Talk:Don McCullin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

	This page is within the scope of WikiProject History of photography, a project to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on the history of photography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

[edit] McCullin in the RAF

I have just made a change to the article relating to his failure of written theory in the RAF - it is a referance to this article - though the particular part of the article is not on the website, I do however have a physical copy of it. Is there any way to referance this?

Sorry not to sure of how to go about this yet.

Here is the quote from the newspaper: "When I was in the RAF I was sent to a photographic unit, doing aerial intelligence, but I failed my trade test to become a photographer because I couldn't read the written theory. So I left the RAF as a failed photographer."—Preceding unsigned comment added by TheNobGoblin (talk • contribs)

I agree that those are his words: "a failed photographer", and that the source you have—a recent interview in The Guardian—is a verifiable one. But as written, it looks as if the article disparaging of McCullin. So I've rewritten it slightly, and incorporated the reference you've provided, thanks for finding it. — BillC ^talk 16:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

This article from the same publisher (in reality if not name, the same newspaper) directly states that McCullin is severely dyslexic. To say this (in context) is surely not defamatory and the bit about the RAF would not have been cut in order to save space. I think it's likely that it was cut because something about it (other than the problem reading) was wrong. We can cite material that has appeared in newspapers that are moderately good or better, but we should be very wary of citing such material if we know it was later retracted. -- Hoary 06:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. It seems clear that he did not become a photographer in the RAF, due to not having succeeded at the written paper. If you want to find a way of wording this that'll work well, please go ahead. Regards, — BillC ^talk 06:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 11:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bullet-stopping camera

The statement that his camera "stopped a bullet intended for him", as well as needing citation, seems rather strong as it implies deliberate targeting. Was the bullet really "intended for him" or did he just happen to be on its trajectory? Where was he when this happened? Dricherby 17:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)