Talk:George Lamb (presenter)

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[edit] Press Coverage

This is meant to be an information page, not a vehicle through which to express sentiment, negative or otherwise, regarding George Lamb. Hitler got fairly bad press, though there is no section dedicated to this on his page. Though a mention of the coverage Lamb has received may not be entirely unnecessary, it hardly requires the space currently held. Has anyone got any constructive suggestions as to how we can allude to the debate without bringing it onto the page, and without excessive external linking? If not, and if there are no well-founded objections, I will delete both press coverage sections. Cheers, Soulsonic Bambaataa (talk) 10:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I say the press coverage sections do not belong. They seem to be an indiscriminate list of references and quotes. I say indiscriminate, as they include actual criticism of him, such as reference 15 (all reference numbers are based on this version of the article [1]), what seem to be attempts at neutrally describing the controversy, such as references 21 and 14, and those with little mention of him, such as references 12 and 20. I think we should remove these sections first, although the references might useful as references when describing the debate.

We already have a section on the controversy, that seems to be reasonably neutral. It could be expanded, possible with quotes of some of the more notable criticisms and praises of him, probably only a couple, to illustrate the controversy. We already have links to a couple such reviews, that might be suitable. We could probably do with mentioning Lesley Douglas's defence of her changes to BBC 6Music, as she mentioned Lamb quite a bit (see reference 14, for example). As for hitler, there is a section on hitler's legacy, that illustrates how to be neutral when describing a debate. Silverfish (talk) 18:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll get on that in the next day so. Thanks for your thoughts. Soulsonic Bambaataa (talk) 18:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought about deleting that bit, but thought the better of it and instead added the 2 'pro' links at the bottom for a semblance of balance. Problem is, this page has been massively vandalised in the past and I think if you delete those references you'll just kick that off again. And they are relevant, after a fashion: people in reputable media outlets did say those things about poor George. So I suggest keeping it there for fear of something worse. Graham —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gks000b (talk • contribs) 12:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally i still think the article would be better off without all the press comments as i feel it is still rather one sided and there is another section about the controversy Tresiden (talk) 20:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I've removed it now. Silverfish (talk) 20:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that was a mistake, for the reasons above, but we'll see. Meantime, are there any grounds for the 'disputed neutrality' and 'needs cleanup' flags? I indend to delete these (once I work out how) Gks000b (talk) 11:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC).

Removed the tags, I agree that they arn't needed now. Article is now neutral and does not require clean-up. Gks000b, for future reference the tags appear at the very top in the edit window. Removing the press coverage was probably the best thing to do, simply mentioning that he has had bad reviews and referencing such reiews is better. Regarding a controvercy section, I think having it merged in with the article as it is currently works well. I think it makes the article flow a bit better, plus there probably isn't enough controvercies to justify it's own section, and expanding on it would be largely pointless. --Norman22b (talk) 12:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I would disagree that the press comments make it unneutral. If I find positive comments then they'll be posted to. The comments reflect what is found in the media. The unprecented amount of coverage George Lamb has attracted is, I feel, very much an important part of his biography and to omit it is to ignore a huge swathe of thought. ~~Matt Whitby~~

I don't think neutrality is the only issue. For me, the list seems to be indiscriminate, both due to its length, and also the fact that it includes actual criticism of him (the only thing that would belong in such a section, IMO), seemingly-neutral coverage of him, and articles that barely mention him, quoted as though the quote is the main point of the article. They also lack context, as they do not say who makes the criticism is from. The list due to its length seems to give undue weight to the controversy. Overall, the section looks more like it would belong in Wikiquote or similar.

I think the best approach is to talk neutrally about the controversy. There already is a section talking about that, although it could be expanded, possibly quoting a few notable critics, to illustrate. Silverfish (talk) 14:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I am unaware of any DJ who was received as much press as George Lamb and the list was aimed at demonstrating the widespread feelings about it, both positive and negative. That the negative comments outweight the positive is simply down to the quotes available. If there were more positive news stories then I would expect that to be represented in the wikipedia article. -- Matt Whitby

If you all agree to leave these in for now, I'll try and edit them down into a 'Controversy' section when I have a free moment. It is pretty unique for a DJ to provoke such a reaction and it's got to be worth recording. Meanwhile, I found another vaguely pro-article and added that. Gks000b (talk) 09:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is this considered "positive" press coverage: "Guardian, 13 May 2008: "Controversial BBC 6 Music DJ George Lamb, who provoked a listener backlash among some sections of the station's audience, was last night crowned the Sony Radio Academy Awards inaugural "rising star"." [25]" Simply reporting that he won an award is neutral at best, they are merely reporting the fact that he won an award, they do not imply that it was deserved or undeserved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.14.174 (talk) 13:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)