Talk:John Ziegler (talk show host)

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[edit] References

It would be nice to know what facts in particular we need references for. You can add {{fact}} after questionable statements. Theshibboleth 05:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

There's very little that's referenced now, so it would really clutter the article to add many fact tags. For starters, the "Segments", "Celebrity interviews", and "Controversies" have no sources at all, though they contains facts and opinions. The biography section has one source, covering just one fact. Lack of sources is a common problem with talk show host biographies. My theory is that regular listeners feel they know the information so well that they engage in unwitting original research. In any case, we need to keep this material verifiable. -Will Beback · † · 06:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Project Louisville?

This is part of Wiki Project Louisville, but the article mentions nothing significant about the Louisville / WHAS controversy. Thus, the article is primarily about Ziegler after his move to KFI, which puts it more in a Los Angeles frame of reference. I mean, Ziegler worked everywhere from Kentucky to North Carolina, Tennessee to California, so why this fits a Louisville wiki project doesn't seem to make a ton of sense. (Kroessman 05:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

Two paragraphs worth of his connection to Louisville. Good enough for me. Of course, other regional projects may want to cover Ziegler as well. But his impact on Louisville was significant, and that's why it makes sense that WPLouisville cover him. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 07:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This should definatly stay in the Louisville project, what this guy did is infamous in the Louisville area...Cool10191 (talk) 20:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How are the sources not cited well in this article?

there should be a list of uncited sources or unsourced citations so it's easier to identify them and then cite them —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FranzSS (talk • contribs) 23:11, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

I have added "[citation needed]" tags to a number of facts and quotes in the article that should be sourced. I tried to not add overly many such tags in order to keep the article readable, so those are just a few of the facts that could use references, but they are at least a start when you want to improve the article. Sarnalios 22:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Good work. In fact, every assertion should be sourced, which means that virtually every sentence or paragrah should have a citation, at least in an ideal world. At some point someone may come through and remove all of the unsourced material, so anythig which is important should be sourced. -Will Beback · † · 22:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Wait! Are you sure? I added the dollar figure in Ask John Anything. I heard it on his program and made the addition the following day. Question: How would listeners go back and properly cite things heard on his program? It is likely, in some cases, that the information will never again be repeated. I'll know to add this in the future, but I wonder how this issue should be handled. I compared Ziegler's to Howard Stern and Tom Leykis. Stern's seems to contain a lot of non-show information and is more easily cited. Leykis' seems to be a mess. 66.134.232.226 02:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, these radio show articles are all a mess. This is one of the best, because there are an unusually large number of printed sources. Regarding your question, unless there's a show archive there's no way for anyone to verify what you heard last week. It's unverifiable and shouldn't be included. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

As I have pointed out previously, and Will Beback has included at the top of the References section of the article, there are podcasts available for the John Ziegler Show, so you can go back a get the citations and sourcing right. But this requires that you know roughly when something was said on the show, which is hardly the case with much of the unsourced material in this, and many other, articles on radio talk shows. I have been spending a lot of time listening through previous shows and tried to verify as many statements as possible, but this does of course take a lot of time considering that JZ is on three hours a night five days a week. Thus far I have listened through the podcasts of April-July of 2007 and am working my way through August 2007, so this is still very much in progress. It is however unfortunate that so many users add pieces of information to articles without at the same time providing the sources, as this creates extra work when people later have to deal with such additions by either determining if they should be removed or by spending time finding the sources. Sarnalios 19:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kerry/Iraq

• In late 2006, John Ziegler drew nationwide attention for being the first to actively criticize John Kerry for the infamous comment that "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." (Ziegler had seen it played on a local TV station.) He posted the audio on his website, and it was picked up by bloggers and the Drudge Report on its way to becoming worldwide news. Ziegler took credit for publicizing the story.(The John Ziegler Show, KFI, Jan 1, 2007 (9PM hour))The Big Story, Fox News, Nov, 2006 (on YouTube, retrieved May 18, 2007)</ref>

While the Fox News piece does credit Ziegler with breaking the story, this description indicates that he simply picked up an item that had been reported already by TV news. Further, this paragraph is located in the "Controversies" section, and there's nothing here to indicate a controversy. It isn't quite a scoop, and it isn't a controversy. Perhaps if we re-write it and move it to the sectio on his show it'd make more sense. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The version of the article that you quote clearly states that "John Ziegler drew nationwide attention for being the first to actively criticize John Kerry for the infamous comment". Therefore, it is clear to the reader that Ziegler played the active role in putting that comment into the context for which Kerry later received criticism. While the local TV news did broadcast Kerry's comment, they did not make a big deal out of it at the time. It was later, as a result of Ziegler's actions, picked up by other news outlets and made into a major controversy. The context into which Kerry's comments was put by Ziegler clearly created a scoop out of a comment that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and uncriticized by the general public and, yes, it was considered controversial, since not everyone viewed the Kerry comments as an insensitive attack on the troops in Iraq, but as merely an innocent botched joke poorly dealt with by Kerry at the time.

I must also object to your rewriting of that piece of the article. Ziegler did draw nationwide attention for this scoop, and Fox News was not in any way the first news outlet to pick up on the controversy of the Kerry comment, why it should not be given special treatment in the article. It also contains a factual inaccuracy in that Ziegler is not a nationwide broadcaster, but a local radio show host.

Concerning moving the part into the "The John Ziegler Show" section, I must sadly disagree with that as well. His role in the Kerry controversy does not have anything to do with the show as such, and should therefore not be part of that section. Sarnalios 22:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiability

How can we verify a citation like this?

• The John Ziegler Show, KFI, June 21, 2007 (7PM hour)

There don't appear to be any audio archives for this show, except for a set of "highlights" from 2006.[1] The core policy of WP:verifiability calls on us to use "published" information. These citations seem worthless for verification purposes. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Concerning the "highlights" that you mentioned, I believe those are not being posted anymore because so many of the listeners who use the Internet are now subscribing to the podcast instead as to make the posting of audio directly on the show website somewhat redundant.

You should be able to verify the citations made by subscribing to the John Ziegler Show podcast at http://www.kfi640.com/cc-common/podcast.html, which is easily accessible from the KFI start page and should provide a backlog of previous shows. The podcast URL itself is http://www.kfi640.com/podcast/JohnZiegler.xml. All three hours of the show are podcast in three separate files approximately 35 minutes each (but I believe that the earliest podcasts of the show are in a slightly different format), and I have tried to be specific as to which hour contains the citation to make verification less of a burden. Especially when it comes to Ziegler's quotes, being able to directly reference the broadcast where such a statement was made should certainly make verification easier. Therefore, the citations are quite verifiable, especially if you compare this to the effort required to verify a quote from obscure books not available at most libraries or bookstores, as is commonly used as sources elsewhere on Wikipedia.

Concerning the issue of "published" information, I would argue, as is done in the "Publishing" article here at Wikipedia, that "publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view." Thus, the audio from a radio broadcast, whether available as a podcast or not, would be considered "published" information. In this particular case it is also quite verifiable, making it an adequate source. Sarnalios 22:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Very good - I hadn't seen that page, thanks for providing it. I've gone ahead and provided a link so folks can check the sources themselves. I think the podcats count as "publishing". But in general, a broadcast isn't published if there's no record of what was broadcast. It's more like attending a lecture or participating in a conversation in that only people who were listing at the time can verify the material. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] John Ziegler leaving KFI

We have seen quite a bit of editing activity following Ziegler's on-the-air announcement on November 12 that he will be leaving KFI. Unfortunately, not a single one of the people making those edits has provided the sources for the information.

Since I do not subscribe to Ziegler's newsletter myself nor have access to his website, it would be nice to get some actual quotes from either the newsletter or (even better in my opinion) his personal website or the official KFI website (though I haven't seen any information there yet concerning Ziegler's departure on the KFI website). Such quotes would of course have to be properly sourced. Sarnalios 00:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I can confirm the story since I was listening to him broadcast the news on KFI on my way home today. It's a good thing, too. Especially considering that John Ziegler is a no-talent and another, as RC Collins might say, "Another angry white man ready with all the answers." Plus, he sucks.

Take this link as proof that butt-boy is getting out while the getting is good.

http://www.johnziegler.com/

It says right on his own website "John Ziegler" aka "suck-boy" is ghost.

TLAGT —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.140.22.70 (talk) 03:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

What I tried to get across with my initial post is that the information that is added to this article (and every other Wikipedia article) should come with a reference so that readers of the article are able to verify the claims made. I don't doubt that Ziegler has left KFI, but I want any information on this (and all other topics) to be properly sourced. If the sourcing is not done the right way now while the topic is still hot, it is likely to remain in that state later, when sourcing the claims will be more difficult and time consuming. Sarnalios 16:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I should also add that the information about Ziegler leaving KFI should in my opinion be contained within the The John Ziegler Show section of the article, as this related directly to his work at KFI. Claims about Ziegler's departure are currently spread out over several sections (the intro, the show and the controversies sections), where the part in the Controversies section appears to be more speculation than evidence of a controversy. His departure may turn out to have been caused by some controversy, but until as much is known, let's keep the speculation to a minimum. Sarnalios 16:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I found this in the L.A. Times concerning the Ziegler departure from KFI. I think it should be used as a source for this event. Sarnalios 23:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] God almighty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I skimread this article with mounting disbelief. Sample:

Why not just

?

Or am I curiously unable to appreciate the wit and wisdom or encyclopedic significance of Ziegler (or Kobylt)'s exact words?

Also, the article seems curiously full of Ziegler said this, Ziegler said that. Well, uh, so what? What percentage of his pronouncements has been noted by the NYT, etc. (even USA Today)? -- Hoary (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the part about Ziegler's two day suspension is given way too much room in the article. I suggest the following wording instead of the lenghty version now in the article:

"Ziegler was suspended from KFI for two days after an on-the-air exchange about the Iraq War with fellow KFI talk show host John Kobylt on September 11, 2006." Sarnalios (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Done.

Well, that's one paragraph. I think other people should now cut the other paragraphs to 20% or so of their current lengths. Or perhaps I misunderstand and every utterance of this Ziegler person is stunningly significant. -- Hoary (talk) 01:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The significance is that this incident with Kobylt is what Ziegler attributes to why he was "fired" from a station who was #1 in the ratings at the time and who was drawing high ratings for that time slot and also the reason for the problems he had with other personalities and management there. Ryratt (talk) 19:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] KGIL

I have no idea why no one has added his new job as new commentator on KGIL. You ppl should check on kgil's website —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.43.135 (talk) 06:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)