Talk:The Daily Caller/Archive 8

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Archive 8

Was Menendez clearly vindicated?

In reference to the prostitution accusations the Daily Caller made against Bob Menendez, I think it's incorrect to say, in Wikipedia's voice, that those accusations were simply "false". The more I read about the circumstances of the case the less crystal clear Menendez's innocence appears. The fact that the FBI, which was still investigating Menendez on this issue years after the Caller's story, hardly gave the Senator a ringing endorsement of innocence makes the truth seem far murkier than MastCell and other editors would have us believe. See ]https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/sd-me-menendez-case-20171012-story.html] among other articles casting doubts on Menendez's proclamations of innocence. Goodtablemanners (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

All politics aside, Menendez spends an awful lot of time under federal criminal investigation (both under Democratic and Republican administrations) to be given a presumption of freedom from suspicion. BD2412 T 01:11, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Um, no? Past bad acts and conformity therewith? WP:BLPCRIME clearly states that we should presume innocence and not imply guilt: it doesn't make an exception for people previously under ethics investigation for unrelated matters. Andre🚐 01:25, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

We're not talking about our presumptions, though, but about whether it was reasonable for the DC to report allegations made against Menendez. BD2412 T 01:55, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

It says it right there in the San Diego Union Tribune article: Federal prosecutors said Monday that they aren’t convinced claims U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez cavorted with underage hookers – widely seen as discredited – are false. Our job is just to report that they were widely seen as discredited - not speculation that they may not be. The 2017 case ended in a mistrial and an acquittal of all charges[1] As pertaining to the Daily Caller we simply need to say that the Caller was involved and reported on the allegations which were not confirmed. In fact there are further allegations that an individual working for the Caller paid the women to lie, which appear in this article. I haven't done research on those but the answer to, was Menendez vindicated, is that it doesn't matter whether he was or not. We simply write what the reliable sources say about it. Andre🚐 02:23, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

There is indeed an allegation against the DC, and it is equally unsubstantiated and has been denied just as the original allegation was denied. It would be somewhat odd to treat the allegation against the DC as definitively true and the allegation against Menendez as definitively false. I'm not saying that we do that now, but the live dispute seems to be primarily over a narrow point of wording the section header. Specifically, should the header, in Wikipedia's voice, characterize the allegations against Menendez as definitively false, or debunked, or unsubstantiated, or dubious, or something else? BD2412 T 02:34, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on the wording of the header but I do think that BLPCRIME applies to living people. It does not apply to news outlets. Andre🚐 02:37, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

This whole article attributes the claim to "prosecutors." Your own personal view that the truth is murky is not relevant. We cover what reliable sources say. This article is from 2017 and Menendez still hasn't been found guilty, so I guess those allegations didn't stick either Andre🚐 01:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

The judgment we are supposed to make here is not whether to accuse Menendez of a crime but whether to clearly say that the Daily Caller story about him was false. WE don't know with certainty that it was false. Goodtablemanners (talk) 03:59, 30 December 2022 (UTC) The article here is about the Daily Caller not about Menendez. Goodtablemanners (talk) 04:02, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Mendendez gets the benefit of the doubt, for the Daily Caller, simply reporting on unproven allegations is a form of journalistic malpractice. Andre🚐 04:09, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Are you serious? Unproven allegations are reported all the time and by the most respected of news media. Goodtablemanners (talk) 04:14, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Give me a break, the Daily Caller, a known right-wing outlet, reported on dubious allegations that unravelled[2] about a Democratic Senator. In November, the Caller published a story based on two anonymous Dominican women claiming that New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez had paid them for sex. ABC News says it received similar information at the same time, as Republican operatives organized interviews with those two women, plus a third woman the Caller did not talk to, all of whom said the senator paid them for sex. But ABC News didn’t run with the story, because “none of the women could produce identity cards with their names, and they all provided the same story almost word for word, as if they had been coached.” After the Caller’s story was published, things started to unravel. Andre🚐 04:20, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh My!! a known right-wing outlet!! It must have been false!! The point remains. All criminal allegations are legally unproven until adjudicated so news organs can't help but report unproven allegations. Did The Caller exercise admirable journalistic restraint and meticulous research. Probably not. Does that mean their stories were unequivocally "false"? Not necessarily. Goodtablemanners (talk) 04:49, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Reliable outlets had the same info but didn't report on it. Daily Caller shoveled out oppo on a political party opponent. And yes, it should be considered false due to policy as stated, a BLP presumption of innocence for Senator Menendez. There is NOT a presumption of innocence for right-wing outlet Daily Caller when they're smearing an opponent. Andre🚐 04:59, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

No. BLP doesn't mean we go out of our way to declare someone innocent. There are all sorts of political figures who have been accused of crimes by certain media outlets who were never convicted or even indicted for those alleged offenses. That doesn't necessarily mean we go around accusing those outlets of making up stuff. Goodtablemanners (talk) 05:10, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction That's policy. And it's not me saying it. It's reliable sources saying it.[3] FBI agents conducting interviews in the Dominican Republic have found no evidence to back up the tipster’s allegations, according to two people briefed on their work. Andre🚐 05:25, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I know that accusations and arrests don't amount to a conviction. That has little to do with calling an accusation false. O.J. Simpson, among countless others, was accused and investigated and tried, but not convicted. That doesn't mean that the accusations against him and countless others were false. At this point I think we should agree to disagree. Goodtablemanners (talk) 13:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

So, this is an article talk page, you started this thread casting aspersions on Menendez (note that under WP:BLP, such allegations would not be allowed anywhere on Wikipedia including talk pages), and you can't make a claim like OJ Simpson was never convicted and then simply drop the mic and call it a done deal. First of all, OJ was found guilty of wrongful death In 1994, Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. He was acquitted by a jury after a lengthy and internationally publicized trial. The families of the victims subsequently filed a civil suit against him. A civil court awarded a $33.5 million judgment against him in 1997 for the victims' wrongful deaths. In 2000, Simpson moved to Miami, Florida to avoid paying on the liability judgment, which, as of 2022, remains mostly unpaid. per the linked article. Which makes this one of the bad and complicated analogies. Because Menendez was never found guilty of anything! In fact he was acquitted on all accounts and significant holes were found in the accusations about him. Andre🚐 20:43, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

• Let us also not forget that media outlets are not yet run by article-writing intelligent machines. The people involved in the process are also subject to WP:BLP. Per the nearly sixty-year-old decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, Menendez himself had a remedy at law. He could have sued and proved that the Daily Caller knowingly published false information, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. We don't have a conviction of Menendez to point to, but neither do we have a judgment of a court finding wrongdoing on the part of the Daily Caller. BD2412 T 15:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

  If we have reliable sources saying the Daily Caller's reporting was discredited and even some alleging that the story was intentionally fabricated or the like, we can report on that without running near a BLP violation. No people are named or implicated. BLP doesn't apply vaguely to organizations that have people working there. BLP applies to biographical information about individual living human beings. There is absolutely no BLP protection for the Daily Caller's reputation or its association with unsavory things. The Daily Caller is more than "public figure," it's a public outlet and a published organization. The idea that an outlet itself would be protected by BLP is not one that I can find anywhere and not one that I think the spirit or the letter of anything supports. Andre🚐 20:38, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Intentionally fabricated by whom? If we are not naming specific Daily Caller employees as the fabricators, then we have no basis to say in Wikipedia's voice that this was fabricated by someone inside the Daily Caller rather than outside of it. This is why I (and others) changed that one word in the header to "debunked"; we can't report a mere allegation as a fact. BD2412 T 20:49, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't really have a problem with "debunked." As I said, "some alleging that the story was intentionally fabricated," doesn't mean we should necessarily say it in Wikivoice because as you point out, there are details left out. But, it does not follow that the Daily Caller should have its reputation protected from the allegation. We presume Mendendez to be innocent. We do not presume the Daily Caller to be benevolent. Andre🚐 21:10, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

This article is about the Daily Caller, not Sen. Menendez. What is significant is that the Daily Caller published an article that was partly based on false information, while other media thought it was irresponsible to publish. TFD (talk) 20:26, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Los Angeles Times

• "Far-right media outlet targets L.A.'s Asian business leaders. They're fighting back". Los Angeles Times. 9 April 2023. Retrieved 12 April 2023.

0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 07:07, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Looks like a publication writing about an article that was written by another publication. What exactly is the suggestion?--CNMall41 (talk) 07:35, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

It's a far-right outlet. Andre🚐 06:28, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Removal of recent material

The recent removals of material by @CNMall41 cite a consensus that doesn't exist. 4 editors have objected to the removal, and I don't count as many seeking to remove it. Andre🚐 06:44, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

There are actually four supporting the removal until the most recent back and forth. Which is why I have cited ONUS. It wasn't just a hard removal of content claiming ONUS because it is something I didn't like. So if we there is consensus to restore it then so be it, but it needs discussed. The discussion began in February 2023 so this isn't something I came up with overnight. --CNMall41 (talk) 06:50, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

As you can see if you look at the old threads and the archived threads I was a participant in the discussion and there was never a consensus to go along with the lobotomy of the article's critical portions. Andre🚐 06:52, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

There were many back and forth discussions in other threads but nothing that was specifically started to discuss trimming content. That is, until the thread above was started by BD2412 in February. There was a rough consensus for the trimming of that a lot of other content. Now, as far as ONUS, you stated (on my talk page), "Onus isn't a carte blanche to claim a consensus that doesn't exist and remove whatever you don't like and keep reverting to remove it when multiple editors have disputed and reverted your removal." My response - "You are correct. That would be WP:TE for me to remove content and claim ONUS just because I don't like something. It was removed based on the discussion in which there was ample time for objection. Had there been more support for keeping it, I likely would not have removed it (hence the reason why I have not reverted the climate change information claiming ONUS).--CNMall41 (talk) 06:56, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Actually, no. Looking at the thread, there is a consensus to remove a section about Bitcoin. No consensus to remove "a lot of other content" and no consensus to remove the Obama material. Once again, on Wikipedia, if there's content that is well-sourced and otherwise policy-abiding, and you remove it after it's been there for years, and several different people restore it, that's not an onus-reason to keep it out. This is not a BLP, and there's nothing wrong with the content. Additionally, you are accusing me of bludgeoning. The "old discussion" in February which BD2412 started and you responded to, you cited several participants from the previous discussions but strangely, ignored the other participants such as myself and Valjean and others who didn't agree. There is absolutely no policy argument here to continue reverting to remove this. If we are at an impasse we should start an RFC and the status quo would stand until resolution. Andre🚐 07:02, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I think an RfC would be a good idea so that there are more opinions on the matter. As far as status quo, ONUS and NOCON seem to be competing with each other here. I found this discussion which I am weighing through now to see what, if anything, was decided. --CNMall41 (talk) 07:15, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I took a look and the discussion link above shows that there is no agreement on if the two conflict. It leads to a rabbit hole of other discussions with the same result. This just tells me that an RfC should be done for ONUS as there are too many editors in disagreement despite both policies being cited regularly in Wikipedia. Let's do this......I will draft an RfC for climate change if you would like to draft an RfC for the Obama press conference. Would that work for you? I think it's a debate that needs a resolution. --CNMall41 (talk) 07:58, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

There is not and has never been a conflict between NOCON, PRESERVE, RFC, and other core processes and principles, and ONUS. ONUS is simply there to help you remove controversial new material - NOT long-standing material that has no consensus for removal. It continues to be out of order and a perversion of our policy. Andre🚐 15:54, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I fully support Andrevan's reasoning. There is no consensus to remove so much material. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:40, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

We can agree to disagree. I understand that is your interpretation of ONUS, but I would say the lengthy unresolved discussions on the topic would support my statement. Regardless, I am not about to 3RR so we can go back to discussing the content. --CNMall41 (talk) 22:57, 18 May 2023 (UTC)