriate purge has apparently resulted in the mis-placement of RfC content after your revert. It needs to be restored. However, as we have an admin now actively involved in this discussion, perhaps Gamaliel can weigh-in on this "restriction of RfC comment" nonsense before resolution is solicited elsewhere. I have solicited that consideration on his/her talk page. JakeInJoisey (talk) 16:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Read the comment above and read the version list, I didn't purge a single bit, I just moved the comments one further up. And now we half half a page of pointless bickering again just making the orientation harder for 3rd parties.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC) As far as I can tell, no responses to the RFC were deleted or moved. It looks like the only things that were moved were metadiscussion about the impending discussion. The point of an RFC is to bring in fresh opinions and that is inhibited by the same old warring parties using the RFC as yet another battleground. Editors not new to this page are of course welcome to register their opinion regarding the substance of the RFC, and those comments should generally not be moved or removed. I've decided to be bold and split this into a metadiscussion section for this conflict and a new section for responses to the question posed in the RFC. If the parties agree, perhaps we could even collapse this subsection? Gamaliel (talk) 16:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Update: Looks like more was deleted than I first realized. Taking another look at the edit history. Gamaliel (talk) 16:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Correct. My response was moved...and it resulted in my RfC tailored response being added to and nearly duplicating my earlier submitted comment above and also contributing RfC related content to the further cluttering of that mess above. As to Kmh, his premise (even IF his action to restrict RfC responses was WP:POLICY supportable) in fact impedes, not facilitates, the ability of an uninvolved editor to offer an informed opinion. Absent a succinct presentation of opposition views, an editor would be compelled to wade through that already TLTR treatise above to discern the issue(s) involved. JakeInJoisey (talk) 17:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC) It is difficult to satisfy the sometimes conflicting goals of full participation on an RFC versus preventing that RFC from becoming another battleground between already participating parties. Perhaps separate sections for existing party responses and third party responses? Gamaliel (talk) 17:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC) A valid point, save for one consideration. If involved parties can be allowed to state their individual positions free from rebuttal from OTHER involved parties, an uninvolved editor will be quite free to reach his/her OWN determinations as to the worth of the position taken. In short, involved parties should BUTT OUT inre the positions of OTHER involved parties. JakeInJoisey (talk) 17:15, 10 July 2011 (UTC) From the same premise i come to a different conclusion. To quote Thomas Jefferson: "We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." Kevin Baastalk 17:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC) And to quote a much nearer source: "[Wikipedia]'s primary but not exclusive method of determining consensus is through editing and discussion, not voting." 17:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Please. Spare me the insinuation that anyone might "fear" your arguendo. My observation was in response to Gamaliel's observation about bringing the "battleground" into the RfC. Are you so lacking in confidence in the superiority of your own argument that you're compelled to prejudice someone else's? JakeInJoisey (talk) 17:40, 10 July 2011 (UTC) I am making no such insinuation. nor do i feel any desire to prejudice others arguments. i am simply quoting wikipedia guidelines and a very pertinent and measured statement of reason. please assume good faith and don't insult other editors with offensive accusations. Kevin Baastalk 17:45, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Then I'll leave it for others to judge the level of "ad hominem" and "good faith" evidenced in your response to my RfC comment...which I am about to re-enter. JakeInJoisey (talk) 17:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC) I don't understand what you are saying here, but whatever. Kevin Baastalk 17:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC) some comments were duplicated in the moving stuff around. that may be what you are seeing by apparent deletion - returning them to non-duplicated status. Kevin Baastalk 17:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC) If I am reading the history correctly, it looks like Jake's comment above that begins "Per comment above, it is the "finding" of the study that certain beliefs are based upon "misinformation" that is "false"" was originally a response to the RFC. Gamaliel (talk) 17:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC) This RfC is so badly presented that I'm compelled to offer the following as a suggested remedy... Does the language "falsely believe/believed" (see version list) satisfy WP:V consideration as a legitimate cite of the University of Maryland Study or does it's use violate WP:OR and WP:SYNTH? This, I believe, is an NPOV presentation of the issue and would facilitate editor response. JakeInJoisey (talk) 18:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC) The rfc is not badly represented, but neutrally formulated and easy to understand. However it was badly placed in the beginning (top of the talk page rather than top of the concerned section). There was nothing wrong with correcting the placing, but there was something wrong with modifying posts signed by other users than yourself (strictly speaking you "forged" my posting). Tinkering around with the content of the people's is a big no-no. However if you really feel the need to start a serious argument over the exact formulation of the rfc (imho completely ridiculous here, but other editors may judge that for themselves), then post an alternative wording under your own signature next to it (as you've done now).--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:40, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Kmh, you've yet to demonstrate that you've fully comprehended either the letter or the spirit behind RfC composition/presentation. Go read it again and remove the battleground chip from your shoulder. You don't OWN an RfC just because your "sig" is at it's end. An RfC is community property kiddo. JakeInJoisey (talk) 19:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC) JJ you're attacking a straw man here. Also ironically I implore you to stop treating this like a battleground and to read over the page on RfCs carefully. in both spirit and letter. as well as other guidelines and policies such as talk page discussion, in both spirit and letter. You'll see that the original composition/presentation was just fine. If you have another issue you would like an rfc brought up about, you are more than welcome to start your own rfc. rest assured, we will not behave towards it or you the same way that you have behaved towards this one. in fact, provided that there isn't some egregious problem with it, you will be left quite at peace. Kevin Baastalk 21:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC) I'm not "attacking" anything. I'm attempting to demonstrate that there may be a better way to both present and facilitate editor comment on this RfC so that the RfC "...attracts a clear and actionable response" as per the spirit of "...do your best, and invite others to improve your question or summary later." I initially made what I believed to be improved, NPOV language edits which would be received as an attempt to improve the RfC, not usurp control. He didn't like them...and reverted. No biggie. He (or anybody else) sees no merit in my proposed wording, fine...but the RfC does not IMHO, as currently presented, encourage a "clear and actionable response." However, I will concede that after reviewing WP:RFC again, in the final analysis, what he says goes and I guess he does OWN it. JakeInJoisey (talk) 21:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC) This RfC has expired and requires closure by an uninvolved admin. Comments? JakeInJoisey (talk) 11:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

RFC and responses

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Remember I am not endorsing any particular view, simply reviewing the discussion and that nothing can substitute the WP:BRD process as a way to develop consensus.

The discussions reveals, in my view, a general agreement that "false" or "falsely believe" is not present in source(s) without involving WP:SYNTH. There is a general view that the source in question does uses language such as "misinformation" and "true state of affairs", mostly from the un-involved editors who commented, and a general recommendation, also from the third-party editors that the line(s) in question be rewritten, not just at the level of the "falsely believe", but at a more fundamental level, to reflect the actual text and findings of the study in question - something that to them is not clear right now.

There were questions raised as to the impact that this would have on article length. While it is beyond my task to examine that - as it was not discussed by any comment in the RFC - but I will say htat in general issues of length are affected on the one hand by WP:NOTPAPER, in the sense that we have no technical or policy/guideline limit on article size (AFAIK, the longest single article in Wikipedia is over 165 letter-sized pages long!!!) and on the other hand, by WP:UNDUE, which is part of our neutral point of view policy, and which says in its first line "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." (Emphasis is mine). It is up to you, the involved editors, to find this balance between the unlimited space to write an article, and the need to balance all views. However, I recommend against arguments in the style "we must do X because policy Y says Z" - that is WP:WIKILAWYERING. Try instead something like "we should do X, which is not against policy Y, because of Z reasons".

In the discussion there was also a proposal that I want to highlight from an involved editor:

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely to be misinformed on specific issues than those who viewed other media sources.

I haven't read the source, just this discussion, so I am trusting this line is verifiable to the source. It strikes me as a good starting point for further discussion - my comment is not an endorsement of its inclusion, just a suggestion to consider to move consensus forward, and editors are fully in their rights to make counter suggestions or modifications/expansions as they see fit. As it stands, I think it reflects well both the general agreement that falsely believe is WP:SYNTH or otherwise not verifiable to the source and the general view/recommendation that the source should be better represented in the text. There could probably be better reflections, or better suggestions, but I do not think they were made in the discussion in a concise manner.

I remind all of the involved editors that this is not a binding discussion, and as such it cannot be used to argue for the inclusion or exclusion of any content, it simply provides editors with an organized view of where the views of involved editors lie, and what the views of un-involved editors might lie as an aid in the dispute resolution process. I also remind editors to remain civil and assume good faith, some of the comments were bordering on the uncivil, and although I do not see any personal attacks as such, perhaps a read of the essay (that I started years ago, so a bit of self-promo there ;-) WP:POOR might be of use to all of you. Also keep in mind we all are editing an encyclopedia based on the notion of a neutral point of view and of verifiability, not truth, so both try to see the "other side" (NPOV) and try to forget "your own truth" (V), but try to further study how these policies are understood in the general community (by reading essays for example), because I see some misunderstandings among the involved editors around these policies that might be a source of needless friction and promote a more positive environment in what is clearly a controversy-prone article, as well as one about controversies. If you need any clarifications or have any questions, feel free to ask at my talk, or email me, as I will not monitor further discussions unless specifically called upon by any of you back here. I hope this process has been of use. Happy editing!--Cerejota (talk) 05:44, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

---

There's a dispute whether the adjective false/falsely (see revision history since of June 21st and in particuler:[3]) correctly reflects the source or whether it violates WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. For details see the discussion above.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Template:Uninvolved --JakeInJoisey (talk) 11:22, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Uninvolved editor here. The RFC seems to have been improperly made. I am doing it properly now (using the template {{rfc}}), and hence extending the discussion period by at least a week to allow further discussion. I apologize, as this discussion was opened quite a while ago, but I do not feel comfortable closing an RFC not properly done, as it might not reflect enough wide views, which is the goal of the RFC. After a week shout out to me in my talk and I'll close it and/or switch the "answered=yes" flag in the "uninvolved" tag above to "no".--Cerejota (talk) 00:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't notice the RFC tag had been removed by a bot. Closing shortly.--Cerejota (talk) 02:23, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Involved editors

Insert comment here. NO: The wording from the study is "Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:" followed by the list of issues per which this disputed text follows. Those in favor of the word want to add falsely prior to the word believe which is clearly WP:OR. Additionally this is an attempt to push a POV by making the statement stronger than the study reported. Arzel (talk) 19:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Comment Violates WP:OR and WP:SYNTH JakeInJoisey (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC) - Per my comment above, it is the "finding" of the study that certain beliefs are based upon "misinformation" that is "false" (an "opinion" whose basis is also challenged as being fundamentally flawed). To characterize those who might hold with those "beliefs" (attributed, in part, to a purportedly intentional distribution of "misinformation" by Fox News) as "falsely believing" is a POV-inspired semantical misrepresentation of the study's findings and conclusions via WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. To qualify (and clearly denigrate) their "act of believing" as "falsely believing" is to exceed the actual language of the study determination and to erroneously state as "fact" that the study ever qualified the "act of believing" as "falsely believing". First, from the perspective of the believer, one does not "falsely believe" anything. You can "believe" something that others might characterize as false, but YOU are NOT "falsely believing". You either "believe" something or you "don't believe" something. To qualify that act of "believing" as "falsely believing" is to inject a pejorative determination of fact specifically directed at the believer's "act of believing" rather than at the substance of "what he believes". The study MAKES NO SUCH CHARACTERIZATION and it is arrived at ONLY BY WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Either quote it or leave it out. JakeInJoisey (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Note: As the language of the RfC was arbitrarily and unilaterally changed some 10 days after it was posted, I have adjusted my previous "comment" accordingly. JakeInJoisey (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Comment contrary to the repeated (imho nonsensical) claims of "no such characterization", WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, the study actually does characterize those views as false (to see that it important to read the whole study, in particular the section, where it defines what it considers as the actual correct/true information. A more detailed explanation in particular including the exact pages to look at is given further up in the main section of the original discussion). To fully understand the misconception being at work here it might be also important to read full original discussion above.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Comment - eh, i suppose i'm supposed to comment. new editors coming here via the rfc, just read the report in question and the discussion above. i believe the issues have already been made quite clear, no need to reiterate yet again. Kevin Baastalk 21:15, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Comment. It's pretty clear that the entire point of the study is that these things are false. To pretend that they are not is to willfully misunderstand the topic of that paragraph. Gamaliel (talk) 00:22, 11 July 2011 (UTC) Exactly my point and my essential issue with the this section since October 2010, when the arguments over this began. From my view there seems to be a persistent push by some editors to obfuscate the fact that the study considers this views as false and instead simply present those views as mere (potentially correct) opinions in a opinion survey. Such attempts are a misrepresentation of the study or as you say a willful misunderstanding.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC) I've been shying away from that phrase (or a similiar one) myself, but someone else said it now so let me just say that after many failed attempts at clarifying what is clearly stated in the report, it seems to be a conclusion that is inevitable; it seems more and more to be an accurate description. Kevin Baastalk 14:25, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Third party responses

Remove 'false' word, but include in another sentence if sourced - My understanding of the RfC is that is addressing the word "falsely" in the sentence: "...according to the results of the study many viewers of Fox News were more likely to falsely believe that most economists think that ...". Is that correct? If so, the word falsely should not appear in that sentence as is, because that is using the encyclopedia's voice. A better way to write it (assuming there is some source ABC that claims the belief is false) is: " ...according to the results of the study many viewers of Fox News were more likely to believe that most economists think that ... Person ABC asserts that that belief is erroneous because ... ". Breaking it into two sentences should resolve the problem. If there is no source ABC that asserts the falsity, then that second sentence ("Person ABC ...") would not appear, of course. --Noleander (talk) 21:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Yes false is to be understood as false according to the study not as false as a fact (WP). However the intro of that paragraph makes clear that for the following sentences we report the study's opinion/results and nothing else, i.e. not making factual statements.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC) Okay, but it should still be re-worded, perhaps as: " ...according to the results of the study many viewers of Fox News were more likely to believe that most economists think that ... The authors of the study assert that that belief is erroneous because ... ". Leaving the word "falsely" in place as it is now can lead to nothing but confusion. The encyclopedia should strive for clarity. --Noleander (talk) 00:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC) what do you expect us to put after the ellipses? "...that that belief is erroneous because it is inconsistent with the true state of affairs." As clearly stated in the intro, the results are not predicated on the authors' beliefs. Perhaps inserting some kind of summary about what the intro of the report says (re: correct/incorrect information) would be in order. There appears to be much confusion about that. Kevin Baastalk 14:29, 11 July 2011 (UTC) then, replace the second "that" with "the given". Noleander's suggestion is quite reasonable. A separate sentence also removes much confusion. Bstephens393 (talk) 11:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC) how does changing "...that that belief is erroneous because it is inconsistent with the true state of affairs." to "...that the given belief is erroneous because it is inconsistent with the true state of affairs." solve anything (other than being grammatically a little nicer)? 13:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC) and if the word "false" is really bothering people how about instead we say "inconsistent with the true state of affairs"? Kevin Baastalk 13:27, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Instead of "the true state of affairs", I would suggest the more concise "reality". Gamaliel (talk) 14:44, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Your initial comment is correct (despite the vagueness of the RfC wording). What is at issue here is the necessity, appropriateness and, ultimately, the WP:V legitimacy of incorporating the phrase "...falsely believe/believed" to characterize Fox News viewers. We are not debating anything beyond how best to concisely present the study findings as to how they relate to and reflect a "Fox News Controversy". That can be done in a single sentence without getting into this unwarranted and detailed examination of (on) specifics (of) to further bloat what should be a footnote. in an already bloated article...which is next on the agenda to be addressed. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:22, 12 July 2011 (UTC) you seem to be a man of many strong opinions. this article is well within wikipedia recommended article sizes. Kevin Baastalk 15:46, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Comment(s) struck and amended accordingly to remove irrelevant remarks. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Observation: From the study In the course of this study, to identify “misinformation” among voters, we used as reference points the conclusions of key government agencies that are run by professional experts and have a strong reputation for being immune to partisan influences. And This suggests that misinformation cannot simply be attributed to news sources, but are part of the larger information environment that includes statements by candidates, political ads and so on. Furthermore, those who had greater exposure to news sources were generally better informed. In the great majority of cases, those with higher levels of exposure to news sources had lower levels of misinformation. There were however a number of cases where greater exposure to a news source increased misinformation on a specific issue. Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that: (emphasis mine, and list of incorrect views follows) To me this suggests three things 1 Misinformation is defined as views which are incompatible with those of key government agencies that are run by professional experts 2 In general, misinformation is not simply based on the source of news 3 There are exceptions to point 2, notably FOX News Based upon this to me it is not unreasonable to paraphrase the bolded sentences into: Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to be misinformed on a specific issue in a number of cases IOW, they falsely = incorrectly = erroneously believed so and so... accurately describes the effect: watching FOX News leads people to support the opposite, i.e. falsely, of what experts consider correct. Cheers.--- Nomen Nescio Gnothi seautoncontributions 16:41, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Your thoughts are interesting, but really little more than your own research. Why must we modify the wording of the study, which is quite clear, in order to appease those who wish to present a specific point of view? Arzel (talk) 16:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC) The suggested wording still misrepresents somewhat the focus of the study, a numerical, relative comparison of a belief in alleged "Misinformation" exhibited among viewers of comparable and various media (please see my comment above). Were this suggested text to be used, it would better read... Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely to be misinformed on specific issues than those who viewed other media sources. I also believe that delineation of those "specific issues" is superfluous to the prospective reader's understanding of the study's finding and constitutes irrelevant and POV bloat. JakeInJoisey (talk) 16:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC) By the same logic, that would ironically make the comment you just made "superfluous to the prospective reader's understanding [] and constitutes irrelevant and POV bloat". It could be that you just don't like the facts that contradict your pre-established beliefs and so you to hide and diminish them as much as you can if not removed altogether so that you can maintain your existing pre-established beliefs without experiencing any cognitive dissonance. This would be a classic psychological response. It's what we humans do; it's the human modus operandi. Kevin Baastalk 14:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC) No, I simply don't like POV inspired WP:OR, WP:SYNTH language masquerading as NPOV paraphrasing. Nor am I particularly impressed by rather clear WP:NPA transgressions which generally accompany a rather dismal (and failing) argument. JakeInJoisey (talk) 14:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC) None of us like "POV inspired WP:OR, WP:SYNTH language masquerading as NPOV paraphrasing". Fortunately there isn't any on this page -- that I am aware of, at least. I am not "particularly impressed by rather clear WP:NPA transgressions which generally accompany a rather dismal (and failing) argument." either. You may want to consider what I have said about psychology. In order to evaluate things from a clear unbiased perspective it is important that we acknowledge and accept our innate human predispositions that are naturally aligned against this and strive to go beyond them. I'd recommend, for one, instead of starting with bad-faith assumptions and working off of that to try to find reasons to justify them, try instead to develop neutral logical and practical methods of assessment that do not rely on ad hominem arguments or bad faith and learn to apply them consistently, and then from there user that to weed out e.g. inconsistencies and double-standards in treatment of material. i.e. try reversing the way you are looking at things; put the horse first, then the cart. If you are basing your analysis on whether something seems to you to be "POV inspired WP:OR, WP:SYNTH language masquerading as NPOV paraphrasing", then you are essentially assuming the conclusion. furthermore you are using emotions to guide logic rather than logic to guide emotions. I recommend you try to take a more critical thinking approach, and especially methods of overcoming bias (copy of old version of the page from my user page). Kevin Baastalk 17:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Good Lord. JakeInJoisey (talk) 18:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC) I hope you take what I said seriously, because I am serious. Kevin Baastalk 18:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Remove "false": this paraphrase strays too far from the original text. – Lionel (talk) 08:16, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

|}

Media Matters for America Source Deletions

About 70% of this article is MMFA opinion on Fox News Channel. MMFA is not an unbiased source for news and information as it has now stated openly it wants to destroy FNC as a news source. I suggest that MMFA content be deleted and replaced with independent news sources. Kilowattradio (talk) 09:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that with the development that MMfA declared that it wants to take down FNC, plus the campaign they run (http://www.DropFox.com) to have advertisers boycott FNC (not to mention their activist arm Media Matters Action Network), MMfA can hardly be justified as a reliable source about the FNC. Drrll (talk) 13:26, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll re-iterate what I stated earlier. We need to come to some consensus understanding here. IMHO, MMfA claims of "controversy" related to Fox News are insufficient to satisfy WP:RS standards for inclusion unless supported by the provision of clearly related and reliable third-party sourcing. JakeInJoisey (talk) 13:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with using MMFA sources per se. Sources can be biased, but they need to be accurate. Is there any problem regarding the accuracy?--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Accuracy is not the only issue. Context is the other problem. Example. Paul said, "People say that I beat my wife, this is not true." It is accurate to say Paul said, ".. I beat my wife..". MMfA and other such sites add their own bias to a story making it difficult to maintain a NPOV. They may report accurate statements, but they present them out of context, or they focus on trivia. Futhermore, since they are actively trying to destroy FNC, they cannot be used as a primary source for a controversy. That MMfA says something is controversial is not enough. We already know that they are extremely biased against FNC. Just because they say something is notable doesn't mean that it is. Independent 3rd party sources should always be used to lay the foundation of notability for any supposed controversial event. Arzel (talk) 13:36, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Providing context is important yes (and imho a part of accuracy in the bigger picture, that is accurate descriptions or reporting take context into account and provide misleading cherry picking in your example). I agree that a 3rd party source picking up on MMFA an story is definitely better as far notability concerned (and possibly better for context as well). However that does not conclude that MMFA cannot be used at all. If it is accurate and the context appropriate on a particular issue, it could be used directly as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:52, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

If it is accurate and the context appropriate on a particular issue, it could be used directly as well.

MMfA content, as I read the opinions of a substantial and growing number of editors contributing to prior and related RS/Ns, is in decline as a reputable source and WP:RS is, by no means, a given. MMfA's recent declaration of "War" on FNC will, in all liklihood, exacerbate that decline and will (IMHO) be reflected in subsequent RS/Ns on MMfA's RS status.

For that matter, many experienced editors have opined that NO source possesses some WP:RS "imprimatur" and that the WP:RS of ALL sources are subject to contextual editorial consideration with an associated focus on WP:UNDUE. As one editor stated in relation to a particular source generally held as anathema to those of the left persuasion, if MMfA content is legitimatly notable, there will surely be less-biased sources from which to draw WP:RS sourcing, particularly in relation to alleged FNC "controversies". JakeInJoisey (talk) 14:31, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't really disagree with that, but similarly as in my posting to Azreael, I have to say you are not delivering an argument that MMFA can't be used at all (rather the opposite actually). That this article should not rely heavily on MMFA because that is likely to violate WP:UNDUE - I agree, but that's a different issue (no use at all versus overly reliance).

As for MMFA alleged decline of reputability (or its accuracy and context), I'd like see some evidence rather just hearing the opinion of an individual editor. It is not the first time that MMFA is being discussed here or elsewhere and so far afaik the essential result was always that MMFA can be used. That assessment might change - sure, but it is not going to change simply because an editor states vaguely that its reputation might have declined or dislikes it in general.

So the bottom line is, I'd like to see some concrete and convincing evidence regarding a possible lack of accuracy, correct context or a recently tarnished reputation. That's concerning using MMFA at all. As far as an overly reliance on MMFA is concerned I agree that would be violating WP:UNDUE and hence needs to be avoided. I agree as well, that in general 3rd parties sources should be preferred.

On that note I don't really see MMFA as a source for sourcing the existence or notability of Fox News controversies (that indeed needs to come 3rd party sources, MMFA publications alone don't create a controversy), but rather as a source providing details on a particular controversy. Say the controversy is that "Internal memos require fox news staff to use certain (politically slanted) terms" (that needs to be reported in 3rd part sources) and then MMFA might be used for providing specific or additional details (content of various memos)--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

So the bottom line is, I'd like to see some concrete and convincing evidence regarding a possible lack of accuracy, correct context or a recently tarnished reputation.

Perhaps the following from "Mediaite" (whose politics are no state secret) might fill that niche quite nicely. Here's their closer as an appetizer...

Media Matters was once a pioneering project that is now generating lower quality content than ever before. And with surprisingly small readership and diminishing sphere of influence (particularly considering how well-funded they are) maybe their donors should be asking if that money could be better spent funding websites where the Media actually Matters. [4]

There's more than partisan "smoke" in those RS/Ns I alluded to...and this was Mediaite's take BEFORE MMfA's declaration of "War" on FNC.

P.S. A link to "recently tarnished reputation" will be forthcoming as soon as I can find it. JakeInJoisey (talk) 23:25, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Not the item I had in mind but, for currency, this should suffice. JakeInJoisey (talk) 22:36, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems as if there is consensus for finding MMfA unreliable for this context. – Lionel ^(talk) 08:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Per your observation, the lack of response here and the "Mediaite" cite above, I have removed long-tagged content as unsupported per WP:RS. JakeInJoisey (talk) 11:10, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see a consensus for unreliability per se, just for a bias and that media matters publications on their own do not create notability, i.e. at least the general topic/theme needs to picked up by other media as well to provide notability. In such a case Media Matters might be used to add some details, but it shouldn't be used for topics not published anywhere else.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Edits

This section says "In August 2007, a new utility, Wikipedia Scanner, revealed that Wikipedia articles relating to Fox News had been edited from IP addresses owned by Fox News,[82] though it was not possible to determine exactly who the editors were." but funny enough when you go down to the citation and click it, it leads you to a dead link. The citation should be fixed or the comment removed I would suppose.YouMakeMeFeel: (talk) 00:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

It is a primary source anyway, rather then directly invoking the scanner, e should cite some (secondary) source reporting on the scanning.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

P.S. For now i replaced it by a an archived weikinews article from back then.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Please. Wikinews is a decidedly unreliable source as is Wikipedia itself. I am removing the citation. Whether this content is WP:V or not must be predicated upon the provision of WP:RS sourcing. Either source it or it must be removed. JakeInJoisey (talk) 12:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the "Guardian" cite, it appears to source the related content. I have re-cited it. JakeInJoisey (talk) 13:03, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Note the "for now". But for what's it worth Wikinews is community edited like Wikipedia but not necessarily unreliable, as the news they publish and archive go through an editorial and fact checking process. Nevertheless citing a (non community based) publisher like the Guardian is certainly a better option. In any case the point here was to replace the (dysfunctional) primary source (direct call a the scanner tool) by a (reliable) news report.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't wikinews fall into information feedback? I know that Wikipedia is never a reliable source for articles, thus I am not sure how Wikinews would be a RS. Arzel (talk) 23:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

That's because it's not a reliable source Arzel. It can be edited by anyone. I was unable to find any reliable sources. The Guardian article says "Users traced back to the rightwing TV station have edited a number of pages about its presenters. . ." Traced by who I wonder?? Their paper? I'm not saying companies and other organizations don't keep tabs on articles concering them, but the sources for this are complete rubbish. No big names like CNN, MSNBC, BBC, or anyone who it would actually benefit to say something like that ever mention it in any articles. And besides, if something dubious like this was going to be left in just quote the article that states they edited only articles about their presenters, not articles about their company in general.YouMakeMeFeel: (talk) 00:32, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikinews can not be edited by anyone in sense you can do that in WP. As I said above Wikinews is community based, but the news go through a community editorial and fact checking process and archived afterwards and the archived news are not editable anymore. As far as reliability is concerned Wikinews is probably better than Fox. However one might object against Wikinews on the grounds that no community based are allowed (independent of their exact editorial process), though that might be debatable as well it is nevertheless a proper argument against Wikinews. As far as the "missing big names" are concerned, the Guardian is a big name, it is one of best known British newspapers and news portals.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

So then you try to insult Fox -- a company that this article is actually about -- which shows that you really have a problem with Fox that you try to rectify through editing an article; your bias is clear. It's also clear that you don't have a very high opinion of Fox. To say Wikinews or Wikipedia is probably better than Fox is pretty laughable. Yes, one might object to Wikinews on that grounds that as long as the community is in agreement, they can't write whatever lies they want with no repercussion; that would be true. But that's not how it works for "mainstream media" such as Fox. They get "called on the carpet" for such things; namely by their competitors such as CNN etc. You still didn't address the other major names that are missing that would actually have a stake in a tidbit like that. I suppose all of them just missed that story right?--YouMakeMeFeel: (talk) 03:44, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that rather than me trying to "insult Fox" you are insulting our sister project Wikinews. And as far as Fox and "being called on the carpet" is concerned, that is probably the reason we have this article in the first place (as fox has been called on the carpet quite often). I didn't address the other "major names" there's no need for it. There is no requirement that something needs to be reported by all major (US) media to be mentioned here. Moreover you probably misunderstand the point of my posting above. I was merely correcting your misleading insinuations above (Wikinews is like WP and unreliable due to anyone can edit, Guardian is not a big name) - nothing more, nothing less.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:59, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm stating that as long as the community is in agreement, they can write whatever lies they want on Wikinews before editing is closed with no repercussion. Just like they can on Wikipedia. That's a fact. I'm not saying there's a requirement that something needs to be reported by all major US media. I'm stating a fact that if something such as this was true it would have been reported by at least ONE major US media; which it was not. My insuations about Wikinews are not misleading, instead, they are correct and factual. Wikinews is not a reliable source for anything, just like Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source by any Academia, or otherwise. Wikipedia article aren't your personal blog for "calling people on the carpet" so I'm not sure why you seem to think it is.YouMakeMeFeel: (talk) 20:22, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Journalist vs commentator

The article does a poor job of distinguishing journalists from commentators. Readers may be under the impression that Fox commentators are dishonest because they they intersperse their opinions with regular news. Of course journalists are held to much higher professional and ethical standard. – Lionel ^(talk) 01:05, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Is there an RS or three we can use to cite that, or who is a journalist, a news reporter/news caster, or a commentator? If so, I'm all for interspersing something suitable. But of course, that also begs the question, is there confusion among audience and critics as to which is which? I haven't run into articles or stories that cover the first, though I have seen quite a few that cover the second (that perhaps would achieve your goal?). Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 02:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is crap like this article here?

Is there some reason you folks allow bullshit articles like this to be posted? I'm just gonna guess on this, but I'm willing to bet you do not have comparable pages about NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, et al ad vomitus. Wikipedia is turning into a politically correct piece of shit.

Feel free to contribute to the "politically incorrect" piece of brilliance called conservapedia instead.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:59, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Such BS rants should be removed on sight per wp:NOTFORUM.TMCk (talk) 01:56, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

actually, there is a CNN controversies page, and NBC,CBS and MSNBC all have controversy sections in their main articles. Ucanlookitup (talk) 13:00, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

FDU Study

Can we get some secondary sources for this instead of a press release? Arkon (talk) 22:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added 2 newspaper articles on the poll/study, but I'd suggest to keep the link with access to complete questionnaire and methodology in the article.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

This is gratuitous, WP:COATRACK junk...and it speaks to an alleged Fox News VIEWER deficiency not a "Fox News Controversy". Nowhere does it claim (that I've seen) that Fox News is somehow responsible for the alleged viewer confusion. I'm removing it. JakeInJoisey (talk) 20:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I see no problem with that here. The study/poll fits exactly into the section, where it was added, the title of which (test of knowledge of fox viewers) was even introduced by yourself by one of the article reorganization if i recall correctly. Also note that your cited WP:COATRACK is an essay so anything but policy. --Kmhkmh (talk) 22:15, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

...the title of which (test of knowledge of fox viewers) was even introduced by yourself by one of the article reorganization if i recall correctly.

No, you recall incorrectly. My participation in that discussion was limited solely to resolving the dispute addressed by the RfC and I made no comment whatsoever as to the appropriateness of the content in an article entitled "Fox News Controversy". I may yet...but I'll await responses from other editors. JakeInJoisey (talk) 02:26, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

And still more on this subject. According to the LA Times article cited (emphasis mine)...

The overall survey, conducted from Oct. 17 to 23, had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. Because of the smaller sample size among those who selected a specific news source, the margin of error would be much higher.

The "finding" of this purported "survey" begins to look considerably more like a premise in search of confirmation, a plausibility not likely to be explored or reported by media whose biases might delight in any anti-Fox News innuendo. JakeInJoisey (talk) 12:49, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The statement about margin of error is true of every poll that reports their results by demographics (most of them). It is not an indication of bias. Is there any other reason you think the survey is biased? Ucanlookitup (talk) 15:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Let me be more clear then. I'm referring to "media" biases in reporting...not poll bias itself. The LA Times cite notes in its LAST paragraph, quite specifically, that the "margin of error" for the anti-Fox News innuendo being trumpeted here is "much higher". Also, the "reportage" might just as easily have headlined (generally an editorial decision btw) the alleged confusion of MSNBC viewers. JakeInJoisey (talk) 16:04, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Of the three cites listed, one headlines it with Fox without mentioning MSNBC. Another mentions both and the third mentions neither. In any event, I don't see how that is an argument for not including the statement here. The statement about the margin of error is simply irrelevant. It is true of any poll that breaks the results up into subsets. Ucanlookitup (talk) 16:31, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I could see an argument that this doesn't belong in the "Controversies" article because it belongs in the main Fox article. IIRC, however, earlier studies with similar findings were chased out of that article by Foxophiles, and relegated to this daughter article, so until we refight that battle it should stay here. As for Jake's personal opinion about the import of the study, his personal opinion (like my personal opinion that Fox is a dishonest charade) have no place in Wikipedia. If there is significant published criticism of the study, from someone more prominent than a pseudonymous Wikipedia editor, we can add a report of that criticism to the article, with proper attribution. JamesMLane t c 19:57, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

That poll by FDU reaches conclusions that are difficult to sustain. For instance, this sentence by Dan Cassino "the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all." Arguing that someone who watches one news outlet, however biased, is somewhat more ignorant about certain issues that someone who does not watch any news at all is unsustainable. Therefore, the press release title of FDU's poll (Some News Leaves People Knowing Less) is in my opinion deeply misleading. When you don't know anything about Egypt, as the poll suggests, it is impossible to become less informed by watching a given source, for knowledge on the subject was non existent to begin with. You can not know less, if you don't know anything at all.

But this discussion, and that poll, is an objective reflection of the state of US media and political debate. Outrageous claims, totally indefensible and illogical, are made by both sides on a regular basis, and each side's supporters acts, unquestioningly, as an echo chamber. Dan Cassino does address this issue, here, by saying "People who tune into ideological media are motivated to hear their side of the debate and so you can have someone who watches MSNBC be so used to hearing about protests coming from the right that they automatically believe that Occupy is mostly a Republican protest."--Ianonne89 (talk) 12:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to mention that I don't think this poll should be included in the entry. If it does, it should equally be included in all entries related to all news outlets referred to by the poll. --Ianonne89 (talk) 12:37, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I see that is why you deleted it at Fox while adding at MSBNBC at the same time?--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Your opinion of the article's conclusion are not relevant to whether or not it should be included. If you can find a reliable source that casts doubt on the conclusion of the article, that can also be included. Ucanlookitup (talk) 12:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I should have also added that it is difficult to see how the unsustainable results of a poll can be considered as controversy. There's nothing controversial about alleged ignorance of viewers of certain news outlets.--Ianonne89 (talk) 12:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually the "contradiction" you see there isn't really one as it has to with the function of brain. The storage capacity of it is limited so it selects, filters and reinforces some information (while dropping others). Polemically speaking Fox (and to some degree partisan TV and commercial TV) as well simply floods people with so much crap that certain important information don't get reinforced ans hence drop from the memory. As far as people not watching the news is concerned that is not to be equated with receiving no news at all (which is the assumption for your "contradiction" above), it simply means they get there (news) information through other ways than regularly watching those partisan TV channels and apparently in those cases their brains seem retain certain memory patterns better, i.e. they are lees likely to be dropped.

A note to other editors, in the context of this issue it worthwhile to check Ianonne89 contributions ([5]), I find it quite telling.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:00, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• Meta comment - This debate is now occupying the talk pages of both the Fox News Channel main article and this one. For the purposes of debate continuity, please consider restricting further section comments to the main article talk page. Thanks. JakeInJoisey (talk) 13:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to add in further refutation of the false premise -- which by the way has no place on wikipedia as we do not filter based on what's right or wrong but on what's verifiable or not -- there's a well known fact in signal processing, that when you're trying to reconstruct a signal from various noisy channels, some channels do not help you at all no matter what you do with them, because the noise to signal ratio is just too high and since you can't separate the noise from the signal you will always get a more faithful reconstruction of the original signal by simply disregarding the problematic source in full. in other words, not only is it entirely possible that giving a particular channel even an iota of weight will degrade signal reconstruction, it is mathematically unavoidable; it is certain. it is known as the problem of "source selection". Kevin Baas^talk 14:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Currently there seems to be somewhat of consensus building to exclude the poll in the main article on Fox News due to severe problems with study (see discussion). If that consensus becomes firmly established in the next couple of days, I'd to do remove it FDU poll here as well. Though I still consider the FDU and its institute reputable enough for mentioning its work in general, this particular poll is so obviously riddled with "unfixable" problems that all that WP could do with it in a good conscience, is mentioning that such a study exist, but since it is not neither a really important poll nor one that has caused major traction in the media, I see no point in that approach. The best option is imho to use editorial discretion/judgment to drop it, i. e. remove it from the article as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

If you feel a consensus is reached, perhaps you could summarize the weaknesses here and let this group of editors weigh in. The discussion on the main article talk page is, well, not exactly concise Ucanlookitup (talk) 21:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately ther are still a lot of (imho pseudo)arguments against the poll being put forward that actually obfuscate the decisive reason that renders it useless. From my perspective it is essentially Fat&happy's argument. He pointed out a flaw, that is imho unrepairable and beyond any reasonable partisanship.

The study uses only 2 question to assess the knowledge of foreign affairs (already that alone might raise eyebrows). One of those 2 question renders itself more or less invalid due to a sloppy use of language. It used the term regime when it meant government for its question about Egypt. This is highly problematic as this changes the correct answer to the question, as the government (president, various ministers) were successfully toppled but the regime (the country's overall power structures, in particulal the military council, security forces) was not (yet). Meaning the pollsters are evaluating their own question wrongly (considering its literal meaning and not substituting regime by government). For the second question (about Syria) the difference between Fox and others doesn't seems to be statistically conclusive (confidence interfals overlapping) due to the relatively small difference in percentages between Fox and others. So we kinda left with nothing to draw conclusions from.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

hmmm - I could weigh in on the specifics of this argument (and I might) because I don't find either argument convincing. Especially the argument about the margin of error, since it is the a classic misuse of the statistic (margin of error of the differences would be the correct statistic), but I think it misses the bigger point. Why are wikipedia editors, who as a group have no particular qualifications, passing judgment on the methodology of the study? Our job is to evaluate the reliability and notability of the information. Personally, I'm on the fence on this one, but the debate seems to have gone very far astray from the legitimate role of a wikipedia editor.Ucanlookitup (talk) 01:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Well what exactly is not convincing here?

The argument about the meaning of regime requires a rather large leap of faith that the poll respondents were not simply uninformed about the events in Egypt but were in fact "super smart" and answered the question on narrow technical grounds. It just doesn't pass the sniff test for me. It seems reminiscent of Palin's supporters arguing that, in fact, Paul Revere was warning the British about gun control. Ucanlookitup (talk) 10:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Where exactly do you see an misuse of statistics?

The margin of error of a poll does not apply to differences within the poll. This article explains the proper calculation. It is a very common mistake and you'll see it done by many reputable (but wrong) authors. It is also a good illustration of why Wikipedians should not try to be statisticians. Ucanlookitup (talk) 10:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

As far as WP authors concerned are concerned. I assume by "as a group" you mean, that can not be sure about the qualifications of an an individual wikipedian?

I agree that WP authors should normally not second guess reputable sources but report them as they are. However that is only true, if the WP authors decide to use it as a source to begin with. Also the FDU poll does not exactly pass the as test as "reputable peer reviewed publication" either, it is at best at lower end of formal reliability in the sense of a run of the mill average academic/university publication without having particular reputable author/institute/university behind it nor even an editorial process of a(n independent) publisher.

The argument about the reliability of the source and the notability of the poll is, imho, what we should be debating. That's why I'm still on the fence. The arguments about the content of the poll are just distracting from that discussion Ucanlookitup (talk)

Well as judging notability and reliability cannot or should not (always) be done without looking at the source's content as well, i.e. at least superficially doing some basic sanity checks, such as internal consistency, not (seriously) conflicting with established domain knowledge and similar. This is in particularly important if we deal with source at the lower end of our reliability range. In that sense I don't think we went astray for the WP editors role at all, but we are at its very core.

Personally I do actually believe (as a personal guess) that the poll's general claim (fox viewers are less informed about foreign affairs) is true, but that assessment is based on having seen enough lousy fox coverage (just take it's ridiculous coverage of Iraq/the Iraq war during the last decade). However I cannot honestly say that this claim follows from the poll results, i.e. if we write something "an fdu poll shows that fox viewers tend to be less informed in foreign policies" that is imho almost a straight lie as the poll shows no such thing. Or to put it in more general terms WP editors should not include formally verifiable material, if they "know" it not be true/accurate.

Current Wikipedia policy would seem to disagree. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true" (Wikipedia:Verifiability). Although there is debate on the topic. Ucanlookitup (talk) 10:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Now there is still a weak argument for including the poll on notability reasons alone (as in it is notable because it was covered by a (very) few (major) news outlets, so we should cover it too). However if we decide to cover it based on notability we need to come up with correct description. The original description is a no-go for the reason outline above. We could resort to simply literally quote some bits and maybe tweak the language (as in the FDU poll claims to show or according to FDU the poll shows instead of the FDU poll shows). However depending on how the quotes are picked there is still a big danger of creating misleading information (as the quotes may essentially suggest something similar to our original text). We could outline some of the studies issues in an accompanying footnote, but strictly speaking that could be considered as OR and hence creating another problem. So all we honestly could do, is quoting the exact poll question and the replies of the interviewed, that imho could be done. However that would make an somewhat awkward text and judging from discussion so far there still editors who oppose that anyway, so it might be easier to simply drop it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 07:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

On a separate note, stand by for part 2 in which Fox News viewers incorrectly identify who is bailing out European countries Part Deux Ucanlookitup (talk) 10:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It's a mistake to look at the FDU study in isolation. One limited study by itself might not be worth including, but the broader subject of FNC viewers' information level is clearly significant, having been the subject of multiple studies (reaching different conclusions). The FDU study is one more bit of information in that topic area. If it's all that flawed, it should be easy for editors to find a prominent spokesperson who says so, and to edit the text to include a report of that criticism, properly attributed. (Pursuant to JakeInJoisey's meta-comment, I've elaborated on my views on the main article talk page.) JamesMLane t c 05:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you make a valid point. It also highlights a problem with JakeInJoisey's meta-comment. If the discussion boils down to a question of undue weight (or if you prefer notability),which I believe it does, then we could legitimately arrive at a different answer for this page than for the main page. What might be too much detail for the larger topic may not be for a more focused page. Another problem I have with the meta-comment is that the discussion on the main page seems to have degenerated to partisan personal attacks. I don't have much interest in participating in that. Ucanlookitup (talk) 17:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The information might be included in the main article and in this one, included in the main article only, included in this article but with the main article having a summary and a link here, included in this article with no mention in the main article, or excluded from Wikipedia entirely. Because of the interrelationship of these alternatives, it makes sense to have one unified discussion. It's regrettable that the discussion on the main article talk page hasn't been more focused. JamesMLane t c 19:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

A another (possible final) comment from me and a late answer to Ucanlookitup:

First of all thanks for pointing the statistical issue one should be aware of, I didn't pay attention that beside yes/no the survey allowed third option with "don't know". However even taking that into account the information is still (too) weak to claim something like "fox viewers are less informed in foreign affairs" or even for a rather generic "fox viewers know less" (than who?). As far as foreign affairs knowledge is concerned Fox only sticks out in the "botched" regime question (see above), in other 2 questions Fox is more or less in line with the other commercial or partisan TV. So even if we ignore the questionable approach of assessing foreign affair knowledge by only 3 questions, the conclusion imho is more something like "people getting their news from partisan or commercial TV tend to know less (in foreign affairs) than listeners of National public radio"

As I said before we have a study which is formally still reliable and reputable, but clearly at the lower end of the of scale. Now if editors agree that there are quality issues in such a case it is in their discretion to simply drop such a problematic source. However that is an option not a must and personally I'm not really opposed to including the FDU study but it should be done in a careful manner, to avoid that we end up peddling nonsense to our readers. The same goes for summarizing several studies in one description. Keeping that in mind the current description is still highly problematic:

In 2011, a study by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that New Jersey Fox News viewers were less well informed than people who did not watch any news at all. The study employed objective questions, such as whether Hosni Mubarak was still in power in Egypt.

The issues are:

• the study never employed an "objective question" regarding Mubarak. In fact Mubarak is not mentioned in the questions at all, instead the question used the ambiguous term "regime", which means that no and yes can be correct as answer (regime as government/president and regime as power structure (police, military council). Yes they were successful in removing the president but no they were not successful in removing the military council, both threads can be found in reliable news reporting. Hence question is anything but objective.
• imho the result of the study is more correctly described as "partisan TV news viewers (among then fox viewers) are less informed" rather than "fox viewers are less informed".
• Since some of the conclusions seems questionable, it is might be necessary to qualify these sections if they are to be used at all. Depending in the exact description of the findings, I don't think we can honestly use a "factual" description as in "the FDU study found ...", but instead we might need something like "claims to have found" or "FDU researchers claim based on a survey, that .....".

All in all I'm somewhere between neutral and slightly in favour as far as the inclusion of the FDU material in general is concerned. However I do think the current description needs to be fixed and without fixing it it might be better to drop it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

thanks for the reply Kmhkmh - The statistical issues are deeper than simply having three choices. The poll compares one sub-group (Fox viewers) to all other groups of viewers (lots more than three). But I raised the statistical fallacy only to make a larger point. Wikipedia editors are not experts (generally speaking) on polling methodology and should not be second guessing the experts in the field. If your points are sound (or anyone's, I'm not singling you out), then we would expect that published authors would have published the same criticisms and we could site them. If we can't find published authors that point to flaws in the study, then we can't introduce the argument. That's the whole point of wp:verifiabilty

That said, you're rewording makes sense to me. 'Objective questions' is editorializing a bit, Ucanlookitup (talk) 23:34, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I somewhat disagree. On material with less exposure and reputation, you cannot always expect to have a published criticism available. To exaggerate the point a bit, the less reliable or reputable (and with less exposure) some published information/opinion is, the less likely you are to find some published criticism (or review). People, i. e. other experts, will simply not bother in particular with the most outrageous stuff out there. For that and for other reason WP editors need to second guess their sources, but they need to walk a fine line there. They cannot introduce their own criticism or opinion of a source, but to some degree they can decide which sources (or parts of them) they use and which they don't.

Yes, if we can't find published criticism pointing flaws, we (normally) cannot introduce an argument about the flaws into the text, I agree there. But we should not introduce material, we do not consider to be correct either (unless the source is so reputable, that coverage is required for any decent somewhat comprehensive treatment of the topic).

No matter whether they are experts or not WP editors need to assess sources and their content they want to use, that's a fundamental requirement for any (decent) writing and there's no way around that. Yes there is a higher chance that a non expert might get it wrong, when assessing the sources and considering how to use them, but that is an intrinsic problem of WP, that cannot be avoided. You cannot create decent encyclopedic articles by having WP editors simply working as "transcription monkeys" literally copying any formally reliable source out there - that's an absolute no-go (for legal reasons alone actually). They need to summarize, filter, rephrase, and provide context, there's no way around that. The fact that they are more likely than experts to produce errors in that process is reminder for them to be "extra careful", but ultimately something WP has to live with. Ideally most of those errors will be removed down the road through the WP's self correcting mechanisms.

Getting back from all of that to the FDU study. It is exactly the situation of a source being formally still reliable/reputable at the lower end, but not important or reputable enough for other experts to really bother. It is not published in a journal and the only external sources assessing it, were non experts as well (2 newspaper journalists). Now we are exactly in a situation, where we carefully need to assess how we use that source or whether we even might not use it at all. We certainly cannot describe its results as factual, when we actually do no just doubt them, but regarding some aspects already know that they are wrong. For instance we do know that they never asked a question about Mubarak literally and we do know that there actual question was problematic (the regime vs government), hence we should never give a factual description like "The study employed objective questions, such as whether Hosni Mubarak was still in power in Egypt", even if the study were to claim that literally in its analysis, because we know it not to be true. Also note I'm not arguing to publish our own criticism of the study in the WP article, I'm just arguing for being careful how we phrase the results of the study and which results/aspects of it we should use (at all).--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

You've characterized FDU as at the lower end of reliable/reputable. I really don't see the basis for that. They are covered by mainstream media enough to solicit criticism of their methodology if it was appropriate. Certainly opponents have weighed in on previous studies. Substituting our critique of their methodology in the place of credentialed authorities seems to me a very dangerous precedent. Nonetheless, I do agree that the summarize of the study should be objective and accurate. I would support a wording change that included qualifiers like "FDU concluded that..." Ucanlookitup (talk) 04:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

In summary (I believe), WP:EditorialJudgement can legitimately trump anything (and I think I read that somewhere). JakeInJoisey (talk) 07:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem with this argument is that it renders all policies meaningless. It's a policy, unless I don't like it, then it's EditorialJudgement. Ucanlookitup (talk) 03:52, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Controversies related to Russia

1. Following the 2008 South Ossetia War, Fox News had an interview with 12-year-old girl Amanda Kokoeva and her aunt Laura Tedeeva. When Mikheil Saakashvili was blamed for the conflict, the interview had been abruptly interrupted. [6]

2. Following the 2011 Elections in Russia, Fox News reported on protests in Moscow. However, the material used shows protests that took place in Greece. [7]

--ConCelFan (talk) 11:57, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted incorporation of #2. In addition to a basic question as to the WP:RS of the source and the rather absurd banality of issue itself, please support, via supporting citations if you can, how this content rises to satisfy consideration under WP:UNDUE and shouldn't be peremptorily disposed of as the essence of WP:COATRACK. JakeInJoisey (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, RT (Russia Today) is not a good source on this for sure, but there are reports on this gaffe in reliable media as well (for instance: [8]). I can't see a case of WP:COATRACK here, but I guess a case of WP:UNDUE might be arguable, if one considers the episode as simply an innocent embarrassing mistake. On the other hand Fox seems to have a track record of such "innocent mistake" and one might see it rather exemplary for its shoddy reporting & editorial control/standards.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Fox News has a history of such "innocent mistakes", a history that exhibits two important characteristics: that the mistakes occur far more often than with other networks, and that the mistakes are overwhelmingly likely to be in the direction that's favorable to Fox's right-wing world view. The problem is that no one mistake proves such tendencies. To inform the readers properly, we have to provide the information and let them judge. If Fox News has fired some scapegoat intern over this, and asserted that it was all that one person's fault, we can include that explanation, too, properly attributed. JamesMLane t c 17:34, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

...that the mistakes occur far more often than with other networks...

Simply an absurd, WP:OR supposition totally ignoring the left-wing (and your own), pro-active, anti-Fox News campaign to document and over-hype every Fox News failure to cross a t or dot an i...and a quite shameful abuse of this WP project itself Mr. Lane. JakeInJoisey (talk) 17:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Right, right, this is completely OR, I personally just concocted this absurd idea that Fox News exhibits any bias whatsoever. And Ronald Reagan cut taxes and balanced the budget, and Saddam was behind 9/11.

Come on, Jake, get real. You're not required to agree with what you call the "anti-Fox News campaign" but it's absurd to pretend that it's a creation of a few Wikipedia editors. This is one of the serious issues that's been raised about Fox News. We should not assert as fact that these mistakes evince bias, nor should we assert as fact that the critics are out to "over-hype every Fox News failure to cross a t or dot an i...." We also shouldn't adopt that latter POV implicitly, by suppressing the facts relied on by the critics. To avoid abuse of the encyclopedia, we simply present the facts and let the readers decide for themselves. JamesMLane t c 00:59, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Right, right, this is completely OR, I personally just concocted this absurd idea that Fox News exhibits any bias whatsoever.

Not what I said...and I'll not entertain strawmen. JakeInJoisey (talk) 04:28, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

2011 in review

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-worst-fox-news-moments-of-2011 has some fluff, but plenty of examples of abject bias and towards the end it starts getting into some serious issues. 67.6.163.68 (talk) 07:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

MSNBC Controversies?

Where's MSNBC Controversies article page? Don't despair my little left wing friends, I'll make it happen for ya. Jetijonez (talk) 02:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Your nasty tone is evidently intended to convey a belief that Fox News and MSNBC are being treated differently because of left-wing Wikipedians' bias against Fox News.

Okay, let's treat the two networks the same way. Currently, the right-wing criticisms of MSNBC are found right in that article, in the section MSNBC#Criticism and controversy. When it comes to Fox News, though, much of the criticism is relegated to this daughter article, leaving the main article with only a summary, and an inadequate one at that.

So, to eliminate the bias, all we have to do is follow the model of the MSNBC article, and incorporate the criticisms of Fox News into the main article, after which we can delete this "Controversies" article. Are you on board? JamesMLane t c 08:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely! For the record I'm a Democrat, and I'm a little embarrassed that these discrepancies are happening here on WP. This is an Encyclopedia not a Blog! so opinions need to be left at the door. Jetijonez (talk) 16:34, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, opinions aren't left completely at the door. We report facts, including facts about opinions. Whether the article subject is Fox News or MSNBC, we should give a fair presentation of the major opinions about controversial aspects, including the significant facts upon which each side relies, but we report such opinions ("X said Y") rather than adopting them.

As for the organizational question, you should start a separate thread if you want to propose merging the content of this article back into the main Fox News Channel article where it belongs. Expect fierce opposition. JamesMLane t c 17:38, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Conservatives may think they want us to be consistent in our treatment of Fox News vs. other news sources, but anyone who pays critical objective attention knows they definitely DON'T want us to be consistent. They don't realize that we are going soft on them. The contrast is actually much more stark than they realize. So yeah, i'm all about being consistent. But to satisfy the conservatives on WP we can't be TOO consistent. We need to blow up the MSNBC controversies a little and diminuiate the Fox News ones to make them look a little more equal, and thus reduce the incredulity factor a little bit; make it a bit more palatable. I believe that is the current state of affairs and "correcting" it to much would invoke calls of "liberal bias", like Fox News does to news sources that report the facts, or their pundits and "news reporters" call anyone who discloses anything that doesn't corroborate their pre-established beliefs, however factual or obvious. Kevin Baas^talk 17:48, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

RfC relating indirectly to this article

At the talk page for the main article, Talk:Fox News Channel, a Request for Comment has been initiated on this question: "Should this article's summary of the more detailed Fox News Channel controversies article include reference to the dispute about Fox News viewers' levels of information?"

To keep the discussion in one place, editors who wish to comment should go to Talk:Fox News Channel#Request for Comment to read the specific proposed addition and to weigh in. JamesMLane t c 03:46, 28 December 2011 (UTC)