Talk:Charles Starr

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A fact from Charles Starr appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 12 April 2008.

[edit] Comments

Not sure where best to have this discussion, but I believe the "Good, the Bad, and the Awful" series fails miserably as a WP:RS. The Willamette Week uses a methodology that doesn't pass the laugh test, and has been doing so for years: they interview lobbyists, and then publish the results anonymously. This is a serious departure from journalistic ethics, which as a rule require reporters to name sources. Sources go unnamed when there are compelling reasons to do so, and where the story does not suffer as a result; the journalist is typically understood to put his/her reputation on the line by doing so. In this case, the WW makes a regular practice of leaving sources unnamed in order to produce a more salacious story -- decidedly not a compelling reason.

Anyway -- all this is my own opinion, based on close reading of the article and its introduction, and an email discussion with Nigel Jaquiss who did the piece last session. I suppose we can't completely ignore the pieces, since they do offer a rundown of legislators. But I would suggest that we take them with a pretty big grain of salt. Perhaps this: seek out alternate sources where possible, and steer clear of quoting unsourced generalizations (like "so-and-so isn't smart") from these particular articles. -Pete (talk) 01:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree they are not the best source, which is why the actual ratings of the person were not used and I didn't use "dumb as a post" and the dumbest in the legislature which were used to describe him here and in other articles. But these views were generally a consensus from multiple surveys (and I believe mentioned in some other articles). I tried to balance it with the more positive comments. As to unnamed sources, yes that would be nice to have names with them, but not only from a sensationalism view of getting more readers, unless you go nameless I doubt you would get any negative views from lobbyists. The Willamette Week qualifies as a RS, and I don't think we can really go article by article as rarely would the background of an article exist for any determination of the factors outlined in RS. To quote RS:

Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. When citing opinion pieces in newspapers and magazines, in-text attribution should be used if the material is contentious. When adding contentious biographical material about living persons that relies upon news organizations, only material from high-quality news organizations should be used.

So reliability is mainly with the newspaper, and not individual articles. Aboutmovies (talk) 02:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

First, my tone last night leaves a lot to be desired -- I'm overall impressed with this article that you put together very quickly, with a huge variety of sources. Sorry for launching right into my one criticism without saying that.

I recognize and agree that reliability is generally something that goes with the publisher not the article or the writer. But this is a special case, worthy of special attention. The WW repeatedly asserts its departure from journalistic principles in the case of this specific feature.

One year, the intro begins: "Reader Beware: What follows is largely gossip and opinion…" and another year, it says: "(1) This survey does not claim to be anything more than a number-crunch based on unscientific scores given by people who closely follow legislative antics."

A group of journalism professors addressed anonymity here: "Medill professors emphasize that unnamed sources should be used sparingly. Students routinely are required to submit names and contact information for every person quoted in their articles as a guard against fabrication."

That famous unsourced online encyclopedia has this to say: "The downside is that the condition of anonymity may make it difficult or impossible for the reporter to verify the source's statements. Sometimes sources hide their identities from the public because their statements would otherwise quickly be discredited."

A team of online journalists for the Poynter journalism school asserted this as part of their guidelines: "For the most part, though, it's difficult to make the case that the credibility of anonymous content can ever match that of material whose author is known. As journalists, our default position is to publish material only with full names attached. We make exceptions only in rare cases, only for compelling reasons, and only with explanations attached explaining the reason for the anonymity."

In short, WW makes a flippant case for rewriting journalistic standards in the case of this one annual(ish) feature. They state they're granting anonymity to ensure they're "…not getting mealy-mouthed answers." It's not me, but WW that first said this feature should be considered differently from the rest of their content.

I think it's a mistake to include anything acknowledged to be gathered from anonymous sources, with such tepid justification, in a serious encyclopedia article. The sentence sourced to these columns should be removed. -Pete (talk) 17:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)