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RfC: China Daily

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
In this RfC, the community assesses the China Daily. The discussion below contains a lot of detail and nuance that doesn't lend itself to a pithy summary and, when future editors are making a tricky decision about the use of this source, they are encouraged to read the debate in full. There is much disagreement, and I am confident that if there were better sources for China, then the China Daily would be deprecated entirely; but a narrow majority of the community, just about amounting to a rough consensus, feels that there are so few good sources for China that it's needful for us to lower our bar. The community concludes that the China Daily may be used, cautiously and on the basis of good editorial judgment, as a source for the position of the Chinese authorities and the Chinese Communist Party; as a source for the position of the China Daily itself; as a source for facts about non-political events in mainland China, while noting that (a) the China Daily's interpretation of those facts is likely to contain political spin, and (b) the fact that the China Daily doesn't report something doesn't mean it didn't happen; and, with great caution, as a supplementary source for facts about political events of mainland China (supplementary meaning that the China Daily shouldn't normally be the sole source for these things). Editors agree that when using this source, context matters a great deal and the facts should be separated from the China Daily's view about those facts. It would be best practice to use plenty of in-text attribution as well as inline references when sourcing content to the China Daily.—S Marshall T/C 11:02, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Link: [1] Should the source be deprecated? Firestar464 (talk)

MBFC Rating: [2]

02:57, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Media Bias Fact Check is not a reliable source and should not be invoked in talk page discussions, it says pretty much nothing of value about the quality of a source. That said I do think a RfC on China Daily is warranted. chinadaily.com.cn HTTPS links HTTP links is currently cited in 5,762 articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I'll add the usual options. Which of the following best describes the reliability of China Daily?
  • Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
  • Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
  • Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
  • Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail
--Sunrise (talk) 19:03, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Survey (China Daily)

I don't think we should be deprecating sources so lightly based on a first impression. --MarioGom (talk) 19:06, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@MarioGom: on detailed further review it is owned, operated controlled, and so forth by the same entity that owns and controls China Global Television Network, which is already deprecated for being a propaganda outlet. IHateAccounts (talk) 20:46, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Note to closer: this block is getting pushback, and not just from User:IHateAccounts. Unclear where it will end up. Adoring nanny (talk) 23:34, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose Deprecation China Daily being owned by the CCP is no more a stopper for me than NBC being owned by Comcast. We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that state-owned media in non-western states is somehow inherently less reliable than state- or corporate-owned media in the west (to clarify, that's a general observation I've made of others - not you, and I don't think you're doing that here). Indeed, Bennett's indexing theory - certainly the most influential theory in the last 30 years in media studies - suggests that media in the west are already more or less state-controlled on matters of importance, even if they're not state-owned, the different perception of independence only due to their need to calibrate reporting to the multiple control levers present in multi-party states. I believe China Daily is generally reliable for all but reporting on the CCP and adjacent institutions where its use should be limited to WP:SELFSOURCE. Though, as with all sources, WP:DUE should be considered in every use. I draw this conclusion as follows:
-Media Bias Fact Check is unambiguously unreliable. For the purposes of RSN, I always assume it simply doesn't exist.
-The consensus of scholarship indicates that media in China can, and is, held judicially liable for defamation (e.g. this study by Benjamin L. Liebman[3], among others) and this includes state-controlled media.
-The China Daily has a gatfekeeping process.
-The China Daily is sourced to RS which is, ultimately, the only standard we - as Wikipedians - can apply. Provided this is met we can't deprecate a source because we're uncomfortable with the governance or ownership structure. In just the last year its original reporting has been sourced (with attribution, but absent frightening caveats about the CCP owning it) by Science Magazine [4], the BBC [5], Barron's [6], Washington Post [7], NPR [8], and others. USA Today even used it as a corroborating source for one of their fact-checks [9]. If we deprecate China Daily while accepting sources that routinely source the China Daily for their content we're saying we know more about the China Daily than any RS. And if we know more than RS, there's no real reason to keep the WP:OR policy.
Chetsford (talk) 03:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
While I haven’t evaluated this particular source in detail, the above comment contains a number of arguments that are largely invalid or irrelevant. (I will ignore the suggestion that many of our usual RS are effectively state-controlled, as something that shouldn’t require refutation.) Starting with the bullet points, it's true that MBFC is unreliable and should not be considered. However:
  • Defamation claims being permitted by a country’s laws is a minimal standard, not an argument in favor of reliability. Furthermore, the article cited is from 2006, before the more recent increases in state control. And even at the time, as acknowledged in the same article, defamation claims were also used as tools of media control.
  • Having a gatekeeping process is likewise a minimal requirement. Presumably, one of the concerns in this case includes what type of reporting that gatekeeping process will allow.
  • Simply being cited by RS does not make a source reliable. Instead, we want the source to be discussed in RS and to evaluate the contents of those discussions. The Daily Mail is also sometimes cited in RS; this is a common situation in which information from an unreliable source may become usable on Wikipedia because of a better source applying its own editorial processes to the information in question.
Additionally, much of the comment is about Chinese sources in general. While this can certainly inform the evaluation, any such information will be overridden by information about the specific source in question. Checking the WP article shows e.g. China Daily#Editorial control and China Daily#Disinformation allegations, which are issues that would need to be addressed.
It's true that state ownership doesn't inherently make a source unreliable, but it’s still a relevant consideration in countries that use the press for propaganda. (I think that some editors, when they mention state ownership, are using it as a shorthand for this type of argument.) The reason that ownership structure can be overlooked in some cases is not because the owners are unbiased, but because they are more likely to have credible policies about independence in reporting. This is not a “west/east” distinction, or any other system that tries to divide people by nation or culture - it’s a result of applying sourcing guidelines that ignore such things. Furthermore, introducing such distinctions (which are largely arbitrary to begin with) only serves to frame the discussion in terms of geopolitics and makes it harder to evaluate the issue neutrally. Sunrise (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@Chetsford: just FYI Liebman appears to be saying the exact opposite of what you say he says. Also making that argument in this explicit context ignores the fact that the CCP is above regular Chinese law, it literally doesn't apply to them as party is above state unlike in those multiparty systems (your argument appears to conflate state owned and party owned media). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
To say that China Daily should be considered "generally reliable for all but reporting on the CCP and adjacent institutions" leaves very little for it to report on, given the CCP's influence over every aspect of China's economy, culture and society. It should be good only for its births and obituaries. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 14:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation. First, context matters and no context is discussed here, not even one example. Second, being rated as left-biased (or right-biased) by some random organization is irrelevant to deprecation discussions. Reliable sources are not required to be unbiased. And finally, as much as ownership structure is now a thing for flagging content on Twitter or Facebook, that's not yet a Wikipedia policy. Ownership is part of what we look at when evaluating sources, but not the only thing at all. --MarioGom (talk) 19:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I’m surprised it hasn’t been deprecated already given their explicit existence as a propaganda organ of the Chinese Communist Party and long history of disinformation peddling. We have explicit cases of them spreading disinformation which are covered on their page. They have no respect and little credibility within the traditional media, Reporters Without Borders has condemned them etc. I strongly support deprecation. Nothing I’ve seen suggests its usable outside of about self which I will add given the immense nature of the CCP thats actually a lot of contextually appropriate use. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation. It's a state-owned / operated / supported news service, in essence no different form the BBC or PBS. Non-political news is the product of professional reporters. Any story displaying overt political bias is stating the government's official party line — which is important to know. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:57, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@Tenebrae: China Daily is owned by the Chinese Communist Party not the Chinese state, it is political party-owned not state-owned. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:02, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure there's a distinction between the Communist Party and the Chinese state. I'd be surprised if we wouldn't have considered the Communist Party's Pravda a useable source for insight into Soviet thinking during the Cold War. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Then I don’t understand your point about them being in essence no different from the BBC or PBS which are entirely independent of the political parties in their respective states. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I thought it was clear: In China's case, the Party is the government. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:23, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@Tenebrae:, since you now agree "In China's case, the Party is the government", that makes this vastly different from the BBC or PBS, which are independent of political party in their countries. It's much more a propaganda rag with little factual reliability, with the best comparisons indeed being the factually deficient Pravda, or Russia Today, or 112 Ukraine (owned by Russian proxies), or Rodong Sinmun from North Korea. There are also precedents from Wikipedia regarding papers similar in ownership structure, if not political leaning, such as An Phoblacht, Anadolu Agency, The Electronic Intifada, HispanTV, or Press TV. See their entries at WP:RSP.
It might be viewed as a source (as you proposed) for occasional insight into official talking points of the Chinese Communist Party, but I would never trust Pravda, or Rodong Sinmun, or China Global Television Network, or "China Daily" for facts. IHateAccounts (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Tenebrae. Plus, we have literature that indicate the BBC tends to adopt framing in its reporting that mirrors that used by whatever party is in power at the time. (e.g. [10], etc.) We need actual evidence of unreliability, not merely expressions of our personal discomfort with the ownership group. "They're communists" is not a policy-based argument to deprecate a source. Chetsford (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I agree, a better argument is conflict of interest in relation to certain topics, meaning it can be determined on a case by case basis... —PaleoNeonate – 20:21, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Then I don’t understand your argument about it being in essence no different from the BBC or PBS, if you’re arguing that the entire relationship between party and state is radically different than in a multiparty state like the US or UK then what do you mean by "in essence no different” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:59, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 1 and Oppose Deprecation: the arguments mentioned by Chetsford, MarioGom and Tenebrae are persuasive. Appropriate attribution should be made for statements related to China Daily's area of bias. Also, this RFC hasn’t been set up in our required neutral format. “Deprecate China Daily” isn’t a suitable heading for an RfC and the introduction is supposed to be neutral. Burrobert (talk) 20:29, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Deprecate. The fact that they are owned by the publicity department of the Chinese Communist Party is reason enough. Just as we treat (say) NewsBusters and CNS News together, because both are owned by the Media Research Center, so it should be with China Daily and the deprecated Global Times. For those who don't think that is sufficient reason, please consider China_Daily#Disinformation_allegations. To take one recent example, China Daily promoted tweets saying that the Hong Kong demonstrators were sponsored by Western interests. It also claimed that they were planning terrorist attacks on September 11, 2019.[11][12]. Adoring nanny (talk) 23:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose Deprecation, however I would go with option 2 or 3, depending on the topic. Chinese state media is OK to cite as a WP:RS for non-controversial mainland news (such as China opening whatever high-speed train line or something like that), but for controversial topics such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, they should only be used with attribution to get the PRC's official opinion on such subjects. Félix An (talk) 23:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation and treat as we treat other semi-official or official media: somewhere in between options 1 and 2, with good judgement expected from editors as usual. Thanks to Chetsford especially for their careful consideration and comments. -Darouet (talk) 21:02, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
{u|Darouet} can you give examples of official state media (in particular in single-party non-democratic states) that we place between options 1 and 2? BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:39, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 4: Deprecate and put it in the same category as Global Times and CGTN/CCTV. In my opinion, Xinhua News Agency should also be deprecated. Brady (2015) wrote an excellent review[1] on those so-called "media" as part of Beijing's global propaganda campaign. Despite the subtle and stealthy nature of China's overseas influence operations, there are numerous reports by reliable sources and countries with press freedom regarding Chinese state-controled media including China Daily disseminating false or fabricated information. For example, [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]. It is truly unbelievable that some editors could turn a blind eye and still promote the false equivalence of state-controlled propaganda organs and private media with editorial independence and well-established fact-checking processes. Normchou 💬 22:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Brady, Anne-Marie (October 2015). "Authoritarianism Goes Global (II): China's Foreign Propaganda Machine". Journal of Democracy. 26 (4): 51–59. doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0056. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  • Oppose Deprecation The fact that they have not failed a fact check speaks strongly in their favour, even if it is obviously the state outlet of the PRC. Certainly however, on topics where the PRC feels strongly about however, it should be used only as a last resort, or in order to back up an official position of the PRC. BrxBrx(talk)(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}}) 03:34, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 3 or 4 I think it should be treated similar to CGTN where it should pretty much exclusively be used for statements made by the Chinese government but some other areas unrelated to Chinese interests seem to be okay. FlalfTalk 04:00, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose depreciation for the same reasons already pointed out by others. The discussion below is straying far away from WP:RS. Mottezen (talk) 06:19, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 3 It should be treated as we treat other state-controlled media in authoritarian single-party states: reliable (typically with attribution) as a source on government/party statements (e.g. as a source for statements from state public health officials as in the most of the uses by other reliable sources cited by Chetsford above), possibly reliable for non-controversial facts (e.g. numbers of stolen manhole covers, as in another of Chestsford's examples), but generally unreliable for anything controversial in which the Chinese state has an interest. Nobody so far has put forward arguments for why it should be treated less cautiously than other such state-controlled media. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:39, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation per MarioGom. China Daily is reliable for various topics, though of course they won't be neutral on politics. —Granger (talk · contribs) 07:06, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation: I don't see any convincing arguments for deprecation above. China Daily is an important source for news from inside China. Deprecating it would worsen the already worrying systemic bias with regards to China, in which we increasingly rely on sources outside China that themselves often have ideological biases and questionable accuracy. A brief tangent to illustrate this:
The Wall Street Journal published a news article about Chinese economic policy last month that severely mistranslated a statement by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The original description of his speech is as follows:

会议要求，国有企业要成为有核心竞争力的市场主体。国有企业首先必须发挥经济功能，创造市场价值。

The WSJ characterized that passage as follows:

'State-owned enterprises,' he said, 'must become the competitive core of the market.'

This has a very different meaning from what Liu He said in Chinese, and in context, it's almost a direct inversion of his meaning. This is how DeepL translates his statement into English:

The meeting called for state-owned enterprises to become core competitive market players. State-owned enterprises must first perform economic functions and create market value.

The point of the statement is that state-owned enterprises must become more market-oriented - something that has typically been viewed as a pro-market policy. The WSJ's mistranslation reverses that, and turns it into a statement about how state-owned enterprises should dominate the market ("core competitive market players" turns into "the competitive core of the market").
This mistranslation was pointed out by a reporter for Xinhua, Zichen Wang. The WSJ has still not issued a correction. The WSJ is considered a highly reliable source, and in most contexts it is, but like all sources, it has biases. Especially in the increasingly nationalist climate, those biases can impact accuracy in reporting about countries that are viewed as "adversaries" (in whatever country the newspaper is operating out of - the US, in the case of the WSJ). That's how we get the WSJ mistranslating a statement by a Chinese official and then failing to issue a correction.
It's important to continue using a mix of sources to cover China, including sources with a good record of factual accuracy from within China. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagreed. WP:SYSTEMICBIAS is an essay, which may only represent minority viewpoints within the community. Moreover, "systemic ABC" is usually poorly defined and unfalsifiable (see some elaboration here), and one should not invoke it when talking about specific instances of an issue, such as "the reliability of China Daily". If factual evidence still matters—which the editor above seemed to think so given that they listed an example of a purported mistranslation to illustrate their point—then the overwhelming evidence that the Chinese state-controlled media have been spreading false and fabricated information should actually support Option 4: Deprecate. Normchou 💬 02:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
It's not a "purported" mistranslation - it's a black-and-white example of a mistranslation. Anyone who reads both English and Chinese can compare the original Chinese text with the WSJ's English rendering.
I raised this example because it illustrates an important point. All sources have biases, and those biases can affect accuracy. It's no secret that tensions between the US and China have escalated dramatically over the last few years, and that public opinion towards China in the US and a number of other allied countries has become extremely negative in a very short space of time. To think that this wouldn't affect American newspapers as well would be naive. Above, we have an example of a leading American newspaper, a solid RS, blatantly mistranslating a Chinese official, in a way that completely reverses the meaning of the official's statement. Who pointed out the mistranslation? A reporter for Chinese state media - a reporter who is likely much more familiar with the policy positions of Chinese officials than the typical WSJ reporter is. The WSJ has not yet issued a correction (it's had a month to do so), and indeed, correcting this mistranslation would probably require the WSJ to significantly revise its entire article (because the actual quote in Chinese contradicts the basic thesis of the WSJ article).
overwhelming evidence that the Chinese state-controlled media have been spreading false and fabricated information: This is an extremely broad, very poorly supported statement. In most areas, for example, I think it's clear that Xinhua is highly reliable. Like any source, we should be aware of its biases. For the most part, it will not report on issues that reflect negatively on the Chinese government. However, it will also accurately report on many issues within China that American newspapers like the NY Times and WSJ will scarcely ever report on (and if they do, their reporting is often not particularly reliable or leaves out important context). Our articles on China will not become more reliable by systematically excluding all Chinese sources. I think editors are capable enough to understand the biases that Chinese state media have, and to use them appropriately. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:00, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagreed. False equivalence and bothsidesism neither make one's argument more convincing, nor help with reducing bias. All sources have biases by no means implies that all biases from all sources—not to mention false and fabricated information from only certain sources—should be treated in the same way when it comes to their negative effects on the Wikipedia project. Thus far, Thucydides411, the editor above, has only used a single, isolated, purported case to illustrate their point. Yet they do not bother about it while turning a blind eye and throwing out some random cliche like This is an extremely broad, very poorly supported statement when overwhelming evidence says otherwise: [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]. By the way, as a native speaker of several Chinese languages, I disagree with that Chinese state media journalist's view that the WSJ's translation is such a big deal; 国有企业要成为有核心竞争力的市场主体 simply means SOEs should be the major/core player of the market—where many other players can also exist—with the additional requirement that such SOEs should have core/major competitive advantages. A basic understanding of economics—a quality that most of the readers of the WSJ should have—tells me that a "market", by definition, has more than one player, so the "core" is really just the "core player", because the qualifier "of the market" is already there. Regarding the specific structure of that market, it could be in the form of perfect competition, imperfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, etc. There is no indication in Liu He's speech that he is referring to a perfectly competitive market. Normchou 💬 22:04, 16 January 2021 (UTC); edited 22:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC); edited 23:18, 16 January 2021 (UTC); edited 01:54, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
国有企业要成为有核心竞争力的市场主体 simply means SOEs should be the major/core player of the market: That's not what it means. It's absolutely clear in the Chinese original that "core" refers to "competitiveness". Just from the way the sentence is constructed, "core" cannot possibly refer to "market", and the phrase says nothing about SOEs becoming the "core player of the market". An unambiguous English translation would be, "SOEs must become market players with their own core competitiveness". The basic meaning here is that SOEs should be subject to market forces, rather than relying on subsidies. The very next sentence makes this even more explicit: 国有企业首先必须发挥经济功能，创造市场价值 (DeepL gives, "State-owned enterprises must first perform economic functions and create market value", and I agree with DeepL's translation). The reason why this is more than just an innocuous translation error is that it makes it look like Liu He is supporting nearly the exact opposite policy - state support for SOEs. I gave this as just a recent example of inaccurate reporting on China by an otherwise high-quality RS - inaccurate reporting that came to light because it was pointed out by a reporter for Chinese state media. This case isn't isolated.
their negative effects on the Wikipedia project: I haven't seen examples where use of China Daily has harmed Wikipedia. Deprecation is a sledgehammer, and if we use it too broadly, we actually do run the risk of ending up with an encyclopedia that has strong national biases. What we need, instead, is for editors to have a bit of common sense, to understand policies around bias in sources, to know when to attribute statements, and to evaluate reliability in specific contexts. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Wrong. 市场主体 literally means the "market's main body"(most common Chinese definition), so there is no issue with 国有企业要成为...的市场主体 being translated to "SOEs should be the core (player) of the market that ..." if one interprets the phrase this way, given the fact that there can be other "main bodies" in the market. The editor above, Thucydides411, should stop using machine translation to mislead themselves and others in this discussion. The more conducive way would be to first have a good understanding of the Chinese languages and the semantic and syntactic ambiguities specific to them. Normchou 💬 23:51, 16 January 2021 (UTC); edited 00:18, 17 January 2021 (UTC); edited 01:31, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Okay, I understand your confusion now. You linked to the definition of 主体, which by itself can indeed mean "main body". However, the full phrase 市场主体 is the standard way of referring to any market player, large or small, in Chinese. Even native speakers who are unfamiliar with economics can get this wrong. You can verify that what I'm saying is correct by looking at actual uses of the phrase 市场主体. For example, here's a recent usage:

“前三季度，全国共注吊销市场主体779.7万户，同比下降7.9%。其中，注吊销企业262.6万户，下降10.0%；注吊销个体工商户507.1万户，下降6.9%；注吊销农民专业合作社10.0万户，下降3.3%。”杨红灿说。

The passage refers to 7.797 million 市场主体 being written off in the first three quarters of 2020. There obviously aren't 7.797 million "main bodies" of the market in China - and this is just the number that went under in 2020! And as a second example, here's a Chinese government website with instructions on how to create a 市场主体. They're obviously giving instructions on how to create a market entity, not on how to create the "main body" of the market. For what it's worth, Baidu Baike has a page defining 市场主体, and what it describes is any sort of market player. But really, just search the internet for the exact phrase 市场主体, read what comes up, and you'll very quickly realize that this is standard terminology for any market entity.
Maybe the WSJ made the same mistake, assuming that 市场主体 means the "main body of the market", although that would be surprising, given that you'd expect WSJ to find a translator who's familiar with economics. But whatever the reason, the WSJ did mistranslate this passage and nearly inverted its meaning; the mistranslation came to light because of a Xinhua journalist who noticed it; and the WSJ has yet to issue a correction. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Ummm wait, since when have you been fluent in Mandarin? You’ve claimed the opposite in your interactions with me. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Can you translate what you mean by "fluent" into HSK or the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages? But in all seriousness, my own exact proficiency level is not at issue here. As we've seen above, even native speakers can make mistakes when dealing with unfamiliar technical jargon. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:55, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
If you’re trying to say that a native speaker has made a mistaken then yes your exact proficiency level does actually become an issue. Especially when you’ve never disclosed *any* Mandarin proficiency at all... Let alone the level you would need to correct a native speaker on technical jargon. Much the opposite in fact. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:03, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
You're venturing into ad hominem here. Do you think that 市场主体 means the market's main body, or do you think that it refers generally to any market entity? There isn't actually any real question about what the correct answer is (it's a technical term that means any sort of "market entity", regardless of size or importance), and personally attacking me does not constitute a convincing linguistic argument. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I highly dislike being mislead either by media outlets or wikipedia editors. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
市场主体 means market entity,[29] though I think it is a term of art and not all native speakers are familiar with it. Possibly the Wall Street Journal's mistranslation is due to the word 主体, which often means "main part", but in this phrase might be better translated as "agent". See also wikt:主體. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:28, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Another example to illustrate how poor coverage of China is in otherwise reliable sources, and how systematically deprecating Chinese sources will worsen WP:SYSTEMICBIAS on Wikipedia. Again, I use the Wall Street Journal, a source that is generally highly reliable, to illustrate my point. In a news (not opinion) article last June about Huawei and its founder Ren Zhengfei, the WSJ wrote,

Just over a month after his daughter's arrest, Mr. Ren visited a Huawei research-and-development center in Hangzhou, commanding employees to learn from the U.S. tech giant Google and 'surge forward, killing as you go, to blaze us a trail of blood,' according to a transcript confirmed by two Huawei executives.

That sounds pretty terrible, until you realize that the phrase Ren Zhengfei used (杀出一条血路) is a standard idiom in Chinese that is commonly used and not perceived as extreme. Imagine literally translating a violent English idiom ("shooting ducks in a barrel", "kill two birds with one stone", "to go in with guns blazing", "to take a stab at it", etc.) into a foreign language, and presenting it as a direct quote. Again, the person who pointed out this misleading translation was Wang Zichen, a journalist who works for Xinhua. The person who actually translated Ren Zhengfei's speech for the WSJ, Eva Dou, said that WSJ editors had not let her review the draft of the article, and that some of the "nuance & context was lost".
The Times (generally reliable, per WP:RSP) then took this translation and ran with it, in an article titled "Huawei’s founder declares 'war' on West":

Huawei's founder urged workers to crush rivals and 'blaze a trail of blood' in the Chinese telecoms giant's battle for supremacy. Ren Zhengfei ordered staff at Huawei's research and development centre in Hangzhou, eastern China, to learn from Google's unrelenting march. 'Surge forward, killing as you go, to blaze us a trail of blood,' he said a month after the arrest of his daughter in Canada in 2018, according to a transcript seen by The Wall Street Journal.

By the way, the transcript was not just "seen by the Wall Street Journal". It's been online from the beginning. Nobody at Huawei apparently realized that English speakers would be disturbed by a literal translation of a common Chinese idiom. Just to sum up: a Chinese CEO uses a common Chinese idiom, the WSJ translates it too literally into English, and The Times then picks it up and presents it as a blood-curdling declaration of war on the West. Neither the WSJ nor The Times has issued a correction. This is the sort of gross misrepresentation that we deprecate sources for. If we get rid of all Chinese sources, we'll be solely relying on sources like WSJ and The Times to report on China, and that's a bad idea. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:34, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
  • The fact that other sources are also biased or also make mistakes does not make China Daily reliable. If you want to resolve the problem of systemic bias among reliable sources, you'll have to apply WP:Label and WP:Biasedsource to information gathered from reliable but biased sources. Alternatively, you could push for changes to the WP:Due weight policy to allow less reliable sources to be used in setting a due weight "framework" for facts to be filled in with more reliable sources, thereby allowing unreliable sources to be used in balancing out articles without introducing factual errors. Either way, the only thing that should be considered when determining the reliablility of China Daily is whether or not it is factually reliable, and not whether or not declaring it reliable would help reduce bias. Jancarcu (talk) 19:40, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
  • *Oppose Deprecation and as usual CONTEXT matters. I see no compelling argument and dislike casually dismissing sources entirely. This seems a major WEIGHT source, widely used outside and in WP articles, so it would be difficult to exclude anyway. With what seems solid editorial control and generally factual content, I don’t see any reason to exclude. Context should always be considered for RS, and even in suspect cases such are potentially useable as a WP:BIASED source, just like material from advocacy groups can be used. It’s not grounds for entire deprecation. Would one use Washington Post for Amazon content ? Probably just seek another source — but that doesn’t exclude WaPo from all articles. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:33, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation per Chetsford and Thucydides411. We cannot discount the biasness of the various so-called English-language WP:RS when they describe or criticize Chinese media in the first place. NoNews! 11:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation per Thucydides411 and WP:GLOBAL. NightHeron (talk) 11:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2: They have been shown to fabricate information (see previous comments and the discussion below), so we should definitely indicate that. Also, clearly state that it is affiliated with a ruling political party, which needs to be taken into account. TucanHolmes (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation, support Option 2. This source is widely used both onwiki and offwiki, and fills an important niche (see Thucydides411's comment above, and WP:GLOBAL). However, given its status as party-controlled media, it should probably be treated as a WP:SELFSOURCE for content that directly discusses (for example, and off the top of my head) the CCP, geopolitics, or international relations. warmly, ezlev. talk 18:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation - A blanket deprecation would not be fair. STSC (talk) 03:22, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation unless someone can come up with actual examples of them being cited for garbage claims. Propaganda is, well, fairly ubiquitous in the year 2021. Being operated by a government with a history of execrable acts doesn't seem like a cogent prima facie reason for deprecation: how many articles cite Voice of America? Heck, how many articles cite the BBC? Obviously, it doesn't make sense to cite them for "Communism kicks ass[1]", or "the Xinjiang re-education camps are awesome[6]". However, we also don't cite "Capitalism kicks ass[1]" to the United States government. Propaganda does not mean "every statement made by the organization is the opposite of true"; (RSP entry), for example, is listed in RSP as being "generally reliable for factual reporting". We can use our brains to determine if individual pieces of reporting are trash. jp×g 20:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Attempting to compare an owned-and-operated arm of the Chinese government's Propaganda Department to the BBC is so ridiculous, WP:FALSEBALANCE isn't even strong enough to describe it. IHateAccounts (talk) 23:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Comparing and equating are different things. Jimmy Page and Jimmy Hoffa are different in many respects (one is a British guitarist and one was an American labor activist); a proposal to move the latter's article to "James Hoffa", however, would likely (and validly) result in the comparison being drawn. Pointing out that Jimmy Hoffa didn't know how to play the guitar, in this case, would be beside the point.
By the same token, the mere fact of a press outlet being operated by a government does not prima facie make a case for deprecation, even when the government is quite brutal: Commentarii de Bello Gallico, a long piece of brazen political propaganda written by the Emperor of Rome, detailing a litany of what would now be considered war crimes (he slaughtered thousands of innocent civilians after capturing Avaricum), is to this day the main account from which we know the deeds of Vercingetorix. jp×g 02:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Just FYI Commentarii de Bello Gallico is generally believed to have been written and published before Julius Caesar became Dictator. Also Julius Caesar was never Emperor of Rome, the first Emperor was Augustus. Accuracy matters, which is why given China Daily’s history of publishing disinformation we should deprecate them. We don’t consider media outlets which purposefully publish false information to be reliable regardless of whether or not they’re operated by a government. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:38, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Horse Eye's Back, technically technically speaking both Julius Caesar and his adoptive son were both imperator in succession, Augustus was the first augustus (hence the name), neither was a monarch, the word "emperor" is an anachronism, and the Roman state remained a republic for a further fifteen centuries. GPinkerton (talk) 22:33, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
We aren’t talking about imperator (a concept which spans both time periods), we’re talking about the Roman emperor who was the ruler of the Roman Empire which wasn’t founded until 27 BC after the death of Julius Caesar. You are mistaken, the Roman Republic ended in 27 BC although the Empire would maintain the political trappings of the republic. If you would like to radically alter how wikipedia approaches Roman history be my guest, might I suggest starting with the opening sentence of Augustus? "Caesar Augustus (23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) was the first Roman emperor, reigning from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.” seems to be clear enough. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:45, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Horse Eye's Back, Wikipedia is not the place for such nuance, anchored as it is in the morass of popular historiographical tradition. Nothing changed in the Roman state's constitution in 27 BC; the heads of state remained the consuls, and Octavian was awarded the title of augustus. The Roman republic was referred to as such, including by the emperors themselves, well into the 15th century. "Emperor", as I have said, is just an anachronistic convention, as is "reign", at least for emperors like Augustus. The emperor Julian counted his distant relative Julius Caesar as an emperor, although he also listed Alexander the Great ... Nevertheless, Wikipedia bows to convention. GPinkerton (talk) 22:55, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Are you seriously using a discussion about the reliability of China Daily as a venue to push pet theories about the continuity of political structures within the Roman state which aren’t supported by modern historians? Please review WP:FORUM. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:03, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Horse Eye's Back, I can tell already I know more about what modern historians support on this subject than you do. GPinkerton (talk) 23:11, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 3 or 4 While I'm not very familiar with China Daily specifically, I am familiar with the general issues with any mainland PRC-based news media. In short, the PRC does not have press freedom or press independence, so comparisons to Western state-owned outlets like the BBC are specious. There are situations where the political/propaganda needs of the Chinese government will cause false or misleading stories to be run. For instance this [30] China Daily story falsely claims that "people's freedom of religious belief in Xinjiang is fully protected" (which is hard to believe with the reporting on Xinjiang re-education camps) and makes claims denying mosque destruction that are directly contradicted by this [31] more convincingly sourced New York Times report. Other examples should not be hard to find by searching for material on other sensitive issues, such as Xinjiang, Tibet Taiwan, or Hong Kong. At a minimum China Daily's WP:RSP entry should have the same kind of warnings attached to it as Xinhua:
- GretLomborg (talk) 07:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
To update this, I think that it might be reliable enough to depict the official views or statements of the Chinese Communist Party, and we probably should avoid deprecation as a result of this function. I'm still under the belief that this is a generally unreliable source that engages in the fabrication of claims, and it thus should be generally avoided as a source except for the very specific case I have mentioned before. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:36, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 3 or 4. It is indeed unreliable for identifying anything as a fact. This does not mean it is always wrong. My very best wishes (talk) 02:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2 (mundane articles) / Option 3 (controversial, nationalistic, etc. articles) The paper is owned by the Chinese government that is the most important thing to remember when using this source. The Chinese government has no problem making up facts to fit its desired narrative. Therefore, it is unreliable for anything controversial such as internal or external dissent, nationalism, etc. However the newspaper does have mundane content (e.g. culture, sports, technology, travel, etc articles), which is useful for covering this country of 1.4 billion people, for which there are only a limited number of English-language sources. --Guest2625 (talk) 07:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel like a broken record at this point but China Daily is owned by a political party within China not the Chinese state. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:54, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation per Chetsford. Couldn't word it better myself. BrxBrx(talk)(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}}) 02:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 4 - Deprecate. Admittedly, I've only stumbled upon a few articles but that was enough to know the political bias and/or nationalist bias of the paper. User:Normchou detailed "why" the best. I don't think these kind of very political sources should have any place in the Wikipedia.Magnus Dominus (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2021 (UTC)— Magnus Dominus (talk • contribs) is a confirmed sock puppet of Lordpermaximum (talk • contribs).
  • Option 2 The trend towards deprecating Chinese media sources makes it hard to source mundane topics that are not picked up by international news. I think it is generally understood by editors that they have some biases towards political topics, and we should assume that editors will be cautious when using these sources for such topics. We have processes to handle editors who are abusing sources to push a certain view. If consensus does move towards deprecation, I suggest that the deprecations be scoped to only non-mundane political issues (an article talking about the new mayor of Shenzhen would be OK, but an article talking about Hong Kong protests would be not) Jumpytoo Talk 06:00, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 4- Its owned by the Chinese Communist Party, one of the world leaders in propaganda and misinformation.--Rusf10 (talk) 06:10, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 1 based on the evidence presented. Being owned by a political party of a country that is not majority white is not a reason to deprecate, nor is using the unreliable MBFC. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
    Why do people always have to bring race into a discussion that has nothing to do with race? It's a shameful tactic. My opposition to this souce is not that its owned by Chinese people, but it is owned by the Chinese Communist Party. I thought pointing out this simple fact would be enough, but I guess some people like you don't know anything about the CCP. Read this BBC story about how the CCP uses China Daily to produce propganda videos for them. Here's the video, according to them the BBC is "fake news". Here's another article from the New York Times. Educate yourself.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I do know about the CCP. Evidence of them exerting their influence on China Daily to promote "fake news" is need to propose deprecation, not merely establishing connection via ownership. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:37, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I think you’re mistaken, its China Daily which says the BBC is Fake News not the other way around per the linked report "BBC in Xinjiang: Facts Don't Matter | China Daily visual investigation” Thats pretty clearly pushing disinformation, its irrelevant whether or not the CCP told them to do so. If they had completely independent ownership they would still be deprecatable, the lack of editorial independence is the cherry on top not the sunday. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:49, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Let me provide a transcript of the first 30 seconds of that hard hitting piece of investigative journalism: Reporter 1 “Fake News. The BBC is twisting the facts.” Reporter 2 “What? Did you say BBC is making things up?” Reporter 1 “Yeah, check out this video report on Xinjiang. They obviously didn’t do a complete investigation. I guess the media forums are correct: BBC stands for biased broadcasting corporation. They only report on China where they can make up some controversy especially when it comes to Xinjiang” Still standing by that Option 1?Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:58, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - Agreed with the other editors, being government-owned is not grounds for deprecation. China Daily does factual reporting, and it's entirely relevant for it to report on Chinese government positions. As a rule, sources can be biased, but that does not make them unreliable. LittleCuteSuit (talk) 23:05, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2 for every kind of reporting except "politics and controversial events", Option 3 for "politics and controversial events" In some events, the source is known with its fact-checking, however, remembering that it's currently under the control of CCP is important.Ahmetlii (talk) 12:11, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
    I'd ask you to reconsider. The fact it is under control of the CCP cancels out any claim of fact-checking because the facts are whatever the CCP says they are.--Rusf10 (talk) 20:19, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
@Rusf10: As far as I see, not always. Yes, there's a censoring~and misrepresentation of information by CCP on some news, however, it's impossible to say "It always generates fabrication for all types of news" for all ordinary news (as opposed to Daily Mail).Ahmetlii (talk) 12:11, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2 (for non political news about China), Option 3 (for news about other nations, political news about China) - China daily is essentially state media. For political articles, we can assume there would be a bias towards the Chinese Communist Part's POV which owns it. I would oppose using it for citing any political/non-China related fact in Wikipedia voice. Any citation must explicitly note that it is the view of the Chinese communist party. However, China Daily is generally useful for citing non-controversial facts about China such as geography, transport and administration, so I won't go so far as to deprecate it.--DreamLinker (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 4: The issue here is they do not stand to any editorial scrutiny, censorship is widespread, there is no de facto opposition media allowed, and the news that does come out is filtered or altered by the government with no independent checks and balances. Their aim is not be a reliable media outlet either, they are basically a press agency for the government. If we compare to lets say US or UK depreciated sources, at least we have a whole array of other media outlets to compare to and that are willing to call out misinformation or controversies regarding their competitors; furthermore in the US or the UK you can always try your case through the courts; I would argue that this is worse as no such thing happens nor is it possible. Abcmaxx (talk) 11:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 4: Deprecate. Apart from all the other examples given at length above, we have a worked example in the discussion: where a sincere Chinese reader, based on what they've read in China Daily, tries to explain to us that the Xinjiang internment camps don't exist. If China Daily leads to beliefs about the world like that, then we absolutely can't risk it being used as a source in Wikipedia, and it needs deprecation - David Gerard (talk) 13:24, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 3 or 4: - it's state-controlled media (China Daily, established in 1981 as the national English-language newspaper) and because of the propaganda and governmental control in a country where they arrest whistleblowers, including journalists, I'd be skeptical about the validity of anything they publish. Sensationalism is one thing, reporting about a fire or weather event is something else, but it's highly unreliable for fact-based material about much else. I suppose we could use it from time to time by prepending any inline attribution with something along the line of "state-controlled China Daily published yada yada"...or something along those lines - if there is no other source to cite. Atsme 💬 📧 16:01, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2 or lower. I can echo what User:Alaexis said. In areas that are not of interest to the Chinese Communist Party, the state media can be reliable. In others, don't touch them with a ten-foot pole, since it's plain propaganda. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2 or 3 The problem of media inside China is, almost all are owned by CCP. While Sina, Baidu , etc. usually act as a host platform for blogger only. The non-political coverage (or issue that clearly have COI, such as government = CCP , any coverage on handling COVID are in doubt) generally "reliable" as no other source to rebut them as not reliable (unless you want to have no RS to WP:V ANY Mainland China content. Also note that there is not much foreign correspondents left in Mainland China and SCMP is now owned by Alibaba). China Daily is not Global Times which the latter is clearly a tabloid . Matthew hk (talk) 03:46, 16 February 2021 (UTC)


  • Option 2 I am concerned that almost all media from China is being depreciated. I think this is going to to substantially impact the POV of articles dealing with China. This is not to say that any of the Chinese sources are more reliable, but they do perform reporting. In general, I am coming to the perspective that depreciation is a bad idea and instead in case where there are concerns about the source, we should clearly state the source for particular claims and trust Wiki readers to make their own judgments. Dhawk790 (talk) 14:51, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
It seems like a natural impact of China’s repressive media environment, remember that according to the Press Freedom Index[32] they are the fourth worst country in the world when it comes to press freedom (only Eritrea, Turkmenistan, and North Korea are ranked lower) so I would question your statement that journalists in China can actually perform reporting. That the Chinese government has chosen to silence (often violently) independent and reliable voices both within China and around the world as well as use their media organizations to spread both targeted and general disinformation is regrettable but its not something that Wikipedia can change, we can only apply our existing standards to the situation. We can’t just make a “China exception” when it comes to how we determine reliable sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
If the concern is the reporting environment than why wouldn't we have similar concerns about other reporting from China not just those from Chinese sources? Dhawk790 (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Have you not followed the mass exodus of journalists and editors from China in the last few years? They’ve almost all either been kicked out or fled in fear of being used for hostage diplomacy [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
My point isn't about whether there is a concern about the reporting environment, my point is that if there is than shouldn't that concern apply to all sources not just Chinese ones. You doubted whether China Daily does any actual reporting, which may be fair, but it seems unlikely that China Daily would be unable to do reporting in China and the NY Times, for example, would be able to. Dhawk790 (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I share your concern, but this section is about China Daily. If you wanted to make a section for media in China in general I’d participate in the discussion and share relevant sources. Some of the sources above raise this issue but remember that outside of this recent panic concerns over hostage diplomacy, non-free reporting environments, and the safety of local sources and staff have *always* been an issue with reporting in totalitarian states, China isn’t unique in this regard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Deprecation and depreciation are two different things. Perhaps the fact that some many people get them mixed up shows how bad this deprecation system is.
  • Option 2: The site did on occasion feature dubious claims (mostly about Chinese politics from what I can tell), though in the end, the majority of its articles have in my experience been very factual. It is true that you will not find articles criticising the Chinese government there, but for that there are plenty of other news outlets one can use; the debate is not whether China Daily should be the only source being used on Wikipedia and therefore it is pretty irrelevant what it does not cover. As the site provides reliable reporting on most non-Chinese topics it does cover, I see no reason for deprecation. As an example, look through its section about European news and whether it features factual information or not – as a German comparing it to the reporting in our media, it is. Sarrotrkux (talk) 21:33, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2 or lower: Piotrus got what I want to say - reliable when not of CCP interest, but outright Option 4 on things that clash with CCP interest (or benefits CCP in some case).--1233 ( T / C） 13:58, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Option 2 or 3. It's reliable as a source for the CCP's official position but not reliable for matters that contradict that or which show China/the CCP in a bad light. For matters where the CCP does not have an official position and there is no propaganda value in counter-factual reporting it is generally reliable (as with all sources though there are likely to be occasional exceptions). Thryduulf (talk) 04:05, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose deprecation. Surely for Chinese topics it's important to know what their government thinks, and this is the best source to establish it. I see no reason to not accept it for non-political content also, if we watch out for how they tend to slant things. Saying "Deprecate" is saying either, "We have an an enemy, and we want to pretend they don't exist" or, even more ominously, "We have an enemy, and what it says is sufficiently impressive that should we expose people to what it says, they might be convinced." DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
I agree with some of this comment, DGG. It should be noted that the views expressed in China Daily, generally reflective of various sections of the Communist Party of China, may also represent the views of hundreds of millions of Chinese people. Therefore when you write we watch out for how they tend to slant things, you should be cautious to specify who "they" are. This is an international encyclopedia and many editors may be Chinese. It's true that far-right nationalists or spooks [43] around the world might view other peoples or governments as the "enemy," but even the U.S. president, Biden, only goes so far as to describe China as a "competitor" [44]. -Darouet (talk) 17:18, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
It's worth noting that even deprecated sources are allowed to be used in certain WP:ABOUTSELF contexts: Wikipedia:Deprecated_sources#Acceptable_uses_of_deprecated_sources. Given that China Daily is owned by the CCP, I wouldn't object to China Daily being used with attribution as a source for the official positions of the CCP. - GretLomborg (talk) 20:29, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
  • This shows why blanket deprecation of the Daily Mail was always a bad idea - We can deprecate the Daily Mail as, being a publication from a free society, it does not have an army of trolls waiting to defend it, it does have to answer to numerous bodies that will expose any untruth published in it. We shouldn't have, because it was still potentially useful for a few things.
China Daily, on the other hand, is a propaganda publication run by the government of a dictatorship. There is no question that it is not neutral, there is no question that it has not published lies as fact for propaganda reasons, there is no question whatsoever that on any given issue, China Daily is going to be less reliable than the Daily Mail. Yet it won't be deprecated. Hell, as anyone who has lived as an expat in China can tell you, CD doesn't even exclusively employ professional journalists (source: I know people who got jobs there with zero experience and I could have done the same easily), makes up quotes - normally from foreigners amazed by something the CCP has done. It used to have a section of stories from around China that were all clearly made up - e.g., they were intentional hoaxes probably written by the expat staff as a joke, similar to the Ask Alessandro column in Global Times. It is known to have made up stories, omitted uncomfortable details etc.
If we are at all going to be consistent, China Daily should be deprecated in exactly the same way as the Daily Mail because it is far worse in every respect. We won't because we aren't being consistent, because banning the DM was something driven through by people insisting on "burning it with fire" without thinking at all about the consequences of what they were doing. FOARP (talk) 11:43, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
Only 14 out of 48 editors commenting here have recommended deprecation as one of the choices we should consider. By contrast your comment, there is no question whatsoever that on any given issue, China Daily is going to be less reliable than the Daily Mail (emphasis in the original), implies a staggering lack of perspective. China Daily has the largest circulation of any English-language newspaper in China, a nuclear-armed superpower with a population of 1.2 billion people and, arguably, the world's largest economy. To write in earnest that there's no question whatsoever that the most notorious tabloid from the Island of Britain must be more reliable than one of China's largest papers on literally any topic — including politics and life in southeast Asia or China itself — requires at least some degree of motivated reasoning. For instance the Quartz article you cite is concerning, but Quartz is a low-quality source. Shouldn't the hyperbolic tone and conclusions of the Quartz piece have alerted you to the possibility that it might be no more reliable than the China Daily article it was criticizing? There are more measured critiques of China Daily publications (or social media posts) [45], but similar problems can be found in Western media organizations, and those problems are especially accentuated when it comes to their reporting on China. The takeaway is that you, as an editor, should consider biases when using a source, including the China Daily. I oppose deprecation of the Daily Mail, by the way, on the grounds that some of their reporting is valuable, and intelligent editors can work to decide when its content is useful for citation here at Wikipedia. -Darouet (talk) 17:04, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
Both those states are nuclear armed powers, I’m not sure how thats relevant to wikipedia’s reliability standards though. Perhaps you should try comparing freedom of the press and political interference in the media instead? Population, nuclear weapons status, and the ability to project overwhelming power have literally no influence on the reliability of media organizations within a county. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
Slow hand-clap to everyone responsible for elevating the state media of an oppressive, genocidal dictatorship over what is (for its many, many faults) free, accountable media because (paraphrasing) "China is powerful" and "kill it with fire". FOARP (talk) 09:25, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
This comment is way out of line. Accusing people of supporting genocide because they don't share your view on the reliability of a source is an egregious violation of WP:NPA. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:48, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
"China is powerful" is a direct paraphrasing of the rhetoric above about China being a large economy and nuclear power. "Kill it with fire" is a verbatim quote from the leading advocate of the DM ban in their vote in the 2017 DM ban RFC. I nowhere said that the people stating that the state media of a genocidal dictatorship was more reliable that a newspaper based in a free country and answerable in multiple fora, are themselves advocates of genocide - some may well be of course, but this is a matter for their consciences. If you think otherwise please feel free to take this to ANI. FOARP (talk) 13:27, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
We're discussing reliability of a source, including factors like factual accuracy and bias. Suggesting that people who don't think a particular source should be deprecated are thereby supporting genocide (which you've done a second time now, right after saying that that's not your intention) is really just poisoning the discussion here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
We're engaging in a process modelled on a supposed "gold standard" of the 2017 DM RFC. Was the ownership of the DM thought relevant in that RFC? Yes it was - it was referenced repeatedly. The owners of the China Daily are presently engaged in genocide. China Daily has excused their acts and denied genocide. It's up to you whether you wish to defend the China Daily. It is your outlook if you wish to defend its supposed reliability. Again, WP:ANI is here if you don't like people pointing to the acts of China Daily's owners in a discussion about the China Daily. FOARP (talk) 15:54, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Please read WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Your political views about China are really irrelevant here. There are actual, concrete discussions about factual reliability, bias, coverage of different points of view, etc. above. You're not adding anything with these accusations. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
The ownership of China Daily is entirely relevant, the nature of its owners is also relevant. I raised specific incidents of CD making up quotes, manufacturing stories, employing random expats with no journalistic experience, publishing hoaxes, none of which you bothered to engage with. Add to this the fact that arguing that CD is an "important voice" since Chinese language publications are rare 1) simply gives Chinese state-media a pass because the Chinese government literally silences all other voices and 2) isn't true because Taiwan and (unfortunately, to a lesser extent nowadays) Hong Kong exist. FOARP (talk) 18:13, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes, please read WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS Thucydides411... Our process applies equally to sources from all countries, ownership has always been under consideration and your suggestion that we can consider ownership in all cases except when it comes to sources from China is just odd. You also appear to be for the most part ignoring the very concrete points raised by FOARP and accusations of them poising the well etc are unfounded. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:23, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
For example if we pick an option other deprecation or generally reliable we would need to decide what the source can and cant be reasonably used for. If a sources owner is committing crimes against humanity/genocide against the Y people in X region then we shouldn't be using them to report on that specific issue, the Y people, or the X region. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:27, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
That depends on the degree of editorial independence they have from their owners and how significant their owner's opinions are regarding that subject. It cannot be seriously argued that the CCP's opinions on matters relating to politics and political issues in mainland China is anything other than highly relevant. Accordingly per WP:NPOV what the CCP's view is should be mentioned in a least many cases. I've seen no convincing arguments that China Daily is anything other than reliable when it comes to reporting what the CCP's view on such matters is. What can be (and is being) seriously debated is how reliable they are for factual reporting of matters in which the CCP has no propaganda interest. You can believe the organisation is reliable for such things without agree with or endorsing the CCP's actions or views in exactly the same way that I can simultaneously view the Daily Telegraph as generally reliable and the Daily Mail as mostly unreliable despite them having political views that are strongly overlapping with each other but significantly different to my own. Thryduulf (talk) 20:59, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
In this case they have no editorial independence from their owner. We can still use a deprecated source for WP:ABOUTSELF, if a matter is of no propaganda interest to the CCP then it won’t be reported on by China Daily... That should be self-evident. Its a publication of the Party's publicity department not a business. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:13, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
ABOUTSELF applies to content about China Daily, not about the CCP generally and certainly not about things not related to things that are not either. Your final sentence is incorrect - see for example [46] a neutral, factual article about Tsunami warnings in New Zealand following an earthquake that is currently on the site's main page. Thryduulf (talk) 21:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Agreed, although I think it does to some extent extent to the publishing entity (CCP) as well. Do you have a WP:RS which says that this piece has no propaganda purpose or is that just your opinion? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:32, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
My opinion is that propaganda is one of the purposes of China Daily, but not the only purpose. I am not aware of any other source (reliable or otherwise) that has commented on China Daily's coverage of this specific story, but I have read the article (have you?) and cannot fathom what propaganda purpose it could serve. There are multiple reliable sources that state that not everything published by China Daily is propaganda - some cited in our article and indeed in this discussion. Like much of the real world it is not a simple black and white issue - it is reliable for some things, unreliable for others and should be treated with caution for the rest - i.e a mix of options 2 and 3. Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
In your opinion what other purposes does it serve? I think it would also have to be a “mix” of option 4 because even though it makes up a small proportion of what they publish they do in fact knowingly publish "false or fabricated information." Theres plenty of coverage of that in WP:RS ([47] etc). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:40, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
I don’t want to be too pointed or personal but have you seen what China Daily publishes about your beloved Amnesty International? [48][49][50] Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:45, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Again let's remember that the publication that is supposed to be the model of what Wiki deprecates is the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail definitely does publish perfectly factual articles. If we are going to be at all consistent, the mere fact that CD publishes factual articles should not save it from deprecation. We know that CD fabricates information in stories even about mundane topics like trade with Israel and reports from the Beijing silk market. What, then is it supposed to be reliable for? FOARP (talk) 16:36, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
The article you're linking to says that China Daily published a puff piece about an Israeli food market, and that it the editors didn't want another article to mention that a certain market had counterfeit products. Neither is an example of fabricated information. They're examples of editorial bias influencing what does and does not get included in a story, or what general tone an article takes. The exact opposite bias (e.g., focus on negative aspects of stories involving China) is common in many Western news outlets. It's always important to be aware of the bias of a news source, and not to rely solely on sources that have one bias. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Try reading that article again... "China Daily, in fact, wrote a story declaring the market to be 100 percent free of counterfeit products... I arrived at the Silk Market to find the place full, from floor to ceiling, with fake products--jeans, jackets, shoes, underwear, everything. Whatever one wanted, it was all there, and it was almost all counterfeit.” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:13, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Also theres no "Israeli food market” in the story you just read. There was an Israeli trade fair in the story but no food market... It also says more than puff piece, "we wrote a feature about it anyway, reporting—despite a total lack of substantiating evidence—that Israeli goods were taking the Chinese market by storm.” we appear to have a China Daily reporter admitting that China Daily just makes stuff up without any evidence Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:15, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, you got me - I'm very sorry for calling an "Israeli trade fair" where one eats hummus and olives an "Israeli food market." Anyways, the article doesn't say they fabricated information. "Taking the market by storm" is an incredibly vague, subjective statement. A puff piece from 2007 or 2008 about an "Israeli trade fair" is not a basis for deprecating a source. By the way, I've looked, and been unable to find any of the China Daily articles discussed in the linked article, so I can't evaluate whether they made any concrete, false claims. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:01, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
The article says straight-up that CD lied about the Beijing Silk market being free of counterfeits and about China-Israel trade, both of which are incredibly mundane topics. There's also the whole farago with Peter Hessler where they took an interview and re-wrote things said into an editorial under the byline of the interviewee, something that was common practise at CD. Note that in the Hessler case CD simply deleted the article w/o admitting any error, and CD likely did the same with Moxley's work which is why it's no longer up on the CD website. FOARP (talk) 14:58, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
No, the article says that China Daily told Moxley to omit the claim that there were counterfeit products at the silk market, and that a China Daily editor justified the decision by saying they could get sued for making the claim. Moxley claims that they had previously written an article saying the market was free of counterfeits, before he had been sent there to write his own piece. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:53, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
"No" what? "No they didn't lie about the market being clear of fake products"? But the article says they did - anyone familiar with the market knows that it was full of fakes at that time. "No they didn't delete Moxleys articles"? But they appear to have as there's nothing left credited to Moxley on the CD website, and they've done this in other cases - it would be natural for them to delete them after Moxley's piece in Atlantic came out in 2013. I note you aren't even engaging with CD straight-up fabricating an op-ed. FOARP (talk) 19:01, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
No, the article does not say that China Daily lied about counterfeit products. It says that they wrote an article saying the silk market was free of counterfeits, after a government effort to remove counterfeits from the market. Moxley was then sent to the market to write a story, and found it still had many counterfeit products. He wanted to write that in his article, but the editor said they could be sued for making that claim, and they omitted it from Moxley's article. As for deleting his articles, I see no evidence for that - I simply can't find the articles he's referencing. I don't know how easy it is to find specific China Daily articles from 2007-2008.
What we're discussing here is, however, extremely minor, particularly in comparison to the types of false claims I discussed above in the Wall Street Journal and the Times (of London), involving articles built around mistranslations of a top Chinese official and the CEO of Huawei. There are cases in which major Western outlets have strong biases or poor factual accuracy about issues in China, and it is important to look at what Chinese outlets are saying (while also keeping in mind their biases). -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
So, your position is that the Times and WSJ are unreliable? Well, you're welcome to start an RFC to deprecate them and see how that turns out for you. Meanwhile, yes, CD lied about some really mundane things, and fabricated an op-ed (which, again, you haven't bothered engaging with), and this is clearly demonstrated by the evidence cited above. BTW - I'm not going to bother responding again if you don't use the outdent. FOARP (talk) 18:21, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
None of which is a surprise to anyone who has read the China Daily regularly, or knows anyone who has worked there. The basic point is that CD can't be trusted to tell the truth about petty crime in a Beijing silk market, or imports of agricultural products from Israel - so, again, just what can it be trusted to report on reliably? If the Daily Mail (which at least is staffed by professional journalists rather than random 20-something expats, and is answerable to an independent regulator) is deprecated then consistency demands the same be done to China Daily. FOARP (talk) 19:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion (China Daily)

I just want to highlight some content from China Daily:

Anti-government fanatics are planning massive terror attacks, including blowing up gas pipes, in Hong Kong on September 11.[51][52]

[53]

A protester fires a US-made M320 grenade launcher at an illegal assembly in Tsim Sha Tsui amid escalating violence in Hong Kong on Sunday night. [54][55]

In both cases, we have outrageous lies pushed by China Daily. There are more at China Daily. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

These are both Facebook posts, not articles published in the China Daily. I don't think we consider any newspaper's social media accounts to be reliable sources. At least, I've never seen someone try to cite the NY Times' Twitter account on Wikipedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:44, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

And just today, we have this:

Eradication of extremism has given Xinjiang women more autonomy, says report.[56]

Missing in China Daily's discussion of the "autonomy" of Uighur women is any mention of the Xinjiang re-education camps. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:47, 8 January 2021 (UTC)7

The last of these articles gained notoriety in the past day after an excerpt from the article was shared on Twitter by the Chinese Embassy in the United States. The excerpt is reproduced below:
Chinese Embassy in US
@ChineseEmbinUS
 Twitter logo, a stylized blue bird

Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent.

Eradication of extremism has given Xinjiang women more autonomy, says report

January 7, 2021[1]

References

  1. ^ Chinese Embassy in US [@ChineseEmbinUS] (January 7, 2021). "Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent. [https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202101/07/WS5ff6fb03a31024ad0baa134a.html Eradication of extremism has given Xinjiang women more autonomy, says report]" (Tweet). Archived from the original on January 8, 2021 – via Twitter.
This tweet (and accompanying China Daily article) appears to be a defense of certain elements of the Uyghur genocide, and has received coverage in Ars Technica (RSP entry) and an opinion piece in the Washington Examiner (RSP entry). — Newslinger talk 06:45, 8 January 2021 (UTC) Added archive link. — Newslinger talk 11:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
As morally unacceptable as that is, "moral unacceptability" is not part of WP:RS, so I think we should judge based on factual accuracy. (t · c) buidhe 13:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Ok, let's look at factual accuracy. From the China Daily article:
The research center's report said safe, effective and appropriate contraceptive measures are now available to couples of childbearing age in Xinjiang, and their personal decisions on whether to use those measures — which include tubal ligation and the insertion of intrauterine devices — are fully respected.
Contrast this with reports from actual WP:RS of forced sterilization of Uyghur women [57][58]. Is forcing sterilization on someone consistent with respecting their decision on whether or not to use contraception? And the nail in the coffin -- one might argue that China Daily was simply reporting what the "research center" said and was therefore accurate. But in that case, shouldn't they have characterized both the "report" and the "research center" differently? Because neither "research" nor "report" are accurate characterizations of the document in question, are they? Adoring nanny (talk) 13:44, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Just focussing on factual accuracy almost all of it is false. This is not a study that an independent source or one with basic fact checking abilities would have used. Its almost laughable, lets for instance contrast this statement with the well known second class political status of women in modern China "In the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no long baby-making machines, it said. Women have since been striving to become healthy, confident and independent.” The CCP doesn't promote female emancipation and gender equality even for Han women... Are we really expected to believe they do it for the women of a minority which by all reports they are repressing? I’ve certainly never seen a WP:RS give these sort of bullshit propaganda reports the time of day. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
I think this conversation should stick to source analysis, but just as a matter of historical interest, one of the major societal reforms that the Communist Party tried to carry out after coming to power in 1949 was to change the status of women in society (e.g., legalizing divorce, trying to stop forced/arranged marriages). The New Marriage Law was one of the first laws the PRC passed, and it was accompanied by massive propaganda campaigns to get people to accept it. The status of women, more generally, was one of the major issues of contention between the Communists and Nationalists (the latter taking a much more traditional view of women's roles in society). That is to say, while you say it's ridiculous to think that the CPC would ever promote female emancipation, it wouldn't actually be out of line with their history or ideology. This isn't a comment on the specific report that China Daily reported on - I haven't looked into it carefully. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
You seem to be missing that post-Mao the status of women within the Party and in society in general plummeted, today there are no significant female party leaders and both within and outside the party women have second class status. If you want a better understanding of the modern history may I suggest Judd’s The Chinese Women's Movement? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Well, there you have it: government-run press outlets aren't particularly reliable on the subject of whether the government in question is perpretrating something horrific. Everyone knows that. We shouldn't be using those statements to reference statements about that issue. This would be true for any source in any country. For example, the 2021 election in Chad is almost certainly going to be rigged; the article manages to cite statements from the current president about what he said, while also citing statements from RS about whether it's true. What's this got to do with wholesale deprecation? jp×g 20:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Update: According to The Guardian (RSP entry), Twitter took down this tweet, having concluded that it breaks its rules. The Guardian highlights the discrepancies between the claims in the China Daily article and the results of the investigation by the Associated Press (RSP entry). Additionally, The Guardian confirms that the Xinjiang Development Research Center study is "unpublished", which makes China Daily the original published source of the claims. — Newslinger talk 11:21, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
China Daily attributes the claims to the report. Unless you're claiming that China Daily fabricated the existence of this report, what is the RS problem here? Are we going to deprecate newspapers that describe the contents of Chinese government reports that editors find objectionable? -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that they described it as a "research report", and not as "propaganda" or the like. When one invents lies and publishes them, that's not research. For an example of an appropriate way to cover nonsensical claims, see The Atlantic here.[59]. At no point do they ever refer to any of the nonsensical claims they cover as "research".Adoring nanny (talk) 16:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
China Daily is reporting the claims of a report written by a governmental group. China Daily repeatedly attributes those claims to the report, just as it should do. You're saying that China Daily is not reliable because it does not inject the types of editorial comments you would like it to make. Of course China Daily is going to write about reports created by the Chinese government, but as long as it properly attributes the claims, it's usable. On the other hand, a lot of the claims being made about Xinjiang come from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was created by the US government, and which could just as easily be viewed as a propaganda organization. That doesn't mean that the claims are wrong, but this connection is rarely explained in news articles (including by the AP) about Xinjiang that rely on claims that come from this organization. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:17, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
I think the point you’re missing is that a WP:RS would never have taken that report at face value as China Daily does, the claims made in it are absurd (as are most claims China makes about human rights issues within China, remember that according to themselves the Chinese government respects human rights more than literally any other government on earth). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Are you arguing here that China Daily's article is inaccurate? All I can see is that you're arguing that they do not make an editorial comment that you would like them to make. If one were to note (with attribution, of course) the views of the Chinese government on this issue, then this China Daily article would be a good source, because it explains what the Chinese government report states. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, the word "research" is inaccurate. The phrase "study shows" is also false. And phrases like these frame the reader's understanding of the entire piece. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
The China Daily article does not use the phrase, "study shows". The article also describes the "research report" written by Adrian Zenz of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (established by the US government). The China Daily article doesn't say that Zenz' claims are wrong, and it doesn't say that the Chinese government's claims are wrong. You're essentially demanding that the article take an editorial stand, but if we want a source that simply describes the claims made by the Chinese government report, I don't see why that's necessary. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
The phrase "Study shows" is from the tweet describing the article, not from the article itself. But the underlying problem here is that the article frames the report as "research", which it is not. If we were to allow it as WP:RS, a user might reasonably paraphrase it to say "research shows that Uighur women's decisions about contraception are respected", which is obviously nonsense. Additionally, as User:Newslinger pointed out, the document they describe as the "research center's report" itself is unpublished. So China Daily is effectively the original publisher of this "information". Under the standard you are proposing, anybody could type up a document, call themselves a "research center", and then any source could decribe the document as a "research center's report", regardless of its contents. For example, "research institute says that the Theory of Evolution has been refuted."[60]. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:32, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
The tweet comes from the Chinese Embassy in the US, not from China Daily, and we're not discussing whether tweets are reliable sources, anyways (we typically wouldn't cite tweets from any news outlet). There is an actual report by a Chinese government agency. China Daily has seen the report and is reporting on its contents. Other news outlets have also reported on the contents of the report, and even interviewed the author. a user might reasonably paraphrase it to say "research shows [...]". That would be user error. A better paraphrase would be, "A report written by a Chinese government agency stated, ...". Note the attribution, which makes it clear to readers that we are reporting the views of a third party. Inclusion would be subject to the usual considerations of weight, NPOV, etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • @Firestar464: Could you please revise the RfC statement (the text between the {{rfc}} tag and the first timestamp) to meet WP:RFCBRIEF, which requires the RfC statement to be "neutral and brief"? Specifically, "Media Bias Fact Check classifies it ... 'state propaganda.'" cannot be in the RfC statement since it advocates for a position, but you can move it into either the survey or discussion section. The link to MBFC's rating of China Daily should also be moved or removed from the RfC statement. — Newslinger talk 21:51, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 Done Firestar464 (talk) 11:38, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment regarding the above: Xinjiang and Tibet (along with HK, Taiwan, the South China Sea) are two controversial areas that we should probably refrain from using Chinese state media in, but for most non-controversial mainland news, it should be WP:RS. Félix An (talk) 02:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem with that is that we can't know in advance what they are going to start lying about. In general, a rule like this would require readers to keep up with a lengthy and continually changing list of areas of concern. For example, prior to December, 2019, there was no reason to suspect their information about coronaviruses. See also Censorship in China. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:03, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
This seems that out of thousands of articles in hundreds of topic areas there are some CCP-sensitive pieces of concern or POV differences. But this is not showing an issue re RS attributes with all content, most content, or even a common occurrence. Got any problem with their topics today of Covid, or Plastics, or Smartphones ? Or is it just China political content ? If there was bad info on in 2019, is that not the same info all papers had at the time and a matter outside them? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
The Chinese government and their media entities spreading covid related disinformation has actually been an acute problem, are you unaware of this? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Stop it with the unfounded Association fallacy accusation. We are specifically talking about the China Daily here, show evidence directly about the China Daily. NoNews! 02:13, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
We aren't talking about separated entities here, such as the Washington Post being owned by the same person that owns Amazon. We're talking about multiple arms of the same cephalopod; China Daily is directly owned and run by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, commonly called the Propaganda Department. IHateAccounts (talk) 02:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Agreed, and it was a wrong use of the term association fallacy. This is not about "ownership" in its usual sense of being a shareholder (which is essentially the residual claimant), but about the direct command and control from the Chinese Communist Party and the lack of editorial independence by design for all Chinese state media. Normchou 💬 02:41, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

On a separate note, there are a lot of editors writing "oppose deprecation," though not everyone is actually saying what option they are in favor of. Options 1, 2, and 3 each do not involve deprecation, so I am not sure where consensus currently is pointing. It looks like the majority of editors have concerns regarding the paper's ability to cover China, so is this something we wind up breaking into multiple categories (such as we do for FOX News and Huffington Post)? Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:51, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I suppose Option 2 is a good summary – many editors have raised concerns about political topics, but many have pointed out that China Daily is generally reliable for ordinary news. If we wanted to go the "Fox News" route, maybe Option 1 for most news about China, Option 3 for internationally controversial political issues. As User:Jumpytoo pointed out above, China Daily is generally reliable for mundane (uncontroversial) political news. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:50, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Most of out currently deprecated sources, for instance RT, would be generally reliable for mundane (uncontroversial) political news. That isn't the standard we use, the whole MO of a modern state media source with a penchant for disinformation is to have the disinformation make up only a small fraction of your reporting. Thats why we focus on the small amount of reporting (normally 1-5%) which is problematic and not the 95-99% that isn't. The other big flaw in that argument is that without inside access to the CCP we don’t know what they consider to be controversial or political which renders it at best an entirely unachievable standard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:48, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello,everyone!I am a Wikimedian from Jiangsu China.My English is terrible,so I use Chinese to talk.首先，中国的新闻还算自由（至少和朝鲜民主主义人民共和国相比好多了），第二，由于某些文化差异与政治上的意识形态差异，所以请不要使用西方的思维来思考中国发生的事情。维吾尔人大多生育一人以上的子女，而中国大陆在2015年之前法律规定都倡导生育一个，而大部分维吾尔族人士有“超生”现象，所以绝育是无稽之谈。关于禁止说维语：中国的通用语言是普通话，维吾尔语是少数民族语言，有一说一，目前来看，维语的保护形势比方言好多了，所以某些西方媒体还是关注一下中国的方言吧！此外，新疆的确有宗教极端分子。别一天到晚说那些稍微了解一些中国状况的人都觉得毁三观的“新闻”！关于香港：香港自秦朝以来就属于中国领土的一部分，秦朝时归属南海郡，清朝时归属广东省。我看过VOA关于香港抗议的视频，掐头去尾，只留下容易对港警行为产生歧义的片段。总体上来说，中国日报对于香港的报道比苹果日报以及VOA为首的某些西方媒体好多了。每个人都喜欢另类的东西，比起真正的中国，大部分人更喜欢不一样的中国，所以某些媒体就想方设法的抹黑中国。而且由于中国的意识形态与西方国家存在差异，所以说这种污名化会更加受到欢迎。希望会中文的人士帮我把我的言论翻译一下！谢谢！Jerry (talk) 02:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

有一点忘记说了，补上，省的给我扣帽子：所谓再教育营存在吗？不存在，澳大利亚智库以及BBC的报道中所谓的“再教育营”中，有工厂，刑事羁押机构甚至是学校，我想问一下，各位所在的国家有学校吗？学校里面装监控吗？有刑事羁押机构吗？进去蹲牢的标准是什么？有工厂吗？工厂有监控有围栏吗？我敢说，按照BBC的标准，世界各地都有（包括英国）Jerry (talk) 03:15, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

[Translation of the above statement] First of all, China has some sort of news freedom (at least, much better than North Korea). Secondly, due to some cutural and ideology differences, please REFRAIN from using western minds to interpret things going on in China. Most Uyghurs raise more than one child. Mainland China advocates that each family should raise only one child by law until 2015. Most Uyghurs fail to meet this requirement (that they should only have one child), therefore, it is TOTAL NONSENSE to say "sterilization". Regarding the ban of the use of the Uyghur language: The general language of China is Putonghua/mandarin Chinese. Frankly speaking, currently, the preservation status of the Uyghur language is much, much better than Chinese dialects. Thus, "some certain western media" (in China environment, the use of "some certain" usually contains sarcasm), focus more on Chinse dialects! There ARE regious extremisms in Xinjiang. DO NEVER report those "news" that even someone with only bare knowledge of China would find them breaking their worldview, philosophy and value! About Hong Kong: IT IS A PART OF CHINA SINCE QIN DYNASTY. During Qin Dynasty, it belongs to "South-sea county"; during Qing Dynasty, it belongs to Guangdong Province. I have seen the VOA video about HK protest. Much shorter, no [video] beginnings or endings, with only the clips that make people easy to misundstand the behaviors of HK police. In a nutshell, China Daily is MUCH BETTER than "those some certain western media led by VOA and Apple Daily". Everyone likes alternate things. Compared to the true China, most people want a different China. Therefore, "some certain media" defame China USING ANY WAY THEY CAN. In addition, because the ideology of China is different from that of western countries, those smears are more welcome. I hope someone [whose native language is English] who know Chinese could translate my statements, thank you! (Yeah, I have done your favor, although I am a Chinese native speaker who know English) [Original statement posted by User:城市酸儒文人挖坑, translated by Milky·Defer 04:50, 14 February 2021 (UTC)]

[Translation of the above statement] I forgot something, and I add it here, so that nobody could accuse me that I am poisoning the well (correction: poison my well). Those so-claimed reeducation camps, do they exist? NO, NEVER! The "reeducation camps" from Australian think tank and BBC reports, contains factories, detention centers, even schools. I may ask, don't you have schools in your country? Don't schools have surveillance cameras? Don't you have detention centers? What's the criteria that make people go into jail? Don't you have factories? Don't them have surveillance cameras and fences? I dare to say, based on the BBC standard, everywhere in the world, including Britain, does (have "reeducation camps"). [Original statement posted by User:城市酸儒文人挖坑, translated by Milky·Defer 04:50, 14 February 2021 (UTC)]
We are talking about the China Daily here, show evidence directly about the China Daily. --BlackShadowG★ (talk) 07:03, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
The above statement by Jerry, arguing with apparent sincerity that the Xinjiang internment camps do not exist, is an excellent, if inadvertent, illustration of why CCP-led media, including China Daily, need to be deprecated. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:07, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
jfc. Yes, if China Daily leads to beliefs about the world like that, it needs deprecation - David Gerard (talk) 13:24, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Agreed. 由于某些文化差异与政治上的意识形态差异，所以请不要使用西方的思维来思考中国发生的事情 is the exact type of platitude which has been indoctrinated into the Chinese people when it comes to criticisms of the CCP, and which is intended for those in the West who are susceptible to "orientalist" sympathies towards the "other people in the East" to believe. But no, this has little to do with "culture" or "diversity". It is precisely political in nature. Normchou 💬 20:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
我声明一点：我弗曾畀洗脑过，如果侬箇佬讲个话，我可弗可以视为箇是弗尊重事实？是对我人格个侮辱？言论自由没有错，但请侬注意一注意侬自由个度！Jerry (talk) 07:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
[Translation of the above statement] Let me make it clear: I have NEVER been brainwashed. If you insist that, may I see it as not respecting reality? May I see it as an insult to my personality? There is nothing wrong with freedom of speech, but DO MIND ITS BOUNDRY! [Original statement in Wu Chinese posted by User:城市酸儒文人挖坑 aka Jerry, translated by Milky·Defer 08:54, 15 February 2021 (UTC)]
楼高头额宁首先请提高自噶额阅读理解能力，弗要动弗动就对号入座。欸有，此地是英文维基百科RSN，来发言额宁是弗是要有一定程度额英文水平，帮理解同自噶弗一样文化额知识储备帮视野？尤其是当一个宁指责别宁使用西方的思维额辰光，侬晓得侬勒嗨港撒伐？吾实则上都弗想回复箇种低信息量额发言，但还是忍弗住补充一句: Indoctrination can exist both explicitly and subliminally, and with varying degrees of sophistication. There are many "buttons" in the collective (sub)consciousness of the Chinese people that are the direct result of this process (e.g., their response to the mere statement "Taiwan is a different country from China"). I will not digress any further, and anyone who knows enough about contemporary China issues understands precisely what I am talking about. Once again, I am strongly for the deprecation of all CCP-controlled media outlets, and the above thread shows an excellent example of why this needs to be done. Normchou 💬 17:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Maybe,you need to read this:wuu:Wikipedia:用词指南8.210.36.128 (talk) 08:57, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
This is the English Wikipedia, Please write in English, it makes it easier for other editors to join the conversation. --BlackShadowG★ (talk) 10:18, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
My apologies. It was a conversation with little information anyway. All meaningful arguments of mine have been made in English above. Pardon me for getting into this disruptive altercation with the other user. Normchou 💬 14:58, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Sinauli

It seems to me that "Women Warriors of Sinauli: Discovery Of The Century", Discovery+, in Hindi, which was added again with this edit, is far removed from being WP:RS for the WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim that female warriors were buried at Sinauli. See also Talk:Sinauli#Secrets of Sinauli and [:Talk:Sinauli#Disruptive Editing by Joshua]]. What are the opinions here? Pinging User:Carlos Eduardo Aramayo B. for a response. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:42, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

"Reliable" Tatler recycles "unreliable" sources and introduces errors

This article by the supposedly reliable Tatler suggests that Diana Lanni, a fairly obscure American chess player, may have been at least partly the inspiration for Beth Harmon in Walter Tevis's The Queen's Gambit. Problem is the article is not based on an actual interview with Lanni; it is clearly just recycling material from this self-published article by "batgirl" (amateur chess historian Sarah Beth Cohen) and this podcast/interview by chess and poker player Jennifer Shahade. Either of these sources would be considered a bit problematic to use on wikipedia. Howevere, the Tatler article also introduces errors of fact. Nobody ever called Lanni "The It Girl of chess", that was just a throwaway remark by Lanni herself; she was never ranked number 2 in the world; and she never appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated (she did get briefly quoted in a 1985 article about women in chess).

So the upshot is the supposedly unreliable sources are good, but the supposedly reliable source is rubbish. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 00:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The Fifth Estate (TV program) as a reliable source of fact in Pit bull

A multilayed discussion has arisen on Talk:Pit bull on the use of an episode of the Canadian news program The Fifth Estate (TV program), in particular, its use as an EL and an RS. The episode in question is here. I would argue this is not a reliable source which should be used for statements of fact, as its a highly sensationalist piece of journalism from a television series that was forced to pay out the largest libel suit in Canadian history. PearlSt82 (talk) 21:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that an award-winning CBC investigative public affairs program that has been on the air since the 1970s was sued 25 years ago, but I am more than a little surprised to see it challenged as an RS on these grounds. I wonder if the same people even still work there? Geogene (talk) 21:23, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Remember that even the most reliable sources can occasionally get something wrong. So, rather than trying to argue that the TV program (as a whole) is unreliable, you might do better to argue that the specific episode of the program simply got it wrong... by pointing to scholarly research and journalism that contradicts what is stated in that episode. If you can demonstrate that the show is an outlier, then mentioning it would be UNDUE. - Note... I am not saying the episode is (or is not) inaccurate or UNDUE... just saying that this may be a better approach to resolving your issue. Blueboar (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
The content being disputed is this [61], There is a lobby of animal rights groups that are spending millions of dollars to try to "re-brand pit bulls as family dogs.". This isn't a SCIRS domain, it's standard journalistic fare. Pearlst is being obstructionist in bringing this here. Have you seen the kind of BLP-sensitive claims that are being sourced to the same program elsewhere in WP? In last month's Signpost, for example? [62]. Geogene (talk) 00:08, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
The piece isn't presenting the material in a neutral manner, but rather presents a very sensationalist tone throughout. The episode description is non-neutral summary of the issue On one side, traumatized families and public safety advocates. On the other, a powerful group of lobbyists who say pit bulls are the most misunderstood breed of dogs and are no more dangerous than any other pets., presenting a false dichotomy of the issue as being between "public safety advocates" and "a powerful group of lobbyists". The piece opens up with someone screaming on an emergency call, the narrator injects statements like the shelter offers them a pit bull, and a sale’s pitch that would make a used car dealer blush, the documentary doesn't interview experts in the field, like veterinarians or animal behaviorists, but rather spends most of its time presenting anecdotal evidence and stories. The National Canine Research Council is brought up, but no one in the film is interviewed who can speak to dog bite incidences in an academic capacity. For factual claims, it claims that 103 people were killed by pit bulls in America since Daxton Borchardt's death, but this number seems to be far lower based on List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States_(2010s) and the CDC stopped tracking dog bite data in the 90s, so there is no "official" number to go on. There are additional issues, but for the point with regards to the pit bull article, namely, There is a lobby of animal rights groups that are spending millions of dollars to try to "re-brand pit bulls as family dogs.", this notion doesn't appear present in other sources, and as such seems like its an WP:UNDUE claim to present in wikivoice. I don't see how the Signpost issue is relevant given that the program isn't being used for statements of fact, but rather as a primary source. PearlSt82 (talk) 00:29, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
It isn't up to you to wave off journalism as "sensationalist" just because you don't like it. That's not how things work here. Unfortunately, it seems increasingly likely that your inability to compromise even on trivial things is going to end with sanctions. Geogene (talk) 00:39, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Its sensationalist for the reasons I've described, not because I "don't like it", and I invite everyone reading this noticeboard to view the episode themselves and make the determination. I don't see how threatening sanctions against me helps your argument here. PearlSt82 (talk) 00:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Its sensationalist for the reasons I've described WP:IDHT. Geogene (talk) 00:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Security issue

Hello. I'm not sure if I'm in the right place to report this problem so please re-direct me if necessary.

Please see this edit by myself a few minutes ago. I'm in the process of merging content from a series of review articles into a related history article and checking sources as I go along. When I clicked on the link to the ABC site, McAfee generated a serious security warning message. I've removed the citations but I don't know if the site has been sourced elsewhere on WP. If so, it needs to be deleted. It was added to the 1744 article two years ago. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:25, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I found four more instances of the site in a variety of cricket articles and deleted it from all of them. I only did a simple search, though, using "ABC of cricket" as the string, so it might not be exhaustive. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Be careful about just deleting sources because of security warnings - the archived version does not generate any warnings and the original just seems to be a dead-link for me - even if the original has been usurped, as long as it is still verifiable (which it is if it is archived) and is a reliable source) then it can still be used.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:23, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Fair enough, Nigel, but I've looked at the archived version in the meantime and it's by no means a reliable source. It was self-published by its creator, Shane Dell. As with all these things, it might well be good work but self-publication means original research that hasn't been reviewed or met the requirements of normal publishing standards. I would think the original site has been usurped, as you say, and McAfee certainly didn't like it. Thanks for your help and I think we can consider this case closed. No Great Shaker (talk) 09:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Of course, removal because a source isn't reliable is a different question, especially for a subject like the history of Cricket where there should be no shortage of proper reliable sources to use.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

AFP as a source at Charlie Kirk

I'm concerned that AFP is an unreliable fact-checking source because it spins the facts as the following will demonstrate. See this article by AFP. They reported that Kirk and Trump tweeted that the yellow vests were chanting "we want Trump" - which is factual, no problem there - but in their article they cite a specific video that was not a recording of the yellow jacket protests; rather, it was a UK video for something else. The false information is AFP's matter-of-fact statement: The articles all backed their claims with a video posted to Twitter on December 2 by user @jackwhite, which was retweeted more than 17,000 times. I see no evidence that supports such a claim. AFP cited 2 sources that used the video, and in doing so, they juxtaposed the information with what actually provoked Kirk's & Trump's tweets. One of the sources AFP cited for the video is The Black Sphere, and the other is Clash Daily. Those sources were not the sources that provoked Kirk's or Trump's tweets based on the following. It was the Rush Limbaugh report which was quite different from the clickbait sources cited by AFP for the video, and under much different circumstances. AFP states in their article (my bold underline for what applies here): Although he was the first to be retweeted by the US president on this information, Kirk was not the only one to relay the idea of Trump-infatuated French protesters. On December 3, several English-language online media reported that French protesters were chanting for Trump, as well as American radio host Rush Limbaugh. The articles all backed their claims with a video posted to Twitter on December 2 by user @jackwhite, which was retweeted more than 17,000 times. In the video, a man wearing a Trump mask stands atop a bus while a crowd of hundreds of protesters chant, "We want Trump" repeatedly. There is nothing that I could find that supports AFP's claim that all backed their claims with that video. Look at the NBC report which states factually that there was no evidence to support Trump's tweet. They mention nothing about the UK video. The Hill reported: "Kirk's information about crowd chants seems to come from an article Rush Limbaugh wrote on iHeart Radio on Monday, which claims that friends told him that protestor are asking for Trump." They are referring to the iHeart Radio report - again nothing mentioned about the UK video - and Limbaugh's show. There is little to no doubt that Trump supported & followed Rush Limbaugh - it's factual enough to state it in WikiVoice because Trump honored Limbaugh with the Medal of Freedom in February 2020. Also see Business Insider's article, which identifies a composite photograph, not a video. There were only 2 sources cited by AFP that used the video. My edit on the Kirk BLP was reverted (see my edit summary) and the misinformation was restored by Snooganssnoogans (see his edit summary). There is strong opposition to Kirk which is understandable, but our job is to get the article right, and the material that was added back is misleading and inaccurate, but I'm open to changing my mind if I've overlooked something or there's convincing evidence to the contrary about the video. Atsme 💬 📧 15:22, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Can you please succinctly explain why the Agence France-Presse article is inaccurate in its reporting on Charlie Kirk? I fail to understand what most of you have written has to do with the reliability of Agence France-Presse or the specific report. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
So, your personal analysis of the matter is at odds with a source that is "in the green" so to speak at WP:RSP ? ValarianB (talk) 20:06, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with an OR analysis to show why a particular article from a source is wrong. RSP "green" rating is not foolproof and editors are always allowed to challenge the validity of any particular source for any particular claim. This is backed by WP:NEWSORG which notes even good sources can make mistakes. Springee (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Sources can make mistakes. We should not be deeming a source unreliable (or even worse "deprecating" it) after one or two mistakes. If the information is wrong as per the given sources there is no harm in leaving it out. In the situation that the article was not a BLP I would say it could be included as a conflicting source, but better to be on the safe side and leave it out in a BLP. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:07, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
  • You're taking it out of context, Newslinger. The material that was added to the Kirk BLP is cited to that source. "In December 2018, Kirk falsely claimed that protesters in the French yellow vests movement chanted "We want Trump." These claims were later repeated by President Trump. The cited videos were from a far-right protest in London.[22] Do you see my point? It is not a RS for that claim. Kirk did not use that video to make his claim about the yellow jackets. And this is exactly where the problem is with the entire WP:RSP - CONTEXT. You think the source is reliable when in fact, it is not reliable for that statement. Finally, I've provided some proof to support my concerns, so thank you for your response. Atsme 💬 📧 16:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Both Limbaugh and Kirk are referring to the deceptive video, which preceded both of their claims. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • There are no inconsistencies in the AFP fact check, although the current language in the Charlie Kirk (activist) article needs adjustment:
    1. The initial comment in this discussion does not show that the AFP fact check contains an incorrect statement. No evidence was provided to support the claim that AFP is unreliable.
    2. The following content in the Charlie Kirk (activist) article is verifiable to the AFP fact check: "In December 2018, Kirk falsely claimed that protesters in the French yellow vests movement chanted 'We want Trump.' These claims were later repeated by President Trump."
    3. The following content in the Charlie Kirk (activist) article is not verifiable to the AFP fact check: "The cited videos were from a far-right protest in London." (The fact check did not claim that Kirk's tweet cited videos of a far-right protest in London.)
— Newslinger talk 19:47, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Atsme is correct, this fact check does not support the claim: "In December 2018, Kirk falsely claimed that protesters in the French yellow vests movement chanted "We want Trump." These claims were later repeated by President Trump. The cited videos were from a far-right protest in London.". The gap is that the tweet doesn't provide a source or proof for any of the claims thus it is not correct to say that because this video was not from Paris no one in Paris did X. Ultimately the tweet may be false but the AFP fact check does not prove/disprove the claim. Springee (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

World Wildlife Fund

I want to know how reliable WWF is, considering it is an organization based on the conservation of endangered species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The great Jay (talk • contribs) 05:52, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Guessing The great Jay means https://www.worldwildlife.org/ David notMD (talk) 11:08, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes Blue Jay (talk) 12:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • What do you want to cite them for? I would say "use cautiously" - I don't think there's any specific reason to doubt them, but they're not a news organization, an academic source, or anything else that makes fact-checking and accuracy their main focus. so it's not certain how much fact-checking random statements they make or stuff on their website gets. Uncontroversial details can probably be cited there (as can anything about themselves, obviously), but I wouldn't want to cite them for anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL, and I'd assume that anything like that would get secondary coverage anyway. (Also, I'd want to know what part of their website you're thinking about - different parts of it probably have different levels of editorial control. Some stuff on it seems blog-ish, but OTOH the authors may be experts, so check who wrote what.) --Aquillion (talk) 21:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Yahoo! News article for PragerU

Hi all. Is the source Exclusive: Pandemic relief aid went to media that promoted COVID misinformation written by journalist Catlin Dickson reliable enough for inclusion on PragerU? This is not syndicated--it is a Yahoo News piece. There is also a small content dispute through DUE which I don't think is appropriate for this venue, but hope to clear up the RS question here.

Opposition to inclusion on an RS basis seems to involve claims of churnalism or low-quality reporting. Springee and Hipal describe the article as a "puff piece" and a "warmed-over press release". Noteduck and dlthewave disagree, describing Yahoo!News as a generally reasonable source in general (if not of the highest tier, I would say) and this article in particular as a combination of original reporting, original analysis, and analysis described from a nonprofit group's report.

On the basis of the quality of this story, should it be considered RS? Is this affected by its publisher, Yahoo News? Jlevi (talk) 14:24, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Pinging other participants: Loki, MasterTriangle12, North8000, Ryk72 Jlevi (talk) 14:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for starting this. Hipal also was a participant. Springee (talk) 14:29, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Even though it's a bit late now, apologies to Jlevi, as Hipal was pinged. Springee (talk) 03:22, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Yahoo News! has never been a major topic of discussion at RSN as far as I can tell (other than some of its syndicated content). Jlevi (talk) 14:48, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
  • They used to be known as exclusively an aggregation and reprint site. They still do a lot of that, with a bunch of content sharing deals that muddy the waters a little, although other publications' material seem to be clearly labeled as such. But they began publishing their own journalism a decade ago. This Nieman Lab page is pretty old but describes some of that move. Now their original content seems pretty reputable. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:42, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Hmmm. I don't know why we're here. The concerns are with NOT and POV, not RS. --Hipal (talk) 16:57, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Issues of SOAP/NOT/POV seem to come from the argument that this piece is churnalism or a press release (example diff). My understanding is that this argument comes from the 'press releases' subsection of WP:NEWSORG, which makes this noticeboard the right location for broader discussion. Jlevi (talk) 17:17, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Hipal As you seem to be the primary person challenging reliability on the talk page, this strikes me as strange. You have claimed that it's churnalism, a warmed-over press release, and promotional. Those are RS issues. Ah. Somehow didn't see that Jlevi wrote basically the same thing just above, sorry). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:53, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't think there's an RS issue, no sign that the Yahoo piece is unreliable, and barring doubt published from other RS, any reason to doubt what the Alethea Group or GDI have compiled as reported by Yahoo. What I will say is that the inclusion of the piece, as is currently being edit-warred, is part of the continued problem of editors too focused on the laundry list of every bad thing a group/person seen negatively by the press has done, rather than being a proper summary. For example, a "theme" around PragerU is its misinformation (not just COVID related), and thus I would expect a section to talk about how others discuss PragerU's misinformation, what has been done (eg Youtube's labeling), what PragerU has responded with, and so on, in a summary style and avoiding proseline/timeline style approaches. That would mean this specific article would fit into that section as one part of their misinformation aspects. In other words, it is definitely not UNDUE as claimed, but only if the article's structure is properly brought into line as we'd expect a summary of how the mass media sees Prager is properly summarized. --Masem (t) 17:09, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
    I agree, except there's a lot of work to be done before we know what is due/undue to present from this one reference. We certainly can use this Dickson(2021) ref, but to what extent will depend upon the broader context. These are POV issues. Ideally, we'll have academic references that give broad, historical context, making one-off reporting like Dickson(2021) irrelevant or nearly so. --Hipal (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
  • The source is fine, this is good, independent reporting and not a reheated press release or promotional as has been claimed. There is some seriously biased sanitisation going on if sources like that are excluded through wikilawyering. Fences&Windows 18:05, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I could find no fault in terms of reliability, especially with such a basic claim, the GDI analysis has a published methodology and the article about it was by a widely written journalist. I can't speak as much to Yahoo News in general but I was not aware of any notable problems with the outlet. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 21:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Reliable and due. The original reporting of Yahoo! News is generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG, as Yahoo! News – the "web's most popular news site, with more than 88 million unique visitors in the month of April 2011" – has delivered original reporting as early as 2014 (and likely earlier) to a large audience with minimal controversy. The article under examination is very detailed and features interviews with both the researchers and the groups that were being researched. There is absolutely no evidence that the article is a press release or "churnalism", especially considering that, according to the article, the researched groups are denying some of the researchers' conclusions. — Newslinger talk 00:18, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
    For anyone looking at this discussion in the future (for research), Yahoo! News underwent a "major expansion" in 2013 that included a focus on original reporting. Yahoo! News is still the most popular American news website as of 2017, with "close to 90 million unique monthly visitors" in May 2017, which makes Yahoo! News a publication that should be weighted as highly as any other uncontroversial mainstream news organization. — Newslinger talk 23:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
  • My concern is DUE, not so much if this is reliable. Much of the yahoo content is simply stating what the report said. But why should we care about what this particular group says? One of the original red flags for me was the content in the PragerU article focused on what the Alethea group report said. So who are they and why should we care? If the WSJ chose to quote a report from the Alethea Group then we assume weight based on the reputation of the WSJ. Conversely, we often include material from prominent activist organizations/think tanks even when covered by a lesser RS because these are well known organizations. In this case we have a group with very little weight and a new sources with little weight saying what the group said. That becomes a simple case of UNDUE to me. I will close by saying I think Masem is correct in that a problem with the PragerU article is editors are often fixated on dumping every negative report into the article so long as it can be remotely justified based on RS etc. That makes for an overall poor article as it tries to make the trees bigger than their forest. A section talking about general problems with their videos would be good. It should describe a high level pattern then show examples. The Mother Jones article actually was a decent model except that they made factually false statements about several of the videos in their article. Springee (talk) 03:33, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Reliable Yahoo News is a reputable news outlet that has been doing its own original reporting for years with no major issues that would raise reliability concerns. This is not a press release ("warmed-over" or otherwise) or promotional content; the writer independently verified and analyzed the Alethea Group's findings and requested comment from the five companies mentioned. –dlthewave ☎ 13:42, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Thats not churnalism or a warmed over press release. As for the claim that editors are packing the article full of negative coverage... This is an article about an organization which is primarily notable for the (often comically) low quality of the content they produce, it seems like some editors are unwilling to accept that fact. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I don't question PragerU is going to draw negative coverage, and our article can't shy from that. But again, the issue with the current state of PragerU (and most articles of topics that recieve negative coverage) is that editors see a bit of negative coveage and add it to a running list to the article, which over time can create excessive and undue coverage of the negative coverage if every little bit of negative press is added. Per WP:CRIT the article should strive to cover this more narratively - as I mentioned above, there is absolutely a theme related to PragerU and misinformation, of which this Yahoo! article would absolutely fit within. The article's coverage of PragerU's should be summarizing from this bigger picture -- which may mean some smaller events that turned out to be nothing may need to be dropped. We absolutely should not be able to strive to identify every time PragerU is faulted (that falls under RIGHTGREATWRONGS), but instead try to understand and summarize why PragerU keeps on appearing in negative coverage in the press and popular opinion. But that is far from the question of RSes at this point. --Masem (t) 15:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
      • I don’t see what we have here as being distinct from the universal problem of WP:RECENTISM. Another University thats not really a University on my watch list (University of the People) has similar issues. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:25, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
        • Part of it is the general issue that WP:PROSELINE also develops from in how the wiki model works - an editor sees something to add and the easier way to add "yet another bullet point" than find a cleaner point of integration. We need editors, at times, to deconstruct such list of bullet points and recreate them as summaries. This applies to both factual aspects that PROSELINE tends to draw, and stuff like media criticism like on PragerU. But again, this is well beyond the RS question (of which I agree, there's nothing here to question Yahoo! as an RS for this purpose). --Masem (t) 15:36, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) You've made part of the point I was making in the ec, but I'll leave this here anyway. It seems like you're making a different point from what this section is about. Nobody has said "we must not summarize". The thing is, summaries are even harder to find consensus for than the piecemeal approach, so calls for "we must not add piecemeal" is an effective way to just omit the material. The most effective way forward here IMO is to include the material that should be summarized first, and then come up with a summary. Trying to argue over both at the same time isn't productive. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:57, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Since several editors expressed due weight concerns, I've opened a discussion at NPOV Noticeboard here. –dlthewave ☎ 03:55, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Noteduck made a very good and specific UBO argument for the reliability and relevance of Yahoo! News original reporting very early on in the original PragerU talkpage discussion (diff). Noteduck pulled out some NYT articles that highlight Y!N reporting on political matters. Noteduck also brings up a 2010 NYT article that discussion Y!N's first push into original journalism. This demonstrates the long time Y!N has been in the original journalism game.
I just bring it up again because I think this comment got lost in the shuffle, and it's a good contribution to the general evaluation of Y!N reporting. Jlevi (talk) 05:04, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Notice of due weight discussion

For comments on weight for this specific article, consider contributing here instead: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#COVID_misinformation_and_PPP_loans_at_PragerU Jlevi (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Lyme disease GAO investigation

I am requesting assistance from experienced editors in a controversial topic area. A lot of media attention has been given to the origins of Covid-19, but there has long been speculation about the origins of Lyme disease, and a possible connection to the US biological weapons program in the 50s. Some scientists think its a conspiracy theory not worth investigating, and some believe only a whistleblower or declassification of information by the Pentagon can decide the matter.

There has also been an amendment to a bill ordering the US gov to investigate the allegation of the disease's origin in bioweapons research:

https://lymediseaseassociation.org/government/gao-investigation-of-ticks-vector-borne-agents-biowarfare-experiments-passes-house/

Prior to this bill, a few books made the connection between the disease, its discoverer Willy Burgdorfer; and US government facilities in Plum Island (New York) (where he worked):

There are also many articles in reliable sources covering this topic:

There are also a few articles with opposing views:

I would appreciate some help from other editors in presenting this story from these sources in the most neutral way possible. The state of the subsection before I found it gave undue weight to the opposing views, without any details of the allegations made in the books and articles above. We should also expect updates as this investigation gets underway.

RebeccaofLondon (talk) 13:45, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

  • What WP:MEDRS sources say about it? That disease was well studied, and Borrelia and the ticks are obviously of natural origin. Doing some research does not mean much by itself. But did they actually breed new strains of Borrelia or particularly aggressive sub-species of ticks? That does not appear in sources above. Also, this is apparently a very old disease [64]. My very best wishes (talk) 17:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
And a disease that is predicted to become more prevalent as ticks spread north, related to climate change, not because of biotechnology, —PaleoNeonate – 00:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

News Website MEAWW Reliable or Unreliable Source?

Source

https://meaww.com/

Mission Statement

The source (MEAWW) claims that, "MEAWW is an initialism for Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide. We are one of the world’s fastest growing media-tech companies with hubs around the world. MEAWW brings you the best content from its global team of reporters on a platform technologically tailored to meet the needs of the modern reader."

Article Example on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tim_Pool#Meaww_article_re._%22impeach_Queen_Elizabeth%22

Content of Article

Article makes claim that famous YouTuber Tim Pool made viral tweet regarding impeachment and Queen of England.

Context

In a recent (as of March 12, 2021) podcast, Tim pulls up news website Media, Entertainment, Arts, WorldWide (also known as "MEAWW") wherein there is an article speaking about his viral tweet here, a sarcastic joke suggesting that people simple "impeach Queen Elizabeth [II of England, presumeably for her "racist" comments regarding the child of her grand-daughter-in-law Meghan Markle and Prince Harry". The YouTuber then spoke about the article the next day on his podcast, specifically using it as an example of why he thinks there is "no accountability in mainstream media". In the article, the author seems to genuinely believe Pool is serious about "impeaching the Queen" and draws considerable attention to the topic. Further, the author never does clarify that it is not possible to "impeach" a monarch (partly due to the nature of the office and partly due to the fact that royalty [in this situation anyway] is defined by bloodline and birthright). For this reason, among others, I believe MEAWW needs to be listed as a "dubious" source at best; however, it seems there is a large number of people who think it is viable and it has in fact been cerified by NewsGuard.

Examples of other, less dubious articles

მაLiphradicusEpicusთე 15:41, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Academic papers vs op-eds, opinion, analysis.

Hi, at the Cancel culture article we have a number of editors claiming that op-eds and opinion sources are essentially equivalent to or better than peer reviewed academic papers in terms of scaling the quality of sources (including an admin): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cancel_culture#Bari_Weiss I find this totally out of step with what I've learnt about sourcing when I was at university and also what I had come to believe was the standard here at Wikipedia. So my question is: are peer reviewed Academic sources preferable to opinion columns and op-eds? Thanks in advance. Bacondrum 22:13, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:SCHOLARSHIP is generally reliable. WP:RSEDITORIALs are generally not.--JBchrch (talk) 22:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC) Looking at the talk page a bit more, I think I should add that some opinions expressed in editorials may be notable and deserve a mention in the article (see WP:DUE), in which case the op-ed is a reliable source for the opinion cited.--JBchrch (talk) 22:27, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I agree attributed opinion is acceptable, but would you agree that generally speaking peer reviewed academic sources are the better quality sources than op-eds? My issue with sourcing at that article is that nearly half the article is cited with opinion type sources. Bacondrum 22:37, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Generally yes, but there can be situations where this is not the case. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
On thing I think is very helpful when deciding whether an opinion piece is usable is to think about what it would look like if you boiled it down to the bare minimum summary of "Person X thinks Y", with Y summarized in as few words as possible. "Donald Trump criticized this as 'VERY BAD'" or "the world's foremost historian says this is nonsense" are clearly opinions worth including. Whereas if it would boil down to "opinion columnist X disagrees", it probably shouldn't be used. --Aquillion (talk) 23:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Opinion sources are only reliable sources for the opinions of their authors - that is, they're supposed to be used to establish "person X thinks this" in contexts where the fact that person X, specifically, thinks a thing is noteworthy. They shouldn't be used solely for the sake of presenting arguments in the text, or to imply facts, or to provide a framing for the subject; those aren't matters of opinion. Worse, many columnists are employed specifically because their views are contrarian and because they say WP:EXCEPTIONAL things that attract eyeballs - which makes them particularly bad sources to use to imply "here's an opinion that significant numbers of people in the real world hold." In particular, throwing a bunch of such opinion pieces into an article to try and prove that an opinion is widely-held is WP:SYNTH. If we're going to discuss major strands of opinion on a topic, the ideal way to do it is with a non-opinion secondary source that provides necessary context and actually describes how widespread or significant the opinions are, or by citing the the opinion of experts and people significant enough that their views can be reasonably taken as clearly-relevant. --Aquillion (talk) 23:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Your first sentence is not supported by policy, there are opinion pieces that can be regarded as factually reliable (see also below). As for the separate issues of weighing opinion under NPOV, I agree that it makes a difference whether an opinion has been reported by a third party article in a RS publication or merely expressed by the opinion-haver themselves in an opinion piece published by a RS. But that doesn't mean that there is a blanket prohibition of citing opinion pieces. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
I certainly didn't say there's a blanket prohibition on citing opinion pieces; it's just important to be cautious with the opinions of non-experts, and only cite them in contexts where "X thinks Y" is the thing they're being cited to establish. That is roughly what the second bullet point of WP:RSEDITORIAL essentially says. And AFAIK that has always been the case - opinion pieces by non-experts are meant to be used to establish "X thinks Y" in contexts where what X thinks is clearly relevant. --Aquillion (talk) 20:56, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • As is often the case - IT DEPENDS. a) It depends on the authors, b) It depends on the topic. Was the op-Ed written by an acknowledged expert, is the “academic” source written by a fringe nut job? Is the topic pop culture or astrophysics? Blueboar (talk) 23:32, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Yea, depends. I prefer scholarly if they are available, with recent things, they may not be. Expert opinions are OK as well. And the humble newsorg is still good, too.Selfstudier (talk) 23:57, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Agreed with Blueboar and Selfstudier. There seems to be a lot of confusion above between factual reliability and bias, and between self-published items and opinion pieces that are very much undergo editorial selection and review. At least in the US, it is a widespread practice among newspapers to fact-check the opinion pieces they publish. Some quick examples:
  • The New York Times' opinion section employs a dedicated fact-checker, and their new Opinion Audio section hired a dedicated fact-checker too.
  • The exception that proves the rule: When The Wall Street Journal's opinion section violated such expectations last year (by e.g. publishing a piece by Mike Pence that had included questionable COVID-19 stats, and was later corrected), more than 280 of the paper's own employees took the highly unusual step of writing a letter to their publisher to voice "concerns about the Opinion section’s accuracy and transparency" and "its apparent disregard for evidence [which] undermine our readers’ trust and our ability to gain credibility with sources". Currently, https://opinion.wsj.com/ stresses that "While we aim to persuade, every word we publish is the product of rigorous reporting, research and debate."
  • Lest someone think this is only the norm at big national papers, here is a student newspaper discussing their practices in publishing opinion pieces: "When an opinion is submitted, it’s first edited and fact-checked by the current opinion editor [...], checked for grammar and AP style by copy editors and then edited and fact-checked once more by the managing editor and editor-in-chief."
Of course opinion pieces are more likely to raise WP:BIASED concerns than news articles in the same newspaper. But the concerns about their factual reliability are often overblown. The current wording at WP:RSEDITORIAL does actually not disallow citing them for facts beyond the author's opinions (contrary to what was implied abov), but still seems to be worded too conservatively. I haven't dug into how it came to be, but at least this discussion raises the question if that wording really reflects consensus.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
To be clear, WP:RSEDITORIAL does unambiguously bar citing editorials from non-experts for facts beyond the author's opinions. When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint.[notes 2] If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article and do not represent it as fact. There is some room for nuance in terms of who qualifies as an expert, whose opinions are relevant, and so on, but it is unambiguous that you cannot cite an opinion piece from a non-expert for a statement of fact. AFAIK this has always been the case, and I would strenuously oppose any effort to change it or to weaken the relevant language - it is an absolutely vital part of how we handle opinions and editorials, which (largely) lack fact-checking. --Aquillion (talk) 20:56, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • All things being equal, "in terms of scaling the quality of sources," peer reviewed academic publications are higher quality than op-eds. Acousmana (talk) 11:11, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment. I can see a troubling pattern on this noticeboard. There are at least two similar threads above, about Poland and Lyme disease. Those are typical content disagreements that are not about any specific source. Instead of simply following WP:RS, i.e. Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process, people are bringing this here. But WP:RS tells this already: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.". So, yes, the specific source under discussion can be used, but it should be attributed to Bari Weiss. Why bring this here? Just read the WP:RS please. My very best wishes (talk) 16:00, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
It is partially a matter of WP:DUE, yes, but it's also important to understand the restrictions of WP:RSOPINION - it's meant to be used to establish someone's opinion, not to insert opinion pieces for the purpose of framing other aspects of the article. That is, a primary source for the opinion of an author is a valid source to establish the opinion of the author; it would be an appropriate source on Bari Weiss, or in a section already discussing her opinions, but it generally isn't a good source on articles about topics she merely happens to opine on unless you can argue that her stature is sufficient to make absolutely anything she says about any topic automatically WP:DUE. See my explanation above - if we boiled this down to "Columnist Bari Weiss criticized the concept", it would be obviously irrelevant, which shows that it isn't cited here to establish her opinion, but in an effort to introduce her arguments as a broader framing for the topic. That requires either an expert source or a non-opinion one. --Aquillion (talk) 21:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
"an expert source". Yes, exactly. If an author qualifies as an expert on the subject, then providing their views is fine. And I think that's the case here. This is just something from pop culture, not rocket science. My very best wishes (talk) 16:05, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
For myself, I don't find that someone whose only relevant expertise is journalistic opinion writing to be equally an expert on the subject as those who write peer-reviewed scholarship on a topic, but clearly our assessments differ. Newimpartial (talk) 18:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Bari Weiss is not a subject matter expert, they’re a professional op-ed columnist. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Academic papers are generally reliable sources for facts, while op-eds are not. In an article about the Mars rovers for example, it makes sense to use a peer-reviewed paper by a professor of astrophysics rather than an editorial in a newspaper by someone with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
The issue here seems to be weight. It's not whether the facts are right, but what weight should be given to the opinions expressed. I think the best approach is to use secondary sources that report the opinions. That is helpful in determining how accepted each view is. It's also important to know the political orientation of people expressing these opinions if they are reported in editorials. Personally as a rule I find it useful to never directly report opinions but to use reliable sources reporting on them.
TFD (talk) 17:57, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Fox News CEO declares his network will be opposed to Biden

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Thursday that it is the job of Fox News to serve as the opposition to the Biden administration, clearly stating the political biases of a network that until 2017 billed itself as "fair and balanced." [65]

Further evidence that Fox News should not be cited for anything related to American politics. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Was it considered a reliable source before this? I mean, sure, Breitbart and the Daily Caller are considerably worse, but that's not exactly an argument FOR reliability of Fox. But, yeah, definitely a "in no instance" usage in regards to at least politics after a statement like that. SilverserenC 04:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Silver seren, further info: WP:FOXNEWS. Firestar464 (talk) 04:44, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
I can only but question the participants in those past discussions and their personal motivations, as the unreliability of Fox (and the lies in print and pushing of conspiracy claims) has been a common talking point and joke among the general public for years. Like, I wouldn't use it for anything, even entertainment news. SilverserenC 04:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
The story seems to be a response written by NBC News to a quote by Murdock that appears to liken Fox News to MSNBC. There may very well be a conflict of interest in the reporting here, since NBC News and MSNBC share common ownership and are so highly integrated that NBC News provides news coverage that MSNBC broadcasts. I'm not sure that the NBC News is reliable and unbiased in this very specific case due to the apparent COI. The quote from Murdock also isn't really reported with much context in the NBC story, so it's hard to tell if Murdock is talking about the news service it provides or its heavily opinionated talk shows (which are listed separately at WP:RSP). If he's talking about the latter, then WP:RSP already marks them as generally unreliable. Is there another source that is reporting similarly to NBC, or is it just NBC providing this coverage? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 07:55, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Being in opposition to a political party or administration IS bias... however, having a bias does NOT mean a source is unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 13:04, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    Blueboar, correct. See, for example, the Ad Fontes chart which has two axes, bias and reliability. However, reliability does decrease as bias increases, and Fox has become markedly more biased and consequently less reliable over the past five years. This is reflected in things like the departure of Shep Smith and the advancement of Big Lie proponent Maria Bartiromo (and firing of Chris Stirewalt) after the insurrection.
    So: Fox responded to the worst crisis in American politics for well over a century by firing people who reported facts and promoting those who peddled conspiracist bullshit, and that is directly relevant to reliability. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:45, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Reliability depends on the nature of the facts reported. Fox should be considered a source of opinion, like a blogger, when it comes to American politics. They are a reliable source for their own opinions, and if they report a quotation "X said Y", that may also be reliable. If they report an opinion such as "Biden is destroying the country" that would obviously not be reliable. With regard to Fox, nothing has changed. There's no need to change our approach. Jehochman Talk 13:14, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Rhetoric aside, isn't this the sort of thing we want from all our media outlets? Not that we want them actively against but we definitely want them to push back on politicians at all levels. This seems like yet another case of a news network playing high school gossip games. Fox and CNN do it all the time and it's a discredit to them both. NBC isn't immune either. Basically this is a non-story. Springee (talk) 13:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • 2020 RfC for reference. François Robere (talk) 13:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Fox is already marked to be treated with care in the world of politics from the last RFC (from FR's link above). No need to change it due to this announcement. Mind you, this is no different from the bulk of major media sources being implicitly anti-Trump over the last four years though obviously they didn't announce it, and they kept their bias restrained for the most part. --Masem (t) 13:52, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    • Well yes there is, as this is a clear statement they will be biased, rather than just it being implied. But bias is not a reason to exclude, even stated bias. But I think it is a good reason to keep an eye on them, as this stated bias may push them over into editorial deceit.Slatersteven (talk) 13:55, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
      • I'm just saying that the last RFC cited added this to WP:RS/P, which still applies and needs no changing in light of a statement of explicit bias from Fox: There is no consensus on the reliability of Fox News's coverage of politics and science. Use Fox News with caution to verify contentious claims. Editors perceive Fox News to be biased or opinionated for politics; use in-text attribution for opinions. --Masem (t) 16:00, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure they all did keep their biases in check. I've been concerned about a number of examples of Politifact basically arguing too a conclusion vs impartially reading the facts. I think I have four or five examples thus far. Springee (talk) 14:04, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • We should not make a WP:FALSEBALANCE between Fox's announcement of opposing Biden and the mainstream media (such as the NY Times and CNN) giving Trump negative coverage. Trump aggressively promoted demonstrable lies, such as the falsehood about the stolen election, climate change denialism, slurs against Mexicans and Muslims, and quack cures for COVID-19, and he did it on a large scale. Other Republicans (such as former president Bush and presidential candidates McCain and Romney), who did not do this, were covered much more sympathetically by the mainstream media. NightHeron (talk) 14:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    • There is an element of RIGHTGREATWRONGS here though, as well as RECENTISM. There is no question Trump will go down in history as a bad president and there will likely be a number of things that he handled poorly will be highlighted as such hallmarks of his poor presidency. But that takes time to figure out. Right now, however, is not that time, everyone is still far too close to the situation to be unbiased, even academics. Yes, we can discuss that broadly, right now, the public impression is that Trump did a poor job, but per NOT#NEWS/RECENTISM, we should not be trying to qualify that to a great degree with commentary from RSes at this point. Just as we would not try to use Fox here to qualify that Biden is also doing a bad job (which there would likely also add UNDUE/FRINGE to the mix). This is broadly the general problem with any politic coverage we do on WP - editors want to include what commentary and opinion says but this is the worst possible material to include when we don't have years between the events made and the comments said. We're incorporating those implicit biases by default. But this is not saying no commentary can't be included, but it should be very clinical and not trying to mirror to the tone and intensity of the current media. Only until enough time has passed and more dispassionate commentary (which still will likely paint Trump very poorly) can be made can we get into a more detailed commentary about Trump. --Masem (t) 16:10, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
You misunderstand what I said. I said nothing about Trump being a bad president. Bush was a bad president. He started a brutal and pointless war in Iraq, whereas Trump, to give him credit, managed to get through four years without starting a war. The point is not that Trump was a bad president or is a Republican, but that he's a pathological liar, which Bush, Romney, McCain, Biden are/were not. This is not POV or RECENTISM; it's fact: the 2020 election was not stolen, anthropogenic climate change is real, Mexicans and Muslims are not undesirable, bleach does not cure COVID-19. There should not be false balance between someone who consistently lies and someone who doesn't. NightHeron (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, it is one thing that we can readily document neutrally without commentary the number of lies and misleading statements Trump has made and compare that to other presidents and world leaders. It is the next step of calling him a "pathological liar" which is the commentary on the matter from recent sources that we have to wary about in the short term. We may all agree that his lies were dangerous and the like, and there's certainly an overwhelming amount of voices from mainstream media that would support this direction, but per RECENTISM/NOT#NEWS as well as RIGHTGREATWRONGS we should be careful about giving that stance too much weight at this time. If ten years from now Trump's still considered a terrible president in contrast to the next 2-3 because of his pathological lying, then we something that it far more distanced that makes for better review for inclusion under UNDUE that is no longer subject to RECENTISM. That's the nature of the implicit bias of the media that we had to be careful about; there are elements that are clearly factual (that Trump lied) that we can documnt regardless of source bias, and there are elements that are opinion (that Trump is a pathological liar) that we have to be a bit wary about inclusion and the impact of unstated source bias if we're still too close to said events. Of course, here when a source says "we're going to bias this way" then we have more reason to be wary of their opinions from the start including potential impacts on their factual reporting. --Masem (t) 21:48, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes, the media are biased. For example, we have perfectly good May, 2020 sourcing that it would take a "miracle" for Trump's claim that there would be a covid vaccine in 2020 to be correct.[66] And when the vaccine was in fact approved in 2020, there was curiously no NBC article crediting Trump with a "miracle" accomplishment on his watch. Though HuffPo did give us a "fact check" that Pence was incorrect when he called it a "miracle" [67]. Fox News took an honest look at the situation[68]. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • This discussion is quite enlightening. News media is supposed to expose politicians and keep them in line, hopefully not in the same manner they handled the Trump presidency. I often see FALSEBALANCE & WHATABOUTISM used as excuses when things come full circle and don't align with a particular political POV, and to me that emphasizes WP's own systemic bias. Noncompliance with RECENTISM is how we learn to be better editors, because it usually doesn't take too long for all the misinformation and BS to be exposed. Retrospect is 20-20 vision. We need to avoid WP's own systemic bias because WP:POV creep is an issue in our political articles, and has resulted in what I consider harmful criticism about WP's NPOV. When choosing RS for the inclusion of material, we are obligated to choose our sources from a NPOV, the sources themselves don't have to be neutral or unbiased. There is not one RS that I can name, in clear conscience, that is flawless. Based on my past & present experiences in the media industry, they all make mistakes, but our reason for coming to this noticeboard is to discuss specific material for inclusion based on the all-important CONTEXT in a specific source - not to judge entire sources based on aspersions, the POV of competitors, journalists with an axe to grind, cherrypicked mistakes, and/or political opinions by opposing political forces, and sadly, that is exactly what we've done. The irony of consensus is that we're ok with the news Fox reports, but not their political news because WP's systemic bias doesn't align with their POV - that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Such judgements make aspects of WP:RSP noncompliant with WP:RS wherein it states: Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process. Context is an integral part of the decision-making process. We can go toe-to-toe and show that propaganda and misinformation occurs in ALL online news sources. They have all published false allegations, POV speculation, sensationalist headlines, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. In fact, a couple of our highest quality RS (NYTimes & WaPo) had to return Pulitzers because of fake news. If you think going online tightened down proofing by the respective editorial boards, think again - some of these editorial boards are writing their own political opinions and propaganda. What we really need to do is back-up, and utilize WP:RSN the way it was intended to be used; i.e., request input for specific material IN CONTEXT that was proposed for inclusion, or that was removed from a specific article. The closer of those discussions should be neutral with no political bias, or we're left with the hegemony of the asshole consensus, and I find that more harmful than helpful to the project. Politics is not medicine, although it is served to us in big doses, and political articles don't need as stringent a sourcing requirement as do our medical articles. Common sense usually prevails. That's my nickel's worth, and I'll add that I'm open-minded to being convinced otherwise, but please don't try to relitigate and attempt to convince me that MSNBC or CNN is any better than Fox News. Atsme 💬 📧 16:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • 2 cents...this does not or should not alter the way Fox News sourcing is handled in the Wikipedia. All they did is say the quiet part out loud, for once. ValarianB (talk) 16:15, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • If we deprecated sources for being the "loyal opposition", we would lose sources such as The Guardian, Haaretz, Novaya Gazeta, Cumhuriyet etc. Editors hyperbolizing about Fox's reliability appear to be failing to make the distinction between their commentary shows (clearly not reliable) and their news programming (no consensus). Move along folks, nothing to see here. signed, Rosguill talk 16:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    Well put. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:32, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I mean, this is well-established. But the reason Fox is unreliable isn't because they have a bias (proclaimed or otherwise), it's because they have an extended history of publishing false or misleading things in the service of that bias - that is to say, the network has a structural problem stemming from their devotion to their ideological goals that interferes with the fact-checking and accuracy required of a WP:RS. That quote doesn't really add to that (since showing it interferes with their fact-checking and accuracy is what matters); I'd be more concerned about their coronavirus reporting. See eg. [69][70] - IIRC that development was one of the reasons the most recent RFC failed to find a consensus that it was reliable for politics and science. --Aquillion (talk) 21:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm against the over-generalization of any source as being overall reliable / unreliable and wish Wikipedia would cease such activity. Which basically amounts to voting based on Wikipedia's systemic bias. Actual reliability comes from expertise and objectivity regarding the item which cited it and varies case by case. But on the issue of bias, almost all media has become biased including sources that are highly regarded in Wikipedia. For better or for worse use of biased sources is specifically acknowledged at wp:NPOV. North8000 (talk) 21:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • For anyone doubting Fox News' lack of integrity, I recommend picking up Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics,[71] written by three academic heavy-hitters, Professor Yochai Benkler and Hal Roberts[72] from Harvard and Professor Robert Faris[73] from the University of California, Davis, published in 2018. The book demonstrates (using a lot of quantitative data analysis) that the right-wing "information ecosystem" including Fox News no longer follows basic journalistic norms. A good quote: [right-wing] radicalization was driven by a group of extreme sites includingBreitbart, Infowars, Truthfeed, Zero Hedge, and the Gateway Pundit, none of which claim to follow the norms or processes of professional journalistic objectivity. As we will see time and again, both in our overall analysis of the architecture and in our detailed case studies, even core right- wing sites that do claim to follow journalistic norms, Fox News and the Daily Caller, do not in fact do so, and therefore fail to act as a truth- telling brake on these radical sites. Indeed, repeatedly we found Fox News accrediting and amplifying the excesses of the radical sites...over the course of 2017 Fox News had become the propaganda arm of the White House in all but name (p14). They cite Fox's promotion of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory (159-166) and the claim that the Clintons were linked to pedophilia (92-93) - Fox's most widely tweeted and shared on Facebook story of the 2016 election cycle(!) - as particularly noxious examples of Fox's political radicalization. There's also very solid academic work done about the effect of Fox News on driving Republican support. Martin and Yurukoglu concluded that the precise impact of removing Fox News from cable networks in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 election cycles would have reduced Republican votes by 0.46%, 3.59% and 6.34% respectively. Similarly, in a widely cited article Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan found that Fox News was responsible for a 0.26-0.36% vote shift in the 2000 presidential election (note that Fox cable coverage was much less entrenched at this time.[74] Academics have written about the notorious "Fox News effect",[75] based on a poll in 2012 that found Fox viewers were less informed about politics than people who professed no interest in politics at all, which was not the case for viewers of NBC and CNN.[76] These are all peer-reviewed articles in high-quality academic journals. I think these all prove that Fox News is partisan, misleading, and a serial promoter of conspiracy theories, demonstrating that Fox News should not be used as a source about American politics except for uncontroversial claims Noteduck (talk) 02:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I second what Rosguill said, and will add (my opinion/commentary unrelated to Rosguill's comment) that I think that some of the comments here should likely be viewed as violations of WP:RGW - they're simply masquerading as a legitimate discussion. If Fox News should be considered "more unreliable" because of their opposition to Joe Biden, then CNN and MSNBC should be considered equally less reliable for their overt, universal opposition to Republicans/Trump - which has been, over the last 4 years, overtly stated by multiple people who work at those networks, even if it wasn't the CEO. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:33, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Fox News is unreliable because it purposefully puts lies to print and promotes conspiracy claims. If it was just biased, then things would be different, but its willingness (much like Breitbart) to put out outright falsehoods is the concern. SilverserenC 02:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
    And that's fine, and why I have no problem with the "use caution" present on RSP and the outcome of the discussion about it (having read it over). However, that is not what the person here is proposing, nor is it what somewhere around half of respondents here are arguing. This statement has absolutely no value in any discussion of reliability. Period. Reliability on Wikipedia is disconnected from any bias the source may have - it is based on editorial controls and reputation for factual data. Biased presentation of facts is still facts (not saying that's what Fox does). My comment about RGW was not directed at yourself, as you provided a concise statement that you feel this should be considered - even if I disagree with that statement it's not indicative of you having some crusade as some other editors here seem to be on. I also further think you should reconsider your statement regarding the "general public", as it likely is based on only what your closer connections feel - there is, after all, 45% of the general (voting) public who voted for Trump and would be reasonably expected to consider Fox a reliable source - which in and of itself disproves your statement that it's been a "common... joke... for years". But I digress - this is all discussion that could be had in a structured, specific RFC if anyone really feels that one is needed at this time on Fox - this discussion itself should likely be closed as irrelevant, moot, and useless overall as nothing will come of this other than people going back and forth. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:45, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Fox might once have been the right-wing equivalent of CNN but over the last five years the distinction and balance between factual reporting and opinion has changed, it has become more biased and more discobnnected from reality, and this is an inevitable result of the system of incentives within the conservative media bubble (see Network Propaganda by Yochai Benkler). Of particular note, following the January 6 insurrection they fired Chris Stirewalt, who reported accurately on the election and was viciously attacked by Fox viewers as a result, and promoted Maria Bartiromo, an active proponent of the Big Lie. It appears to be deliberate policy to continue to move toward the extreme right and put ideological Truth above empirical fact. As a data point, in the several days of saturation coverage of the "cancelling" of Dr Seuss, only of their news programs actually showed any of the images in question (source: [77]). Guy (help! - typo?) 17:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Then depreciate The Guardian since it opposes the current Johnson ministry. Oh wait, just because a source is biased it does not mean it is unreliable, *sigh*.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 17:34, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • The Telegraph must also now be an unreliable source, as they’ve overtly opposed Biden at this time. This is how absurd making determinations as to reliability based on political leanings is, or rather how far it could be taken if this sort of slippery slope is allowed to continue. This discussion isn’t producing anything useful - and it should likely be closed before it wastes more time and electrons. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Mehrdad Izady for Kurdish issues

The source is by the Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady [Kurds: A Concise Handbook, 1992, Routledge]. In short, while Izady is an academic, he engaged in pseudo history to push nationalistic agenda. I will list these following scholarly treatments of his book:

  • First, start with reading the book review: V. Strohmeyer. Review [M. Izadi, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, London: "Taylor&Francis", 1992], Acta Kurdica, vol. 1 (19994): 221-222. Published by RoutledgeCurzon
  • Second: from the book: Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan, by Maria Theresa O'Shea, published by Taylor & Francis:
1-Page 181: "Much of the rest of Dr. Izady’s book is well written, dealing exhaustively with many hitherto unexplored aspects of the Kurds and Kurdistan. However, certain sections, such as that on ancient history are subject to seriously flawed reasoning, and the lack of citation ensures that his own conclusions are presented as factual evidence. However, its wide range of coverage and accessible tone, combined with its affordability and accessibility ensured that it rapidly became a ‘bible’ for both Kurds and Kurdophiles."
2-Page 136: "For example, Izady claims that less than 60 percent of Kurds are Sunni Moslems, and attempts to diminish the role of Islam in Kurdish culture. He also attempts to link the several heterodox sects in a way that make them simply remnants of an original Kurdish religion, a religion that he implies is more ‘natural’ for Kurds than Islam.64 It is probably only in the former Soviet republics with a large number of Kurds, such as Georgia and Armenia, that the experience of being Kurdish is inherently bound up with Yezidism.65"
3-Page 134: "Izady has developed a theory of Kurdish language classification, which is markedly different to any other.Curiously, he asserts that this classification is accepted by all educated Kurds, whereas, I have not seen or heard any other reference to Pahlawani, nor heard Kurmanji in general referred to as Badinani.53"
4-Page 132: "As described in chapter 6, more fantastic claims of Kurdish history have recently been advanced. An excellent example of this trend exists in Izady’s recent account, where a speculative account of Kurdish history from 10,000 BC onwards is given as if factual. Except in Izady’s work, narrative usually skips from Xenephon to Marco Polo to the nineteenth century European travellers,40"
5-Page 60: "Thus there is a shift away from the purely philological argument to the territorial argument whereby, as for Izady, any past inhabitant of present day Greater Kurdistan was Kurdish."
6-Page 59: "Even during the classical period, for which there are more sources, Izady continues his flawed axioms. A fundamental problem in Izady’s reasoning is that he confuses the Kurds with Kurdistan."
7-Page 59: "Although Izady’s thesis is so fundamentally flawed, the overall theme is likely to become an inherent part of the Kurdish mythology. Indeed, many articles and works now refer to Izady as an authority on Kurdish history"
8-Page 60: "Citing Izady’s work offers an alternative to charges of orientalism, lends a pseudo-academic tone to writings, and can be used to justify almost any Kurdish nationalist myths."
9-Page 58: "The culmination of attempts to establish an unbroken chain of Kurdish historical presence in Kurdistan, as well as a glorious history is reached in one of the most outstanding, as well as astonishing, attempts to create a complete Kurdish history by using a combination of remembered, recovered, invented and borrowed history,18 that of Mehrdad Izady, a Kurdish scholar from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University"
10-Page 59: "He traces the existence of Kurdish culture back more than 50,000 years, to include the Neanderthal findings in the Shanidar caves.20 His thesis is the astounding claim that, ‘I treat as Kurdish every community that has ever inhabited the territory of Kurdistan and has not acquired a separate identity to this day, or been unequivocally connected with another identifiable nation, the bulk of which is or was living outside the territories of Kurdistan. This is consistent with what is accepted by consensus for the identification of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, and the relationship they have to modern Egyptians and Greeks.’21 Using this thesis, as well as judicious extension of the boundaries of Kurdistan, Kurds can claim credit for the Neolithic revolution;22 the invention of agriculture (prior to Mesopotamia); the domestication of animals; the invention of material technologies, such as pottery, metalwork and textiles; cuneiform writing; urban communities, until Kurdistan was overshadowed by Mesopotamia. According to Izady, although unsourced and elsewhere not mentioned, in the 3rd millennium BC the Qutils established a unified kingdom and were the only Zagros group to conquer part of Mesopotamia, namely Akkadia and Sumer, which they ruled for 170 years.23"
  • Third: Turkey's Alevi Enigma. The article: A Comprehensive Overview- The Debate on the Identity of 'Alevi Kurds', by Paul J. White, published by Brill:
1- Page 22, where it is commented on Izady's attempt to claim that Dailamites are Kurds: "Quite a different view is propounded by the noted Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady , who states that the Dailamite expansion ended in Dailam. Izady, who is otherwise a scholar of considrable merit, is not able to present any proof for this astonishing assertion , or even to cite a similar view by earlier scholars . Izady's view must therefore be considered as so far unproven".

So, I stongly believe that Izady should not be used for topics relating to Kurdish history, or at most, any info coming from him should be qualified and attributed to him as his own opinion--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Mehrdad Izady's Kurds: A Concise Handbook, seems like an WP:RS to me:
  • Published by Routledge, originally in 1992 and republished in 2015 [78]
  • 367 Google scholar cites [79]
  • Reviews of the original 1992 include Journal of Third World Studies [80] There are many good features of this book..., Review of Middle East Studies [81] This is a much needed reference source on the Kurds., and Current History [82]: As a reference work, The Kurds is remarkably complete.
I'm not familiar with V. Strohmeyer or Acta Kurdica, or Maria Theresa O'Shea's book, but some scholars disagreeing with Izady doesn't mean his book not an RS. Levivich harass/hound 20:02, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with the topic or with the book but I found another book in the "Handbook" series (The Chechens by Amjad Jaimoukha) also somewhat problematic in a similar way. I'll try to find some kind of a review confirming this. Alaexis¿question? 20:31, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
More:
  • "The alleged pan-Kurdish proto-religion called “Yazdanism” is a fabrication of contemporary Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady." -- Richard Foltz (2017). The “Original” Kurdish Religion? Kurdish Nationalism and the False Conflation of the Yezidi and Zoroastrian Traditions. Journal of Persianate Studies. Brill. p. 91 (note 3)
- LouisAragon (talk) 21:03, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Paul Joseph White, Joost Jongerden. Turkey’s Alevi Enigma: A Comprehensive Overview. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2003, p. 22;
“The Kurdish nationalist establishment ducks this problem, sometimes because tie ants to rely on Izady as an authority who considers the Zaza and Kizilbas to be Kurds. But this is not good scholarship. Points must be proven; nothing is gained by simply appealing to authority. The Kurdish nationalist establishments claim that the Dailamites were Kurds only makes sense if one either accepts Izady’s manifestly unproven theory about the direction of their migration, simply because it suits the Kurdish nationalist project.“
“Not a single scholar or even nationalist party claims that Daylam is in Kurdistan! (Dailam was on the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea, literally hundreds of kilometres from Kurdistan!)“
Gunter, Michael M. International Journal of Middle East Studies 26, no. 2 (1994): 323-25. [83]:
”One problem with Izady is that he sometimes claims too much for the Kurds. His exaggerated assertion of a "Pontian Kurdish Empire under King Mithridates VI [the Great], ca. 86 B.C." (map, p. 37) that totally encompassed the Black Sea and included practically all of modern Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, as well as parts of present-day Ukraine and Russia, is an example. Although Mithridates may have had some Kurdish ancestry, to refer to him as "the Kurdish Pontian king Mithridates" (p. 38) is bound to strike most historians as iconoclastic, if not simply incorrect.” p, 324
--HistoryofIran (talk) 21:33, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Not reliable by our guidelines. When the complaint is "pseudo academic" from peer scholars its a warning sign there may be fringe content in the book mixed in with good content (sch as the "the Kurdish Pontian king Mithridates" example in the above comment). Spudlace (talk) 07:52, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Not reliable I used to think he was, but I clearly didn't do my research. Neanderthal Kurds? That's about as fringe as you can get. Doug Weller talk 13:25, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Not reliable per Doug Weller. In any case, if there were a Kurdish Neanderthal culture whose features continued on in some fashion to a later human culture in Kurdistan, it could not have been reliably posited in 1992; the research on Interbreeding between archaic and modern_humans emerged in the 21st century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:39, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Islamic Republic News Agency

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Islamic Republic News Agency
 –  Newslinger talk 23:53, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Is Islamic Republic News Agency considered an RS for non-political articles? ~ HAL333 21:30, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

  • Likely to be similar to the China Daily discussion up-thread. If state-owned media (which IRNA is) has a history of pushing contentious, propagandastic claims then it should probably only be used for "banal" claims, when a better source has no access or coverage of it. I would favor using IRNA or China Daily to support claims about noncontentious claims relevant to their respective localities — "non-political articles" included. As we saw with China's state-owned media, never using it for such can be destructive to parts of the encyclopedia, with the example of articles about train stations in China being stripped of all sourcing. I wouldn't favor using them as a source about Israel or Taiwan, respectively, and snooping around the IRNA website's archives tells me they speak a lot about foreign policy and the affairs of other countries. I spot coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and of banal topics like movies too, though. It may be helpful in documenting the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran in some instances (eg, "According to the Iranian state-owned IRNA, X cases were reported in Y town and Z city") or about cultural topics. Even there though, the stipulation about contentious claims applies. If they post some conspiratorial nonsense about COVID-19 (which propaganda arms of the Iranian state have been no stranger to), that would not be a banal claim; It could be used as a source for "Iran is spreading COVID-19 misinformation, here's how". Ultimately, we know they aren't a reliable source in a general sense, but should also recognize they may be the only accessible source for certain mundane claims. This would apply to any state media who engage in both. --Chillabit (talk) 01:19, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Among state media sources in countries with low press freedom that have been discussed on this noticeboard, two types of sources have consistently been classified a certain way:
    1. Major state-run news agencies, such as TASS (RSP entry) and Xinhua News Agency (RSP entry), tend to be considered situational sources – highly weighted when the country's perspective is needed, but always requiring in-text attribution. These news agencies can be relied upon to accurately reflect the positions of their respective governments.
    2. Sources identified as propaganda outlets that publish false or fabricated information (particularly ones that primarily or exclusively target foreign audiences), such as China Global Television Network (RSP entry), Global Times (RSP entry), HispanTV (RSP entry), RT (Russia Today) (RSP entry), and Sputnik (RSP entry), tend to be deprecated or designated as generally unreliable.
As the official news agency of the Iranian government, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) appears to be firmly in the first category. — Newslinger talk 09:13, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

This comes up so often that we might consider adding it to the WP:RS policy. "These news agencies can be relied upon to accurately reflect the positions of their respective governments." Spudlace (talk) 08:03, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. It's also a factor in the China Daily discussion on this page currently so wording it to include state-run/state-controlled media as well as just news agencies might be worthwhile too. Thryduulf (talk) 16:42, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Turkish war of independence: are scholarly sources just propaganda?

Many reliable sources say that the aim of the Turkish national movement was to achieve "undisputed Turkish rule in Asia Minor" (in the words of Hans-Lukas Kieser) and their means was both military campaigns and killing/removal of civilian populations (variously described in scholarly sources as expulsion, deportation, ethnic cleansing, and/or genocide). Gökhan states that the following are "biased or opinionated sources" and my edit based on them is "almost entirely devoted to propaganda"[84]:

There are plenty of other sources that say the same thing:

  • Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2018). Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide. Princeton University Press. pp. 319–320. ISBN 978-1-4008-8963-1. Thus, from spring 1919, Kemal Pasha resumed, with ex- CUP forces, domestic war against Greek and Armenian rivals. These were partly backed by victors of World War I who had, however, abstained from occupying Asia Minor. The war for Asia Minor— in national diction, again a war of salvation and independence, thus in- line with what had begun in 1913— accomplished Talaat's demographic Turkification beginning on the eve of World War I. Resuming Talaat's Pontus policy of 1916– 17, this again involved collective physical annihilation, this time of the Rûm of Pontus at the Black Sea. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lay-url= ignored (help)
  • Levene, Mark (2020). "Through a Glass Darkly: The Resurrection of Religious Fanaticism as First Cause of Ottoman Catastrophe: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (4): 553–560. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1735560. Ittihadist violence was as near as near could be optimal against the Armenians (and Syriacs) and in the final Kemalist phase was quantitively entirely the greater in an increasingly asymmetric conflict where, for instance, Kemal could deport "enemies" into a deep interior in a way that his adversaries could not..., it was the hard men, self-styled saviours of the Ottoman-Turkish state, and – culminating in Kemal – unapologetic génocidaires, who were able to wrest its absolute control.
  • Levon Marashlian, "Finishing the Genocide: Cleansing Turkey of Armenian Survivors, 1920-1923," in Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, ed. Richard Hovannisian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), pp. 113-45: "Between 1920 and 1923, as Turkish and Western diplomats were negotiating the fate of the Armenian Question at peace conferences in London, Paris, and Lausanne, thousands of Armenians of the Ottoman Empire who had survived the massacres and deportations of World War I continued to face massacres, deportations, and persecutions across the length and breadth of Anatolia. Events on the ground, diplomatic correspondence, and news reports confirmed that it was the policy of the Turkish Nationalists in Angora, who eventually founded the Republic of Turkey, to eradicate the remnants of the empire's Armenian population and finalize the expropriation of their public and private properties."
  • Shirinian, George N. (2017). Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923. Berghahn Books. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-78533-433-7. The argument that there was a mutually signed agreement for the population exchange ignores the fact that the Ankara government had already declared its intention that no Greek should remain on Turkish soil before the exchange was even discussed. The final killing and expulsion of the Greek population of the Ottoman Empire in 1920–24 was part of a series of hostile actions that began even before Turkey's entry into World War I.
  • Adalian, Rouben Paul (1999). "Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal". In Charny, Israel W. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Genocide: A-H. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-928-1. Mustafa Kemal completed what Talaat and Enver had started in 1915, the eradication of the Armenian population of Anatolia and the termination of Armenian political aspirations in the Caucasus. With the expulsion of the Greeks, the Turkification and Islamification of Asia Minor was nearly complete.
  • Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-91645-6. The Greek seizure of Smyrna and the repeated pushes inland— almost to the outskirts of Ankara, the Nationalist capital—coupled with the largely imagined threat of a Pontine breakaway, triggered a widespread, systematic four- year campaign of ethnic cleansing in which hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Greeks were massacred and more than a million deported to Greece... throughout 1914–1924, the overarching aim was to achieve a Turkey free of Greeks.
  • Meichanetsidis, Vasileios Th. (2015). "The Genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, 1913–1923: A Comprehensive Overview". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 104–173. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.06. The genocide was committed by two subsequent and chronologically, ideologically, and organically interrelated and interconnected dictatorial and chauvinist regimes: (1) the regime of the CUP, under the notorious triumvirate of the three pashas (Üç Paşalar), Talât, Enver, and Cemal, and (2) the rebel government at Samsun and Ankara, under the authority of the Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi) and Kemal. Although the process had begun before the Balkan Wars, the final and most decisive period started immediately after WWI and ended with the almost total destruction of the Pontic Greeks ...
  • The Turkish war of independence is also cited as an example of ethnic cleansing in books such as Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe[85] (t · c) buidhe 21:35, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Scholars disagree, how boring would it be if they didn’t? I see bias in some of the sources here but no propaganda, these scholarly opinions carry weight. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:07, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
This isn't an WP:RS question. The weight we give to any opinions in articles would be based on secondary sources (which sift through this stuff). This doesn't mean the sources are non-reliable for their own opinions. Spudlace (talk) 07:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Primary source would be a first hand account of atrocities or original document. These *are* secondary sources. (t · c) buidhe 02:33, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

DUK News as source for wedding on Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds MP)

Could someone take a look at recent edits to Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds MP) where his marriage has been included adding "Clifton-Brown remarried his second wife, Erlich (born 1960) in 2021" with this edit, after my previous revert of uncited claim. I am unable to find any reference to this in any source I have heard of. The editor adding this has now added a citation to EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Viscount Chelsea’s property heiress daughter becomes engaged on DUK News and given their username as the author.— Rod talk 11:38, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

If no decent RS has reported this I would question it. Even his own website seems to contain no mention [[86]].Slatersteven (talk) 11:52, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
According to their About page this DUK site just copies articles from other news sites, with no editorial oversight. This particular one comes from the Daily Mail [87], which is itself deprecated as a source. the wub "?!" 13:32, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
I found only two other instances of this site being used as a source on en.wikipedia, both copying a Daily Mail article, and both are now replaced with a better source. the wub "?!" 17:43, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
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