Talk:Media Watch (TV program)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flag
Portal
 Media Watch (TV program) is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
This article is supported by WikiProject Australian television.
Assessment comments
News This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. The citation is in:

I thought Tim Bowden was a host in the early days, perhaps even the first host? Ajayvius 10:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Tim Bowden hosted a program in the 1980s called "Backchat". I don't think he ever hosted Media Watch. Peter Ballard 10:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sour grapes of Murdoch press

sources that are relied upon need to be independent of what they are reporting on, Bolt and the Australian's editor are obviously not neutral sources of criticism on this program's coverage of the Murdoch press as opposed to others media organisations. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 10:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. Whether a source is independent or neutral is irrelevant to whether it should be mentioned (though those factors do affect how it should be mentioned, of course). I suggest closer study of WP:NPOV and WP:RS. Please note that coming to grips with the subtleties of those policies is a challenge few Wikipedians have found easy. Cheers, CWC 00:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
CWC please remember to keep civil when discussing policies and changes. Also you may want to look at reaching a consensus and not unilaterally changing the article. I notice that you have copped criticism before for your conservative views effecting your neutrality so maybe that is something to think about. - Mike Beckham 01:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, which I've been consciously following ;-). Cheers, CWC 06:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
please don't start lawyering at me CWC by throwing policies at me. Your misrepresentation of the criticism of bias as being from 'critics' rather than from the very organisations and people that mediawatch investigates is an obvious breach of the very policies you point towards. Criticism of a subjectmatter is only relevant if it comes from those who are independent from a dispute, and even if it was notable those 'critics' would have to be very clearly identified. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 07:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
At Wikipedia, whether criticism of an article's subject is relevant has nothing to do with whether the critic is independent from a dispute, as explained above.
WP:UNDUE says that notable criticism should be reported; other rules (and common sense) say that we have to identify the critics, mention any conflicts they have with the subject, etc. So, yes, we should mention that the ongoing Bolt/MW and TheOz/MW conflicts. Perhaps we could say "Note: Bolt and Media Watch are long-time critics", and describe The Australian as "a frequent Media Watch target". Oh, wait. Someone already did that. And the editor's name seems ... somehow familiar.
WikiTownsvillian, please try very hard to never mischaracterise my edits like this in future. Also, please read Wikipedia:WikiLawyering, paying close attention to the second paragraph of this section. Cheers, CWC 14:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Please keep civil you two. Debate the page and changes and stop attacking each other. - Mike Beckham 00:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The 'critics' cannot be identified as "others" which is a generalisation as if the criticism has widespread support, it does not. I agree that it could be notable criticism, but it is not clearly identified and is not notable enough to be in the lead of the overview section. To include this reference (if an editorial passes WP:RS) we would have to say something along the lines of; Andrew Bolt and the Australian, who are regularly scrutinised by Media Watch, have been long term counter-critics of the show, accusing it of left wing bias. anything more vague than that infers widespread support of the criticism, which there is not, mentioning the 'critics' bias in the footnote is nowhere near good enough. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 12:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

PS. I agree with Peter Ballard that the sentences that praise media watch for its neutrality and fearless investigations also need to be sourced. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 13:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Regarding CWC's accusation of my being uncivil, there is no need to worry, I don't use the phrase 'wikilawyer' lightly and I ask him/her to read the second, third and fourth points in the first part of that essay. WikiTownsvillian 14:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
(Belated response from CWC:) I don't believe I've accused WikiTownsvillian of being uncivil, and I don't believe s/he has been uncivil in any way. (I also don't believe I was wikilawyering — but then I would say that, wouldn't I?). Cheers, CWC 16:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Given this discussion happened several weeks ago I'm not sure what I was referring to either so I will happily take back the comment, I think I was pissed at you referring me specifically to Wikipedia:WikiLawyering#Negative_connotations in what I felt at the time was being condescending, I'm not worried about it now. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 12:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing

Secondary sources are preferable to primary sources in encyclopedia articles, but they aren't always available. I'm not aware of any usable secondary sources about Media Watch — all we have is people arguing for or against MW, not writing dispassionately about MW. So we have to fall back on primary sources. But we have to be careful to signal to readers that they are not secondary sources.

The specific example I am thinking of is Andrew Bolt's item about MW, Philip Adams and Ron Brunton. This is not valid as a secondary source, so we cannot use it to say that MW turns reports about left-wing stuff-ups into attacks on conservatives. However, it is valid as a primary source, to show that critics have claimed that MW turns reports about left-wing stuff-ups into attacks on conservatives. The distinction is subtle (and I probably haven't explained it very well), but important.

I hope this helps. Cheers, CWC 03:34, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

If a primary source isn't significant enough for a secondary source to report on it then how is it notable for an encyclopaedia article? WikiTownsvillian 08:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
That question is tied to a fairly deep issue with Wikipedia: How can we write good, encyclopedic articles following our own rules on topics where there are no good secondary sources? The answer so far is that we use secondary sources to judge WP:Notability, and use primary sources in articles only when there are no suitable secondary sources. (At least, that's how we should work.)
In this case, there is very little chance of neutral secondary sources ever appearing, so we're stuck with primary sources. The key thing is to carefully identify where each claim comes from: we have to say that David Salter suggested that "Media Watch sh[ied] away from this nasty tar-pit of issues because it was unwilling to subject Michael Brissenden, a journalist in the ABC's news and current affairs department, to the same level of ethical scrutiny it applies to others", instead of just using the quoted words. CWC 08:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
If there is no chance of a neutral secondary source ever appearing to back up your assertions then it is obviously WP:OR. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 08:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, WikiTownsvillian, this argument is not valid. In an article about Y, a sentence like "X says that Y disimmentatizes the eschateon.[ref]" is not OR. (Of course, it still has to meet the standards of WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc.) CWC 10:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
in response to Peter's edit summery "Undo. Andrew Bolt's blog is a RS when it comes to documenting what Andrew Bolt's opinion is" the point isn't whether that is Andrew Bolt's opinion, the point is how is Andrew Bolt's opinion relevant to the article's subject matter (the TV program Media Watch) the only way to establish that his opinion is notable to the subject is by secondary sources, even the statement saying that Andrew Bold and media watch are long time critics of each other needs to be backed up with a secondary source as it is also WP:OR; I would object to this statement because it infers that it is a personal or professional vendetta on both Bolts and Media Watch's part, thus it degrades Media Watch's integrity down to the level of Bolt. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 08:31, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. IMO, the point is that (1) conservatives strongly assert that MW protects bad journalism by lefties while harassing conservatives, and (2) Bolt's item is a perfectly good example of that assertion. The current wording in our article does not endorse Bolt's claim but instead just cites it as an example, which is how we should handle this sort of thing. (I'll find more examples one day, BTW.)
It is an undeniable fact Bolt and MW are long-term critics of each other. Unfortunately, again, I don't have a secondary source for that; primary sources (MW attacks on Bolt; Bolt's attacks on MW) would be relatively easy to find but less than encyclopedic.
(BTW, more than one conservative commentator has concluded that MW does indeed have a vendetta against Bolt ... and against Janet Albrechtsen, and every other conservative in Australian public life. These commentators see MW as shamelessly hypocritical partisan hacks who have no 'integrity' at all. And they have lots of evidence for their conclusions. Some of these commentators are notable in Wikipedia terms, and WP:NPOV requires that this article mention their viewpoint.)
Cheers, CWC 08:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
in your first para (1) and (2) are assertions not backed up by secondary sources... your second paragraph is an assertion by yourself that is not backed up by secondary sources... your third para (although not quoting these "conservative commentators" specifically) is just putting forward the POV by those who are obviously not neutral sources as they are complaining about MW's scrutiny of themselves... WikiTownsvillian 08:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, those conservative commentators are complaining about MW's apparent campaign against every conservative in the Aus media. No, they're not neutral; but their criticism of MW comes without (or before) MW attacking them individually. (For some strange reason, any conservative who criticises MW seems to then get attacked by MW, often on specious grounds.) Also, whether my assertions on this page are backed up by secondary sources is irrelevant, especially since they're easily verified. Cheers, CWC 10:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
If they are easily verified then do so! If you can produce a neutral secondary source to back up any of these opinions you are expressing then there is no problem. WikiTownsvillian 14:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, by "verified" I mean confirmed by checking the primary sources, as opposed to confirmed by secondary sources we could use in the article. Sorry. CWC 09:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
We're not going to resolve this, our dispute is not over content but our understanding of wikipedia policy regarding notability and referencing, would you be happy to take this to a neutral admin and agree to abide by their recommendation? Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 09:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with CWC's point at the start of this section: there are precious few secondary sources on Media Watch. All we really have is the MW transcripts, and the people (usually conservatives) who complain against it. So unfortunately we need to use those primary souces, because they're better than nothing, but we need to use them carefully. Peter Ballard 11:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
p.s. if we relied on Reliable Secondary Sources for this article, then the article would say almost nothing. Peter Ballard 11:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)