Talk:ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy/Archive 5

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LINKVIO

Somehow our previous discussion entitled "COPYVIO" got moved to Archive 3. That said, take a look at this, and my comment above that and her original comment. Generally speaking, I believe her comments give weight to what I have been saying that the MMfA ref as used here may violate WP:LINKVIO. And the additional sources she provides are likely useful as well. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 16:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The prior discussion was moved by P&W into the archive, probably because he sensed the page was getting really long. I took a look at Moonriddengirl's comments (good find) but got the opposite impression; she said that if an MMfA link makes a good stab at fair use, it's probably not a problem. --AzureCitizen (talk) 17:05, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Right, but if it does not, then it's a problem. "If they are not making a good stab at fair use, as I said above, that's a different matter." Given what I listed there, you can tell I do not see any good stab.

And her latest comment supports me even more. Read it carefully as for the first time I think I'm getting the upper hand on this LINKVIO issue, what with that editor being who she says she is.

Listen, I'm not being anti-MMfA here. I am simply making observations about MMfA's use of copyrighted material, and if the same situation applied to any other organization, I would say exactly the same thing. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 18:54, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

No, you're not being anti-MMfA here, and I echo the sentiment on applying the same situation to any other organization - if MMfA was a staunchly conservative organization dedicated to "exposing liberal media bias", I would still be of the opinion that excerpted video clips for criticism purposes is a strong fair use rationale under 17 USC 107. In order for a critic to convey criticism about a specific point or contention, it's best to present the target in the target's own words.

Today, I carefully looked at the links you supplied and looked closely at Moonriddengirl's responses. At first read, I definitely thought it added more support to your position, but by the third read, that opinion began to decline, and by the time of this writing, I've convinced myself it doesn't change anything with regard to the basic tenets we disagree on. All too typical of the subjective point of view and the fact that I think I'm right, yes? LOL. I think that when she said she understood the extent of your concern, she was conceding certain points to acknowledge the fair uses issues must be weighed, and it's good that she posed the question as to what the purpose of the link is for: to support the information at issue, or to discuss the critical commentary? But I think that still goes to the issue that we can't just take an organizations word for it, that we have to look at the fair use rationale, make an inquiry into it to test its reasonableness, avoid willful blindness, ask ourselves if we have reason to know it's actually being infringed against the original copyright holder, etc. The concern is that we could be "piggybacking on them as a convenience to access material they may not be legally displaying," but if they are displaying the material legally, this is not a problem. By the way, I see that she also suggested WT:C and WT:CP, so eventually we might want to avail ourselves of those resources as well after the posting at MCQ garnered little to no attention.

By the way, I noticed in that thread you made reference again to the human cannonball act, after she remarked "[A] snippet of a news broadcast with accompanying critical commentary should be safe." You countered "No. The real answer is, it depends. It depends on a number of factors best determined by legal experts. Like the news broadcast that showed 8 seconds of a human cannonball's act. That was found to be infringement." I think we need to examine that a little more closely. She was talking about a party (such as MMfA) hosting a brief news snippet from another party (such as Fox), wherein the first party is exhibiting the copyrighted material of the second party and using a fair use/criticism rationale in the process. In Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., the case also involved a "snippet" on a "newsbroadcast"... but at that point, these scenarios have little else in common. The defendant TV station didn't assert fair use grounds for criticism purposes, but tried to claim First Amendment freedom of speech rights on the grounds that they were simply showing a matter of legitimate public interest in their nightly newscast. The brief film segment (which was actually 15 seconds long) was not an excerpt, but instead showed the performer's act in it's entirety, thus depriving the performer of his rights of publicity and his opportunity to commercially profit from charging crowds to see his act. By showing the entire stunt to a large television home audience, they deprived him of many potential future "customers" - they had already seen the entire thing at that point. Our MMfA/Fox scenarios contemplate something entirely different. So I would have to say that I am in agreement with Moonriddengirl's point that a small excerpt of a news broadcast with accompanying critical commentary should be safe, especially when it's not being used for commercial purposes (in terms of commerce and the accepted meaning of that word). --AzureCitizen (talk) 16:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Linkvio is about blatant copyright abuse. It's not up to us to conduct fair use analysis of news sites across the globe. It's routine for news sites to rebroadcast entire video segments in order to comment on them. It's pretty far-fetched that anyone would have a problem with Wikipedia linking to a major news organization. If the copyright holder has an issue with that they can complain to MMfA. We can't reasonably allow fear of copyright to restrict the scope of our coverage of the world, that would be a classic chilling effect. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi all,

LAEC, with all due respect (and considering recent heat, i really hope you dont take this the wrong way), when we were discussing Grennel above, you had stated that you found the exclusion of newsworthy information to be a problem indicative of bias in the media. I am curious then why you would be so very certain that we should remove the link to a very compelling interview about a mile-stone in the article's topic (the release of the Philly video to the National Press Club.) Is it simply a copyright issue? Wouldnt that then disqualify all of the citable sources on this site? Best, and no harm intended. Ceemow.Ceemow (talk) 23:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No harm. Your questions are legitimate, and even compelling.

In this case, in the context as used in this article, the MMfA ref adds essentially nothing. Literally, there are more words in the title of the MMfA ref than there are words in the text being used as a RS. The MMfA ref being used as a RS says, and I will quote it in its entirety, "From the October 21 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren." That is not newsworthy. It doesn't even have an author, not even the usual initials of the author. It is not a RS per WP:RS. That is why I am "so very certain that we should remove the link to a very compelling interview about a mile-stone in the article's topic (the release of the Philly video to the National Press Club.)"

But not quite. Your statement puts words in my mouth. Allow me to rephrase, putting my true message in italics. I am "so very certain that we should remove the link to a very compelling interview about a mile-stone in the article's topic (the release of the Philly video to the National Press Club) because the reference fails WP:RS (and possibly WP:LINKVIO or WP:UNDUE). Let's find a reference that does not fail WP:RS or other Wiki policy."

Do you finally see what I am getting at? Frankly, I'm shocked you guys are defending such a shoddy source, in this particular case. I'm not condemning MMfA, it's just that this particular MMfA ref as used here in the context it is used is not a RS as required by WP:RS, etc. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 03:21, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikidemon and I were specifically speaking only to the LINKVIO issue, which is worth resolving since there are so many other MMfA references throughout the encyclopedia. I still wish we could put that to rest... :) --AzureCitizen (talk) 03:46, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree. I was merely responding to Ceemow and indirectly to Wikidemon.

Be that as it may, I said this before to AzureCitizen, but I'll say it again to everyone here, it really is a pleasure having polite discussion even though we obviously disagree at this point. I'm sure we have all experienced the nasties. What a difference simple courtesy can make. Thank you, sincerely. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 04:44, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi LEAC, Thank you for taking the time to be to share that. It really is refreshing to share a courteous moment on a topic such as this one, which can be quite agitating for all editors concerned , yours truly included. I truly do appreciate that, and i am sure the other people on here do as well. That being said, i respectfully beg to differ on the point about the MMfA reference. The commentary by Leonning and Van Susteren is significant in terms of the build up to this video release, which as you may remember, was one preluded with a fair degree of contentious back-and-forth. The statements by Leonning and Van Susteren are representative of the response by most RSs attending the NPC meeting. Its this commentary that is being cited. And again, it does mark a mile-stone in this saga. But that's just my take on it. Ceemow (talk) 04:57, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree, you just need a better ref, specifically one that does not violate WP:RS, like perhaps the same video clip from the actual source of the clip. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 05:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

My personal opinion (which not everyone shares) is that going to the original source of a video or editorial satisfies WP:V but not WP:WEIGHT, because when we're dealing with the original opinion piece it's only us Wikipedia editors who decide whether that's noteworthy enough to cover. Person A commenting about situation B is a secondary source about B if we treat person A as a reliable source. If person A is not a reliable source, and we're just using the citation to verify that person A said that, that's primary sourcing. Anyway, if we go to the original clip we don't have any sources to show that the clip is worth including. If everyone agrees that's fine, but if some editors say it should be in the article and others disagree, the source itself doesn't resolve things. Saying that the clip was picked up in MMfA doesn't help with weight because MMfA is a partisan source. We would need a neutral reliable source, say CNN or WSJ or something like that, to cover the clip. I hope that makes some sense. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:20, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

In case that's not clear enough, suppose the mayor of your town says "I think ACORN is a communist enterprise" and someone has a video of that and uploads it to Youtube, we can take that source video to verify that the mayor said that. But who cares? If an unreliable source like, say, Howard Stern, plays the video clip, it doesn't help us establish anything. But if CNN plays the clip in the context of a story describing the mayor's relationship with the issue, that helps satisfy the weight concern. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:27, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree. A "neutral reliable source" is the way to go. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 06:34, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Back to investigation by California attorney general

Aside from the epic debate as whether to include Jerry Brown's political affiliation and current campaign, have we looked at the summary of his findings?

The table of contents goes:

• Origin and Scope of the Attorney General’s Investigation

• Summary of Investigative Findings and Conclusions

• A Brief History of ACORN

• Publication of the O’Keefe and Giles Recordings and its Aftermath

• The Covert Recordings Made By O’Keefe and Giles at ACORN’s Offices

• Disposal of Documents at the San Diego ACORN Office

• Allegations of ACORN Voter Registration Fraud

• ACORN Compliance and Governance and California Funds

• A. ACORN Was Delinquent in its Corporate Filings and Tax Reporting

• B. ACORN Failed to Properly Account for Charitable Assets

• C. Diversion of Charitable Funds for Prohibited Purposes

• Conclusion

The current contents are:

• Tapes severely edited.

• O'Keefe was well dressed (not like that one time in DC where he blended in perfectly as a 1970s Superfly pimp).

• They're not journalists.

• O'Keefe wanted to damage ACORN.

• Heavily edited, again.

• Only recorded low level employees that desperately want to help needy people.

• The duo lied seeking compassion from ACORN employees

• San Diego guy baited them so he can narc them out later.

• ACORN is not a criminal enterprise.

• No evidence ACORN employees would've followed through with illegal stuff discussed.

• "Terrible judgment and highly inappropriate behavior" by few employees but no laws broken, again.

• "Partisan zealots" deceived you with highly selective editing, again (and whoa on the zealotry, talk about animosity).

Yeah, who thinks we missed some stuff and dived into the deep end of undue POV? †TE†Talk 21:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it proves that the Attorney General's office has paid editors and we don't?  :) I've edited out one of the two "heavily edited" references and moved the superfly pimp stuff to a less conspicuous location. It's probably not important enough to be there at all, but it does make for interesting reading. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:23, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it's a start. Just going though it briefly here's a couple points we might consider:

• The San Diego ACORN office most likely violated state civil laws designed to protect personal information, when it disposed of documents with confidential information about its employees, members, and individuals in the community it served.
• The recordings establish ACORN employees across the country were willing to discuss with O’Keefe and Giles their plan to conduct a prostitution business, and a few even made suggestions for disguising profits and avoiding detection by law enforcement agencies. The most offensive conversations occurred outside California.
• Although ACORN’s successor organization in California, ACCE, emphasizes that it is no longer part of ACORN, it is run by the same people, raising concerns about its ability to cure the defects in the organization.

... and so forth. I'd say it's a good time to figure out how dominant we want this investigation to be. The re-branding from ACORN to the ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment) would be one priority. What say you? †TE†Talk 23:39, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Opening Points Regarding the General Assumptions of this Page.

I'd like to start reviewing this page with anyone who would like to work together on this. One of the tricky issues regarding anything having to do with O'Keefe is that he's some sort of combination of a journalist, an entertainer, and an activist. This partly makes it difficult because even to this day, a lot of mainstream news outlets still aren't sure how to deal with him, and those are the outlets where wikipedia information comes from. However, even very liberal publications such as the NYT and the WaPo, as well as the Columbia Journalism Review have, eventually, come to acknowledge the considerable journalistic value of the ACORN videos, even though O’Keefe certainly wasn’t following the rules by which normal journalists must abide.

As of now, it seems that most if not all of O’Keefe’s opponents’ arguments against the legitimacy of the ACORN investigation point to Jerry Brown’s report. Jerry Brown’s report called the tapes “severely edited,” and I believe he himself has called them “misleadingly edited,” which is what ACORN spokespeople, officials, and supporters have claimed all along. We need to look closely at whether this declaration is really a sufficient basis to treat the ACORN investigation as wholly discredited, as many would like to believe and as I think the Wikipedia articles on the story seem to imply. After all, is Jerry Brown really a WP:RS? Certainly his investigation is part of the story and needs to be mentioned but we need to look at whether that should be the basis of the perspective with which articles on the ACORN matter are written.

Also, critics point to the fact that ACORN workers in the videos were “cleared of criminal wrongdoing” by a Brooklyn DA’s office as well as Jerry Brown’s office. I don’t know enough about the law to even know what rules there would be for prosecuting things captured on hidden camera (which I doubt would be admissible anyway). I also doubt you can prosecute people for criminal activity that was discussed but not actually perpetrated. Especially in light of what the NYT, WaPo, and CJR have had to say as noted above, I don’t think the notion that the ACORN videos must have been a fraudulent hoax because there weren’t any criminal prosecutions holds much water.

From this point, I hope to now get into the specifics in what is hopefully an itemized and organized fashion. I hope anyone with input will contribute their thoughts. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 04:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

"After all, is Jerry Brown really a WP:RS? Certainly his investigation is part of the story..."

Are you referring to the investigation requested by the Governor of California and performed by the Attorney Generals Office of California, and their more than two dozen investigators, analysts, attorneys and specialists as described in their actual reports; or were you referring to the personal opinions of Mr. Brown? As the AG, Brown is the de facto public face of the office, and as such his name will be on the reports and his summaries of it will be publicized; but the above commentary implies that Brown personally, with a pencil, the back of an envelope and a video player in a dark room, conducted "his" investigation and then held a press conference. Xenophrenic (talk) 17:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Well I don't think that's what I implied. We'll get to whether Jerry Brown is a RS later on. We will also note where he is in conflict with established RS's. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 19:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe

We'll put "selectively edited" on hold.

Hannah Giles (born 15 March 1989) is an American employee of BigGovernment.com and Townhall.com[17][18] who came to national attention in the United States in September 2009 with James O'Keefe when she portrayed a prostitute in the ACORN undercover video controversy.

I don’t know whether or not Giles gets paid by Big Government or Townhall, but I do know that having profiles on their websites does not mean that she is “employed” by either. Big Government only pays their editors, none of their contributors, and she is not one of them, and the same is true for at least most of Townhall editors. I don’t know whether this sentence is true, but if we don’t have a legit source, we probably have to take it down.

Giles was an undergraduate studying journalism at Florida International University until she dropped out to "pursue demands to keep up with public appearances and job offers."[19] Giles and O'Keefe first met when she called him to discuss her idea and together spent only $1,300 on what a Washington Post reporter called a "Mission to Fell ACORN."[20] During an interview with Sean Hannity of FoxNews, Giles said she conceived of her idea during a summer jog.[21] Giles was lauded by conservative commentators for what they characterized as a series of investigative encounters with staff at the prominent community organization.[22]

No real problems.

Giles was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed by ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera for illegally taping a confidential conversation between them.[23] Juan Carlos Vera was fired by ACORN based on the confidential conversation despite immediately contacting the police about the suspicious couple.[24] Giles was seen on Fox News misinterpreting quotes from Vera who was cleared of any wrongdoing in the report from the Attorney General's office.[25][26]

Is the fact that she was named in this lawsuit something that needs to be mentioned in the bio? That seems like something that should be mentioned in the segment on Juan Carlos Vera and the San Diego portion of this wiki page. She’s not really known for being named in a lawsuit. On top of that, why is Rachel Maddow cited...

Main article: James O'Keefe

James E. O'Keefe III (born June 28, 1984) is an American activist-filmmaker[27][28] who came to national attention in the United States in September 2009 with the release of his ACORN undercover videos. O'Keefe describes himself as an "investigative journalist without formal training" who follows Saul Alinsky's rule of making "the enemy live up to its own book of rules." He was once employed by Morton Blackwell at the Leadership Institute.[29] O'Keefe describes his politics as "progressive radical."[30] He has expressed admiration for the philosophies of British writer G.K. Chesterton and Soviet novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.[31]

No real problems. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 03:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I de-wikilinked "investigative journalist" from the O'Keefe quote, per WP:MOSQUOTE, which advises us to, "avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader." Also, that quote doesn't appear in the cited source following it, so I tagged it as citation-needed. A suitable source might be found on his BLP article page, so I've left the content intact for now. Xenophrenic (talk) 15:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I followed AC's lead and went ahead and made those changes. I removed the lawsuit bit, but I'm leaving a REMINDER right here to come back and cover the lawsuit in the section on the JCV part. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 03:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Just popped back on and saw the changes, seems fine by me. What is the "JCV" part? AzureCitizen (talk) 04:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Juan Carlos Vera (JCV) SpecialKCL66 (talk) 04:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The Lede

Let's take a look at the first paragraph from the lede. It's pretty good, but there are a couple things I'd like to tackle. I'll paste the first part here for quick reference:

The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe published selectively edited hidden camera recordings in which Giles posed as a prostitute and O'Keefe claimed to be her boyfriend in order to elicit damaging responses from employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).[1]

The first issue is that I think it's important to point out that O'Keefe and Giles did not break the story by publishing "selectively edited hidden camera videos" online. The ACORN story broke on Fox News. Glenn Beck hyped it on the first day of the video rollout by playing some of the audio on his radio show, then later broke the story (wide open) on his Fox News show that evening. Over the next several days, other shows on Fox also reported on the story and replayed the videos. From the beginning, Fox was making the decisions regarding how those videos were edited before publication on Fox News. Fox even released some of the full, unedited videos on foxnews.com, though not all. The videos were released first on Fox News, then shortly after, the versions of the video edited by O’Keefe (which included music done by a friend of his - Anthony Dini - and a music video done by Christian Hartsock) were posted on BigGovernment.com, along with full, unedited audio and full, unedited transcripts.

This is a very important point, especially because of the persistent accusations of “misleadingly edited” etc. I think we should note this point in the opening sentence.

How about:

The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when Fox News published selectively edited hidden camera recordings made by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, in which Giles posed as a prostitute and O'Keefe as her boyfriend in order to elicit damaging responses from employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).<<reference>>

I'm leaving in the words "selectively edited" for now. We'll deal with that later. Thoughts? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 04:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there any sourcing that Fox or anyone from Fox took part in the editing of the videos? I think we would have heard about it. Anyway, I think your wording is an improvement in a number of ways as long as "selectively edited" stays in, and with a few caveats and suggestions. First, I think a lede should usually start X is Y. So, the A29UVC is a scandal that began in September 2009.... [if scandal isn't quite it, then what is it exactly?]. Second, the wording implies that Fox selectively edited it (see above) - we should be clear on who edited the tapes if known. Finally, I'm a little uncomfortable with "conservative activists" because it implies without explicitly stating that the tapes were made and selectively edited as part of their conservative activism. I can't quite put my finger on that. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Well that's just how news channels work and really goes without saying. Fox producers make all the editing decisions that go into how they present the stories and video that goes on the air. Who else would? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 05:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'm a little confused. It's my understanding that the videos were first published on the BigGovernment.com website, carefully rolled out in a controlled fashion by Breitbart and O'Keefe, with the Baltimore video on September 10th, the D.C. video on the 11th, NY on the 14th, San Bernardino on the 15th, and San Diego on the 17th. Fox News was given exclusive access to Giles and O'Keefe to interview them about the videos and air excerpts on the same days they were released, but the original release of the videos happened on Breitbart's website first, in "edited" fashion. Am I wrong? --AzureCitizen (talk) 05:28, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, let me clarify a bit. Beck kind of "previewed" the ACORN video on Sept. 9, 2009, then did a full fledged episode on the matter the next day. BigGovernment was launched the evening of Sept 9, and the ACORN story debuted the next day. Beck didn't simply pick up the videos off the internet. Breitbart went to Beck and layed out the whole thing with full, unedited tapes, including his rollout strategy, well before they debuted it. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 06:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Check this out. That's from Sept. 10 2009, the first full debut of the first video, from Baltimore. It's a set of 5 videos, so select the 4th video of 5 ("# .4" on the right). At around 5:30, they bring on Judge Andrew Napolitano, who confirms that Fox News had the full unedited video at least a day before any video was posted on Big Government.

Also, just to evidence the "preview" that I was saying took place on September 9, 2009, check these out. In the second link they show some of Beck's preview on video, though they edited it.SpecialKCL66 (talk) 07:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikidemon, did that answer your question and satisfy your request for sourcing? You ask about subtstantiation that "anyone from Fox took part in the editing of the videos." Fox clearly made the editing decisions for all of the video that appeared on Fox. If you're referring to the versions of the video that appeared on Big Government, with the narration, text, and music videos, then O'Keefe was of course responsible for all of that. Also, I suppose we could go with an X is Y, but the title already says that "X" is a controversy. Hmm. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 15:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Undoubtedly, Fox had an important role in helping "break" the story through Glenn Beck's program and dedicating numerous other news segments to the ACORN videos story, and Breitbart arranged for Fox to receive exclusive interviews and he also gave copies of all the unedited video footage to Beck first. Nonetheless, Beck didn't do the original work; Breitbart and O'Keefe spent many weeks going over the footage they had and developing their strategy, what they were going to show, how they were going to present it, etc. They then worked with Beck to tell their version of the story. After Beck showcased their best material, Fox News picked up on those key excerpts and replayed them repeatedly. Even though Beck's program got the goods first before anyone else and aired the story in a preview the day before, O'Keefe's official releases of the videos were on BigGovernment.com. Breitbart and O'Keefe, not Glenn Beck and Fox News, controlled and shaped their version of the story from the beginning, using the specific portions of the video material they wanted to use, so it doesn't seem like we should be putting the emphasis in the lede on Fox News publishing edited videos rather than O'Keefe. AzureCitizen (talk) 15:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The main point here is that Fox News was responsible for making O'Keefe's ACORN investigation the enormous international story that it was, and because Fox News had full access to all of the unedited video tapes, any accusations about "misleadingly edited" etc., must be leveled at Fox News as well. If the videos presented on Fox News were "misleadingly edited" or "selectively edited," then such charges are being made against the entire Fox News editorial staff up and down the line. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 15:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I certainly agree that Fox had a major role in making O'Keefe's ACORN videos the enormous story that it was, but if I understand you correctly, you feel we should therefore add material that says Fox News has been accused of presenting "misleadingly edited" videos as well? That's a bit different from the proposed switcheroo to change the wording to imply it was Fox News that did the editing rather than O'Keefe. AzureCitizen (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

"Undoubtedly, Fox had an important role in helping "break" the story through Glenn Beck's program and dedicating numerous other news segments to the ACORN videos story, and Breitbart arranged for Fox to receive exclusive interviews and he also gave copies of all the unedited video footage to Beck first."

Hi guys. AzureCitizen, can you please direct me to the sources that lead you to conclude that Breitbart (undoubtedly) gave Fox "copies of all the unedited video footage"? The links provided by SpecialKCL66 above do not convey that, and the assertion rather runs contrary to Breitbart's usual MO. Obviously Fox took whatever video Breitbart gave them and did the necessary editing to produce the promo and teaser pieces used on Sept. 9, and the longer coverage pieces used on Sept 10 and after -- but I haven't seen any third party confirmation that any of that video, audio or transcripts made public at that time were unedited and complete. Just claims by Breitbart/O'Keefe/Fox. I'm trying to get up to speed on the sources that inform your current understanding. Xenophrenic (talk) 17:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Xenophrenic. Okay, I must admit, I may have overreached there. I will leave it to SpecialKCL as to whether or not sources indicate that Breitbart gave Beck copies of all the unedited footage, but in any event I still think that it was Beck presenting Breitbart and O'Keefe's excerpted material on Beck's show, not Beck doing his own work and selectively editing against the backdrop of all the unedited footage. Just my opinion... AzureCitizen (talk) 18:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Xeno, welcome, and thanks for joining. Here is the relevant portion of Becks 9/10/2009 show:

Beck: “I sat you down, we were here in New York and I sat you down and I said ‘okay, let me set this up for you’ I want to show you an unedited video tape, and you had the full transcript and everything.”

Napolitano: “We saw the raw tape of Hannah and the young man and the people from ACORN, and I read the transcript of every word recorded.”

I see two commentators on a Fox commentary show discussing some video being shown on Fox. Repeating my comment from above, "but I haven't seen any third party confirmation that any of that video, audio or transcripts made public at that time were unedited and complete." I still have not. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You also ask about evidence that Fox News made public any of the video. Fox News doesn't leave videos on their website this long, but you can see here some evidence that the san bernardino video was posted in full, though you won't be able to view the actual video. Also, the full, unedited audio and transcripts for every investigation were posted on BigGovernment.com within days of the story breaking and can be found here. Check the dates of the postings, if you like.

No, I didn't ask that, but since you brought it up I would like to comment. The (non-reliable) HotAir source, which I recall reviewing quite some time ago, does not convey to me that the videos were posted in full and unedited. In addition, a cursory glance at the supposedly unedited "San Bernardino" audio at the Breitbart link shows less recorded content than the unedited "San Bernardino" videos at the California AG website. Prior to the CA-AG trading immunity for unedited videos (something I doubt they would have deemed necessary if the unedited videos were already plastered across the internet), is there even one third party reliable source that verifies the existence and publication of unedited videos? Xenophrenic (talk) 19:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

By the way, a couple points to note. 1) I'm not suggesting Fox ever published all of the full, unedited videos. Just the one. Maybe another, but I only know that they published the full, unedited San Bernardino video for sure. 2) Jerry Brown would have traded immunity from illegal recording charges for a coke and a smile. He had illegal reporting problems of his own. 3) The reason the audio is not the same length is probably because the audio recordings were recorded separately from the video. I suppose I can check them out to see what makes the video longer. 4) I'm not providing these links as sourcing for the main article. I'm just illustrating the picture. If you choose to believe that Big Government manufactured the dates and whatever else on their blog, you're free to do so. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 04:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Very well then, I found the actual footage. Go here for the full, unedited San Bernardino video, courtesy of Fox News. Notice that google lists the dates all as September 15, 2009. The same 61 minutes of unedited footage that Jerry Brown posted. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 20:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

By "footage that Jerry Brown posted", are you referring to the footage posted by the Attorney Generals Office, or did Brown post some also? The google link is still OR, but it might be informative enough to allow us to progress beyond that sticking-point in our discussions. I'll go review it. Xenophrenic (talk) 22:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC) Okay, I see that the San Bernardino video footage presently on the Fox News website is very similar to the footage presently on the California AG website (broken into 4 segments instead of 3, but otherwise almost identical). Google lists the earliest publication date, when it first indexed those videos, as September 15. However, following those links to the individual videos, it becomes apparent that they were then modified or updated as late as December 22 ... after the unedited versions were released to the California AG office. These video links, and our original research on them, don't help us establish the status of the footage used by Fox News back in September. Xenophrenic (talk) 00:57, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I saw the complete, unedited footage of the San Bernardino sting as soon as they came out. I was following the story extremely closely at the time. Unfortunately Wikipedia does not recognize me as a WP:RS...yet... SpecialKCL66 (talk) 03:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you saw what you were told was complete, unedited footage, but you certainly can not unequivocally state something as highly opinionated and charged as "they were complete and unedited" without meeting the burden of proof. I'm fairly certain that it was not you that recorded the footage we have seen so far, so it is best that we restrict ourselves to sources that meet policy requirements. Xenophrenic (talk) 06:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

"in any event I still think that it was Beck presenting Breitbart and O'Keefe's excerpted material on Beck's show, not Beck doing his own work and selectively editing against the backdrop of all the unedited footage." - Azure Citizen

I don't know what's leading you to that opinion or why you would assume that. I don't think it's very reasonable to simply assume that Fox News let Breitbart do their editing for them even though they had the full, unedited videos to work with. Regardless, Fox News' credibility is still behind what they air on their channel. Also, just compare the excerpts that are shown on Beck's program to what is shown on BigGovernment. On Beck's program, you can see that the raw time stamps are still on the video. On BigG, they are not, so clearly Beck wasn't simply using that version. If you like, here is more footage, this time from one of Fox News' hard news shows, that demontrates Fox News has and is using the raw footage. In this clip, you can see the raw time stamps in footage from both Baltimore and DC. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 18:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the notion that Fox News would simply air misleadingly edited video obtained from Breitbart is absurd. Oh, wait... Xenophrenic (talk) 19:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think those are time stamps, as they don't correspond to minutes or seconds if you glance at your watch while the numbers increment; it appears instead to be a tape counter. However, the presence of the incrementing counter doesn't indicate that this is the original raw footage. If that were true, it would mean that somehow O'Keefe had to have edited and removed the counter from the versions he released on BigGovernment.com. Instead, it seems more likely that O'Keefe's original raw footage had no counter, and the counter was added later by Beck and Fox News, perhaps inadvertently in whatever method they used to play footage on-screen for the home audience. In any event, we should probably try to stay on track in this thread below with regard to the differences of opinion over whether or not O'Keefe "selectively edited" what he published, or potential changes to be proposed to the existing wording of the lede, be they Fox News or otherwise. AzureCitizen (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

AzureCitizen, there are both time stamps and tape counters. It also notes the date, though the year programmed into the camera was wrong. Also, you have it backwards. If you look at the full, unedited video as presented by Jerry Brown’s office, it has the timestamps and tape counter etc., same as what is shown on Fox News. The reason we are talking about all this is that I was challenged on the fact that Fox News possessed the full, unedited tapes and that full, unedited transcripts and audio were posted at BigGovernment.com within days of the story breaking. Once these facts are conceded or recognized, we can move on, but I want to make sure everyone is satisfied with the evidence (at least if they are willing to be satisfied).

I'm still waiting for that reliably sourced evidence. So far, I've seen Beck on Fox claiming some recordings are unedited; O'Keefe on Fox claiming some recordings are unedited. Links to places like HotAir, Youtube and Breitbart's sites that claim ... well, all manner of things. It should also be clarified that "unedited" doesn't just include "without music & subtitles..."; we're talking about whether all footage is included or not. One can truthfully claim "this footage of our conversation with this person is unedited", while completely omitting the fact that it is also not the whole video -- and doesn't include the tail-end footage of the people exclaiming, "Okay, we've played along with you long enough, so you'd better leave now." Xenophrenic (talk) 21:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Just out of curiousity, is that really what you believed happened here - that the unedited videos show people saying "okay, we've played along with you long enough, so you'd better leave now" or anything similar? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Beliefs have nothing to do with this discussion. I know there was about 120 seconds of video that was briefly up on Breitbart's site that showed two individuals asking O'Keefe if they "were being punked?", before asking O'Keefe to leave. Funny how there is no sign of that footage anywhere now. I also think Giles was speaking the truth when she acknowledged in a radio interview that there was a lot of video shot that wasn't used because it didn't provide them with anything useful. Aren't there also some unexplained abrupt endings or missing segments to some footage that was blamed on batteries going dead or something? Then there is the fact that the CA AG Office saw a need to bargain for unedited video, which wouldn't have been necessary if, as you claim, all the unedited video had been made public. No beliefs here; but I do know what I've seen and heard thus far, and I know where certain things fall on the scale of probability. Xenophrenic (talk) 06:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

...Again, no where have I claimed all of it was made public. Just the San Bernardino footage. I'm not aware of this 120 seconds of footage you're talking about, or if I am, I'm not sure to what you're referring. Where did you learn about this? I'm also not sure to which radio interview you're referring. I do know that at one point Tresa Kaelke said something like "if I didn't know better I might think I was being punked," and fox reported that around the time the story broke. So did the Washington Post, I believe. One could argue that was exculpatory, except for the "if I didn't know better" part. People can interpret that investigation as they please. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

"Breitbart and O'Keefe, not Glenn Beck and Fox News, controlled and shaped their version of the story from the beginning, using the specific portions of the video material they wanted to use" - Well I have to disagree with that. Fox News was clearly controlling and shaping the version of the story that was presented on Fox News. Responsibility for any supposedly exculpatory or redeeming excerpts from the full, unedited videos that were left out to make the videos "misleadingly edited" would go to Fox News. It would seem like a huge leap - quite crazy indeed - to suggest otherwise, no? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 15:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Fox has editorial control as to what appears on Fox, but Fox had nothing to do with the edited videos O'Keefe released on BigGovernment.com. Clearly, O'Keefe bears responsibility for exculpatory and redeeming excerpts from the full, unedited videos that he left out in his material there. I will note that we disagree on who controlled and shaped their version of the story from the beginning, no problem there. AzureCitizen (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the position of the Wikipedia page should be that O'Keefe and BigGovernment.com published "misleadingly edited" or "selectively edited" videos, but Fox News, who made the investigation into an international scandal, published "properly edited" videos? Also, no one suggested that Fox had anything to do with the editing of the videos O'Keefe released on BigG. I said the exact opposite. See above.SpecialKCL66 (talk) 16:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm certainly not saying that we should take the position that Fox published "properly edited" videos, I'm just saying that we shouldn't be switching the wording to imply that Fox edited the videos instead of O'Keefe. O'Keefe edited his videos, and a subsequent criminal investigation determined they were selectively edited. We can certainly entertain ideas of editing the lede to bring additional attention to Fox in appropriate ways if you feel that's important, but we shouldn't suppress the fact that O'Keefe personally edited the versions he published and those edits have been scrutinized as misleadingly edited. AzureCitizen (talk) 16:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Then we can't simply suggest, as the lede currently does, that as matter of fact the entire ACORN investigation story is deligitimized by suggesting that the scandal sprung from "selectively edited" videos SpecialKCL66 (talk) 17:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think I understand your interpretation, but I don't come to the same conclusion. It is reliably sourced that O'Keefe selectively edited his videos to present ACORN in the most damaging light possible and omitted anything exculpatory or redeeming and still hasn't released the full unedited video footage to the public. The lede doesn't say that the controversy "sprang from," it says "started in September 2009 when." If you feel that is inaccurate or misleading, you might want to suggest another alternative phrasing for the lede sentence. AzureCitizen (talk) 18:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

See the full, unedited videos from California here. Also note that "the unedited O'Keefe videotapes from California are available on the Attorney General's website at http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/multimedia/index.php. Tapes from other states are available on request." And we'll get to whether Jerry Brown is a RS. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 19:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Good to see that, I will strike that portion. AzureCitizen (talk) 19:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

If all this is about the wording of the first sentence in the article, why not just change "published" to read "publicized through Fox News and BigGovernment.com"? The sentence is already getting a bit long, so it may need to be split into two -- but mentioning Fox & Breitbart's very significant role in the controversy seems warranted. It seems to me a little odd that they aren't at all mentioned in the lede. Xenophrenic (talk) 01:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I think SpecialKCL66 was more interested in making a case that "selectively edited" should be deleted; I'd recommend he/she move directly to that issue (reliability of the sourcing?) and attack the merits head-on so that we can clear that up. However, implementing something like mentioning Fox/BigGovernment and breaking the sentence in half is probably a good long-term idea. I'll formulate it below, incorporating Xeno's concept and SpecialKCL's minor tweak to "O'Keefe claimed," and wait for everyone to comment; changed portions below are in bold. AzureCitizen (talk) 01:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe publicized selectively edited hidden camera recordings through Fox News and BigGovernment.com. In the videos, Giles posed as a prostitute and O'Keefe posed as her boyfriend in order to elicit damaging responses from employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)

Astute as usual, AzureCitizen. The point I'm getting at is that those who want to unequivocally state something as highly opinionated and charged as "selectively edited" have the burden of overcoming the credibility of FoxNews in demonstrative fashion, which stands by the story, in accordance with WP:RS. Otherwise, it must be stated more like "X says this," whereas "Y says this." SpecialKCL66 (talk) 03:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Your proposed wording looks fine, AC. The proposal to remove the reliably sourced qualification of "selectively edited", not so much. Xenophrenic (talk) 06:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, I think the wording change helps. As SpecialKCL didn't oppose it, I'll assume all three of are more or less in agreement on that and implement the edit accordingly. With regard to SpecialKCL's point on a burden to overcome the credibility of FoxNews in demonstrative fashion in accordance with WP:RS, I'm at a loss to understand just exactly what his or her policy based argument is there, perhaps SpecialKCL can clarify and/or expand on it and make it clear to us? AzureCitizen (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't say I don't oppose it. By the way I'm a he. Seems like most people on here are, oddly. One sec. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 16:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and implemented (did it while I was talking on the phone), now I see your post here from mins ago suggesting that you might be opposing it, LOL. Well, you might want to address that instanter then, before returning to what you were saying about overcoming credibility and WP:RS, so that we can get that resolved first... AzureCitizen (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well it's better, but I wouldn't say I'm satisfied. We'll move on to the selectively edited business. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

"The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe publicized selectively edited hidden camera recordings through Fox News and Andrew Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com.[1]"

First problem there is that if you run a search of the document cited - Brown's report - the word "selectively" is not found. "Heavily edited" does appear, however.

We can certainly add more sources if you're concerned; they are numerous. Here's a sample of wording choices: Fox News, "highly edited." CNN, "heavily and selectively edited." AG Press Release, "severely edited," et al. Surely we don't want the lede to say they "publicized severely, heavily, selectively, highly edited hidden camera recordings...", so it seems better to go with a fairly neutral descriptor of "selectively," unless you'd prefer "heavily." What does everyone else think? AzureCitizen (talk) 17:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Fair point that media outlets have characterized Brown's report using different adjectives, but all of them are attributing those quotes to Brown, so I still don't see why we're simply stating it factually rather than attributing those characterizations to Brown's report. You know what I mean? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 20:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I think you're driving at the point that we should include a specific source citation (or citations) for "selectively edited" if it's to remain in the lede. Fair enough, I will go ahead and tag "selectively edited" with a flag to indicate that it's needed, then we can work it out here what we should cite to. Sound good? AzureCitizen (talk) 21:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Second problem is that the only thing Brown's report says about Fox News or what was published on Fox News is: "The day the piece was released, Fox News devoted extensive coverage to the story, including exclusive in-depth interviews with O’Keefe and Giles." Therefore we cannot say Fox News was publicizing "selectively edited" hidden camera recordings even based on Jerry Brown's report. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 17:10, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Fox News frequently reported O'Keefe had premiered his videos on BigGovernment.com, hence we say Fox News publicized his hidden camera recordings. However, my guess is that you want to also address that Fox News ran it's own stories, including noted conservative pundit and political commentator Glenn Beck's preview pieces. The investigation report focused on O'Keefe's videos, but if you consider it salient for the lede, please suggest a way to include them. AzureCitizen (talk) 17:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I figured I might as well lay out all of my issues with the first paragraph all at once. Some we can probably find agreement on fairly quickly, so we can then focus on the others:

The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe publicized selectively edited[citation needed] hidden camera recordings through Fox News and Andrew Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com.[1]

The problem I have here is the “selectively edited” business not being explicitly attributed to Jerry Brown. I imagine we'll have to come back to this one.

In the videos, Giles posed as a prostitute and O'Keefe posed as her boyfriend in order to elicit damaging responses from employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).[1] The videos were recorded over the summer of 2009 while visiting ACORN offices in eight[2] cities and purported to show low-level ACORN employees in several cities providing advice to Giles and O'Keefe on how to avoid taxes and detection by the authorities with regard to their plans to engage in tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution.[3]

No issues here.

After the videos were made public, the U.S. Congress voted to eliminate federal funding to ACORN, although the resolutions were later nullified in a federal court ruling that the measures were an unconstitutional bill of attainder. On August 13, 2010, a federal appeals court upheld the act of Congress that cut off federal funding for ACORN.[4][5][6][7]

This is just a mildly odd division of sentences. See if this doesn’t sound a little better and more logical:

After the videos were made public, the U.S. Congress voted to eliminate federal funding to ACORN. The resolutions were later nullified in a federal court ruling that the measures were an unconstitutional bill of attainder, although on August 13, 2010, a federal appeals court upheld the act of Congress that cut off federal funding for ACORN.[4][5][6][7]

An internal ACORN investigation concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[8][9][10] On March 1, 2010, the district attorney for Brooklyn concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the Brooklyn ACORN office.[11]

A bit of an issue with this last sentence. The headline of the article cited reads “Advice to Fake Pimp Was No Crime, Prosecutor Says.” The first sentence says the acorn employees captured on camera were cleared of wrongdoing. Might something along those lines be more specific? The current wording suggests the entire office was cleared of criminal wrongdoing, perhaps of all sorts. But they were neither accused nor investigated for any other supposed criminal wrongdoing than what appeared on the tape. By comparison Jerry Brown’s investigation seems to have included a few more things. This version would be in line with the first paragraph of the cited article:

On March 1, 2010, the district attorney for Brooklyn concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff captured on hidden camera in the Brooklyn ACORN office.[11]

An investigation report by California Attorney General Jerry Brown released on April 1, 2010, found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "severely edited" and that the evidence "tells a somewhat different story."

I think this is the proper way that the edited characterizations should be handled. The only point I would make here is that technically the report released by Brown’s office didn’t say “severely,” it said “heavily.” It was the press release advertising the report that used the word “severely,” so we should either change the attribution or the word.

The investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[12] As of March 1, 2010, the other ACORN videos have not been released to the public in their full, unedited form, leading to speculation that the videos have been heavily edited to distort what happened during the tapings.[13]

The minor problem with this edit is that we should probably update it since March 1, especially because Jerry Brown made all of the full, unedited videos available to the public, so it’s not true anymore. The much bigger problem with this sentence is that it takes a broad assertion, an opinionated characterization, from Salon. Because the sentence is outdated, we should probably just remove it anyway, but a characterization of that nature probably shouldn’t be sourced to Salon.

In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors, partially due to the video controversy.[14] SpecialKCL66 (talk) 00:19, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I didn't see many problems with the above and didn't think it would be too controversial so I've gone ahead and implemented the edits with some minor tweaks plus citations. If anyone has a lot of heartburn with it, feel free to revert back and discuss here. If you do a before/after comparison to review them, you'll see I changed "captured on hidden camera" to "in the videos", "act of Congress" to "congressional act," and took the citations for "highly edited," "heavily and selectively edited," and "severely edited" and popped them into the place of the "citation needed" placeholder for now so that there is something to support "selectively edited" until we nuance that issue to a better consensus agreement. Also, I'm going to implement a subsection break here on the Talk Page below what I'm typing now, so that we can continue discussions more easily (as this section is getting longer and longer...) AzureCitizen (talk) 01:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot. The quote "tells a somewhat different story" was also from the press release rather than the report. Lemme see if I can come up with a simple fix. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 01:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Good catch, and the references are in place now too... sometimes it's tricky getting the ref formatting right, the name, the slash mark at the end (/), etc. AzureCitizen (talk) 01:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I standardized the content about the various investigations. Date --> Investigator --> Comments --> Conclusion. I noticed of the various attorneys mentioned, only Brown was mentioned by name, so I fixed that. I also noticed that the investigations appear to have the common denominators of: "no criminal guilt found"; "the videos were heavily/selectively/misleadingly/severely edited"; "the employees acted unprofessionally and inappropriately". Given the common results, we might be able to make that paragraph considerably more concise. The specific and different details can be further explained in the body of the article. Xenophrenic (talk) 05:26, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, lemme look at this again. The Harshbarger investigation is completely different though because he was hired by ACORN. Generally I find it's best if I write out proposed changes on the talk pages before making significant changes. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 05:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The Harshbarger investigation is different in that it was commissioned by ACORN, true ... and that should be clear in both the lede as well in its treatment in the body of the article. I don't think the edits I have made are "significant"; I restricted myself mostly to that one paragraph. But if you'd like to halt all edits until discussions are concluded, we can roll the edits back to this edit, just before the "bold" editing began. Discussion doesn't need to come to a halt when the article is edited, but I won't edit war with you. Just want to be clear that we shouldn't have some disputed bold edits remain intact while other bold edits are removed "until we talk more". Xenophrenic (talk) 05:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Which edits did you object to?

Anyway it looks like your proposal is to go from:

An internal ACORN investigation concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[11][12][13] On March 1, 2010, the district attorney for Brooklyn concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[14][15] An investigation report by California Attorney General Jerry Brown released on April 1, 2010, found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited,"[4] and a press release from his office stated that the evidence "tells a somewhat different story."[3] The investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[3][4] In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors, partially due to the video controversy.[16]

to this:

On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[11][12][13][14] On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited"[15] and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[16][17] On April, 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited,"[4] and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[3][4] On June 14, 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.[18][19]

In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors, partially due to the video controversy.[20]

For starters...how is that more concise? It seems like a heck of a lot of weight on these investigations, particularly on "heavily edited," for the lede. Why on earth should half the lede be dedicated to that instead of, say, the content or results of each investigation? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 06:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood my "concise" comment above. I said, "Given the common results, we might be able to make that paragraph considerably more concise." As in, I haven't done it yet, but having reviewed all of those investigations just now in more detail, and seeing several things most of them have in common, we should be able to summarize it even further. As for the weight of "heavily edited", it was definitely under-weighted before, when it was made to appear to be just an opinion of the CA-AG, instead of that of every investigative body to issue a report to date. You don't agree that is one of the key "results of each investigation?"

Well if the goal was to make it more concise later on, lets work on it over here. I'm happy to have a discussion about the "heavily edited" kind of language etc., but I figured we'd come back to it after settling other simpler matters in the rest of the wiki page. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 06:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, do you mind? What's so darn hard about working on this on the talk page instead of incessantly changing it on your own? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 06:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind at all. What would you like to tackle first? (And as a reminder, I didn't change it on my own. I count at least 3 editors changing it over the past couple days...) Xenophrenic (talk) 06:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Since you seem to have a dislike for references, I've returned the article to its last stable state. What is the first item on the agenda? Xenophrenic (talk) 06:49, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Didn't change what on your own? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 06:49, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, there is absolutely no comparison here. The edits you have insisted on trying to make without discussion regard an issue that you know full well is probably the main source of dispute in this wiki page. You just made it pretty clear that your intention by reverting back as far as you did is to hold all other edits hostage unless you get your way on this disputed issue. How is that not edit warring? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 07:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I made my intentions clear above; I confined my edits to just one paragraph. AzureCitizen made what he described as a "bold" edit, and said to revert it if necessary. I made an alternative edit to that paragraph. If you have reasonable concerns about these edits, you should describe them here, instead of revert dozens of non-contested, non-controversial edits along with those with which you take issue. And please, apply your standards evenly: you don't say some contested edits should stay in the article while being discussed, while other contested edits must remain out of the article while being discussed. I have returned the article to the last point prior to any contested edits. Xenophrenic (talk) 07:17, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I will restore all of those previous edits. If you would like to work on this, we can, but if you insist on trying to hold hostage until you get your way all the other work that was being done, little or none of which was particularly controversial and all of which was the product of cooperation on this page, I'm pretty sure that will constitute edit warring. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 07:21, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have a misunderstanding of "edit warring". It has already occurred. Instead of continuing to edit war, perhaps you could address here the issues that concern you. You have seen my content edits, and AzureCitizen's edits. What do you see as the outstanding issues? Xenophrenic (talk) 07:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Well lets try discussing the change you first wanted to make. It would help if you didn't keep changing it before discussing it when you know it's a heavily disputed issue. I will have to go to bed soon, but please do make the case, and I will have a look in the morning. I believe you suggested that your ultimate goal was to make the lede more concise and that the change you had made was some sort of intermediate step, I suppose (correct me if I misunderstood). Perhaps you could outline what you had in mind here. Goodnight. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 07:45, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not the person that has changed it. You and AC have both made bold edits, before I made a single change. I see now that you have reinstated those contested changes yet again. If you would like to discuss your edits in light of the issues raised above, that would be a good start. I'll look forward to seeing your proposed solutions. Until then, Xenophrenic (talk) 07:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

(...and yes, you did misunderstand - I haven't made any intermediate steps.) Xenophrenic (talk) 07:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

(Continued in the next section below regarding second lede paragraph.) Xenophrenic (talk) 23:44, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Hidden camera recordings and video releases

September 2009 Edited videos from the visits to ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino, and San Diego were released between September 10 and September 17, 2009, and were used to launch Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com website.[6][28][29] Unedited transcripts were also released on the site. In the videos, O'Keefe included introductory segments of himself wearing a fur coat, top hat, sunglasses, and wielded a cane in the videos, which caused many viewers, including the media, to perceive that O'Keefe was actually dressed as a pimp when speaking with ACORN personnel.[26] Instead, O'Keefe dressed professionally during his ACORN visits, never turning the camera on himself while inside ACORN offices.[26] Not all the videos show ACORN staff advising the pair and none involved forms for loans or taxes being processed.[30][31][32]

I checked the sources for this last sentence, and I didn’t find anything in any of the three that came close to backing up either statement asserted there.

I don't have time to read through all three right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's true because of the way it's phrased. You can add this tag to end of the references which will prompt others to look at it: Or, if you're absolutely 100% certain the references are inapplicable, just delete and replace them outright with this tag: If someone disagrees, they'll jump in to discuss it. AzureCitizen (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That sentence was originally introduced to the article with this edit. It appears to be original research by an editor who watched the Breitbart videos himself and inserted this true, but undocumented, personal observation. I can find a source for the "no forms were filled out or processed", as I've seen that in the conclusions of investigation reports. I'm not as confident about the "not all videos show staff advising" part. Xenophrenic (talk) 03:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so there was a basis to this statement, but the citations were poorly managed. Do you want to retrieve that cite, and we'll reinsert the sentence? AzureCitizen (talk) 15:10, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Haven't found the one I've seen before, but I dug up this ... but it doesn't cover all videos. Still looking, Xenophrenic (talk) 12:07, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

September video release summary [table]

In the Baltimore office, O'Keefe said that he and Giles were bringing up thirteen girls from El Salvador "like 15" years of age to live in their house and work as prostitutes "just to get them on their feet so they can do this type of thing."[44][45] Giles remarks "They are kind of dependent."[46] Although the Baltimore ACORN staffer pointed out their plans were illegal, after O'Keefe remarks "we are going to be putting a roof over [their] head" the ACORN employee states "well then you know what you can always claim them as dependents".[47] Later, the employee states "you are gonna use three of them they are gonna be under 16 so you is eligible to get child tax credit and additional child tax credit."[45][48] When O'Keefe asks "What if they are going to be making money because they are performing tricks too?" the employee replies, "but if they making money and they are underage, then you shouldn't be letting anybody know anyway."[45][49] The Baltimore employees were fired by ACORN after the video was released.[50][51]

In the Washington DC office, Giles and O'Keefe ask about how to account for the Giles anticipated prostitution income on tax forms, and Giles asks "is there a way I can make up two years of tax returns?" The ACORN employee tells her "No you can't make it up," but tells Giles that she could form a business and state that she provides a service.[52] The employee goes on to say "You can have a business. She's not going to put down that she's doing prostitution,"[53] and "you don't have to sit back and tell people what it is you do."[54][55] Giles later tells an ACORN employee that she will be giving the money earned from prostitution to O'Keefe and an ACORN employee tells them "when the police ask you – you don't know where it's coming from."[55][56]

In the Brooklyn office, Giles and O'Keefe tell a loan counselor they want to buy a house, and that an abusive pimp is "aggressively" pursuing Giles and that she "wanted to leave because it is scary being subjected to a huge man who has control over your life."[57] The ACORN counselor advises her "You get a tin if [he] is going to come beat you... you get a tin and bury it down in there and you put the money right in and you put grass over it and you don't tell a single soul"[58] When discussing getting a house and Giles earnings, O'Keefe says that Giles is very honest and an ACORN counselor replies "Honest is not going to get you the house that is why you probably been denied cause you probably going in saying."[59][60] Another stated to the "prostitute," "You can't say what you do for a living."[60] For tax and banking purposes, and to establish a legitimate income and credit history, Giles was told she needed to start saying she was a "freelancer."[60] The ACORN employee also suggested that Giles open two accounts at separate banks, depositing no more than $500 each a week to ensure few eyebrows are raised.[60]

In the San Bernardino office, ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke stated she believed the actors were joking and made a variety of absurd or joking statements to them.[61][62]

First sentence – we have to rephrase this because Kaelke didn’t state these things “in the san Bernardino office,” as it currently reads. We could go with something like:

In the San Bernardino office, ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke was captured on hidden camera making a number of disturbing claims and comments. She later stated she believed the actors were joking and made a variety of absurd or joking statements to them.[61][62]

I see what you're getting at about how she didn't say those things in the office on the video - she said those things later in her own defense; rather than changing it to read she was "making disturbing claims and comments," however, it would be simpler just to flip some of the existing sentences around so that it leads right. I will do that real quick... have a look... AzureCitizen (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

She said they were "Somewhat entertaining, but they weren't even good actors."[63] Office supervisor Christina Spach said Kaelke "pretended to cooperate with O'Keefe and Giles because she feared for her safety." Kaelke responded to the pair's requests for help setting up a child-prostitution ring on the video by claiming to be an ex-prostitute herself and exclaiming, "Heidi Fleiss is my hero!"[64] but the California Attorney General's investigation of Kaelke determined that "none of her claims" on the video were true, that "she was playing along with what she perceived as a joke," and there was "no evidence she had ever engaged in prostitution."[4]

I just want to say I really wonder how hard he investigated that, lol. Where would you even start…

You could check the report for your answer. Not the 1-page press release; not just the 28-page final report; but check the 55+ pages of attachments as well. Xenophrenic (talk) 03:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Kaelke also told O'Keefe and Giles could classify the underage brothel as a "group home" to avoid detection and suggested the pair "invest in a line of vitamins" to disguise the location's true purpose.[65] According to CNN, the filmmakers released a transcript of their discussion with Kaelke that included a comment left out of the tape they published on Youtube in which Kaelke said that ACORN would have nothing to do with their prostitution business.[66] Kaelke said her supervisor "would shoot this down faster than a bat out of hell" but Kaelke advised the couple to conceal the prostitution business by calling it a massage parlor.[65] Kaelke was fired by ACORN after the videos were released.

There’s a bit of a problem with this bit beginning with “according to CNN” in that I think it would be more appropriate to give Fox News credit for reporting the “bat out of hell comment,” as Glenn Beck included that part of the video when he first aired the San Bernardino tapes on September 15, 2009, just a couple hours after it was posted on BigGovernment.com. The CNN bit cited wasn’t until September 17.

I think the reason why it's phrased/cited that way is because in the second sentence, it's an explicit quote from a CNN reporter who commented, "WIAN: Left out of the originally released tape but included in a transcript the filmmakers later released is Kaelke's statement that ACORN would have nothing to do with their prostitution business," followed by the appropriate CNN cite. Then in the third sentence, the "bat out of hell" statement is sourced to a Fox cite. Make sense now?

A quick side note on cites, Wiki articles aren't prioritized to give "credit" to competing news organizations (just imagine the all new battles that would take place over "cite rights," LOL), but you can certainly add additional citations if you think the existing citation doesn't fully source a statement. AzureCitizen (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

In the San Diego office, edited video showed former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera telling O'Keefe he had "contacts" in "Tijuana" to help get underage girls across the border.[67] However, after the conversation with O'Keefe, Vera reported O'Keefe's fabricated plan for human smuggling to police.[68][69][70] Vera was fired because of what ACORN called "unacceptable conduct," although Vera said he initially wanted to help the fake prostitute because she said that she needed to escape her controlling pimp.[71]

I’ll come back to the Vera part.

ACORN called the videos "false" and "defamatory"[50][51] and a spokesman accused O'Keefe of dubbing the audio on the videos.[72] On September 16, 2009, ACORN suspended advising new clients and began an internal review process, headed by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger of Proskauer Rose, due to "the indefensible action of a handful of [ACORN] employees."[73][74] On September 16, Bertha Lewis, ACORN's CEO, froze admission to all of ACORN's service programs and instituted a review committee to implement organizational reforms.[75][76] On September 23, 2009, ACORN filed suit in a Baltimore court against the filmmakers,[77][78] citing "extreme emotional distress" of the ACORN workers and violation of wiretap laws,[79] but the suit was later withdrawn.[80] Lewis said on Fox News Sunday on September 20 that "In a way, this was good for us, so what it did was show up to us what weaknesses we have, and we have moved swiftly... in order to correct that." She reiterated that she immediately fired all the employees featured in the tapes after seeing them and then began a comprehensive internal investigation.[81]

The only thing I would note here is that I wonder if it’s really “wiretap” laws. AC?

Yeah, it looks like whoever wrote that was trying to summarize under the umbrella concept of wiretapping, while the original AP article explained that ACORN's lawsuit position was that "the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings." I also see that the link for the cite to the AP article isn't working, so it needs to be swapped with a suitable replacement like this: [1]. I'd recommend replacing "...and violation of wiretap laws," with something like "...and violation of state criminal laws regarding two-party recording consent" or something like that if you want to make it more accurate. AzureCitizen (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You could take a look at pages 48-55 of this report where the Congressional Research Service examines and explains in great detail the applicable Federal laws, as well as the laws of each of the states. The strongest laws against such activity are from Maryland and California. The Maryland Wiretap Act (page 53) and the California Penal Code 632 - Confidential Communications (page 54) laws are the applicable state laws. (The CRS concluded O'Keefe and Giles narrowly escaped guilt under the Federal laws, but then the CRS didn't hear O'Keefe admit his intention was to damage ACORN, which makes his acts illegal everywhere, not just in certain states.) Saying "two-party" is misleading, since the laws of both states indicate there is a violation if any single party to the conversation (even if more than 2 are involved) didn't give consent to be recorded. The HuffPo source obviously chose a very generic way to describe the statute. Xenophrenic (talk) 03:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Good job on bringing out the report and the references to the applicable wiretap laws. Should we add that as an additional cite? I would agree that saying "two party consent" can be misleading, but it's actually common parlance and understood to mean that all parties must consent, as opposed to "one party consent" states, hence the HuffPo source wasn't making up something novel so much as just using the commonly accepted way to describe it. I also see that the cite above has been replaced with a better source, a Baltimore news station that references a direct quote from ACORN lawyer Andrew Freeman who refers to Maryland law requirements to have two party consent. AzureCitizen (talk) 15:10, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to hold of on WP:Bold. Time for bed. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 07:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Be careful, Wikipedia can become an addiction, LOL. For my part, I'm about to get a forced break; I may be able to get in an edit or two later this evening, then I'm going to be in a travel status throughout the weekend and into early next week, with an expected return flight on Wednesday. Might pop on if I get access somewhere but not likely, so I'll have to leave it to others to participate here. You can certainly press on with edits if you want - I'd recommend being WP:BOLD with stuff you want to improve that isn't really contentious, while being more reserved with things you suspect will be controversial and provoke outrage here on the talk, LOL. Whenever something is very contentious, it's always best to address it on the talk, propose specific alternate wording, and let it sit for several days to see if anyone stands in opposition so that overlapping reverts don't pop up days later, etc. In any event, enjoy! AzureCitizen (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Second paragraph of lede

Proposal 1:
An internal ACORN investigation concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[11][12][13] On March 1, 2010, the district attorney for Brooklyn concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[14][15] An investigation report by California Attorney General Jerry Brown released on April 1, 2010, found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited,"[4] and a press release from his office stated that the evidence "tells a somewhat different story."[3] The investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[3][4] In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors, partially due to the video controversy.[16]

Proposal 2:
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[11][12][13][14] On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited"[15] and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[16][17] On April, 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited,"[4] and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[3][4] On June 14, 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.[18][19]

In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors, partially due to the video controversy.[20]

I've already expressed my preference for proposal 2, and I assume SpecialKCL66 prefers proposal 1. Let's discuss the merits and faults with each, as well as any proposed changes. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:07, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The significant differences between the two proposals are:

• a) Separated the "ACORN disbanding" sentence from the paragraph describing investigation results. It is not an investigation conclusion, so it stands better on its own.

• b) Added the GAO investigation results to the other result summaries, making the list of investigations more comprehensive. Were there any other investigations that have produced findings thus far?

• c) Standardized the summary sentence of each investigation result. Prior text versions appeared to showboat some investigations over others with the amount of detail; also, similar results (such as noting the videos were edited) were not conveyed in equal fashion (or sometimes not at all).

• d) Brown was the only involved participant named by name in the many investigations described in the lede (and I note he is also presently a political candidate), so his name was removed for standardization. We wouldn't want to be accused of giving him free publicity. Alternatively, we could add all the names (Harshbarger, Hynes, Craft, etc...) to standardize it, but that adds unnecessary detail to the lede section. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems like A through D are clear improvements over the prior version and there have been no objections so I assume this has resolved itself. AzureCitizen (talk) 15:10, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been reviewing the Wikipedia Manual of Style, particularily the section on lede sections, and it is apparent the lede in this article comes up short of meeting our guidelines:

The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject should usually be established in the first few sentences.

After reading the lede, I do not feel it can stand alone as a concise overview. Neither as an overview of the article as it is now written, nor as an overview of what actually transpired. Here's what the present lede tells me:

Two conservative activists went to 8 offices in 8 cities and obtained 8 videos of ACORN employees offering to help them break tax and prostitution laws, and then made the videos public. Congress cut funding to the group -- or maybe they didn't -- or maybe they did again. Then there were a bunch of investigations, and ACORN died broke.

Over the past several days I've been re-reading reports, transcripts and articles; I've watched so much Fox video that I probably now have brain tumors -- and I feel the lede should convey a more accurate summary of events:

Xenophrenic (talk) 23:44, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources

There are several links in the article to YouTube videos, and some of them are actually being used as cited sources for statements of fact. That goes against reliable sources policy and they should be removed or replaced with appropriate links. Linking to videos posted to YouTube by folks like PornHaxxor293 shouldn't be done here, regardless of how legitimate the video may appear. I've only commented out the links at this point in case someone wants to view them in an effort to find replacements, but I intend to delete them soon if there are no reasonable objections. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Policy backs you, so delete them. No point in waiting. Filmfluff (talk) 20:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, good call. I see an Ibid banner has popped up so I will fix that and remove the banner accordingly. AzureCitizen (talk) 15:10, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. I've replaced them with citation-needed tags where necessary. I must say, I'm sorry to see the video of the FOX interview with Giles go, where she describes how she was jogging when she saw an ACORN office and says to herself, "I've never seen them before, I don't like them." WTF? Xenophrenic (talk) 11:47, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I rv the YouTube refs as per Xenophrenic. I have no idea how the YouTube refs got reinserted while I was making completely different edits withg with nothing to do with YouTube, so I went back to Xenophrenic's edit from 11:28, 29 October 2010 (whose summary states "See Talk Page; rem non-reliable source and deadlink YouTube links and citations") and redid my own minor edits from there. Hope everything is OK now. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 13:30, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality disputed tag (reopened May 2011)

It's been 10 weeks since the neutrality disputed tag / RfC issue was discussed here between a slew of editors including Xenophrenic, Phoenix and Winslow, Ceemow, LEAC, Wikidemon, ThinkEnemies, and myself. Most of those conversations are in the archives now. Given that there has been no further discussion, I am going to remove the tag. If anyone feels the need to bring that back up, feel free to revert the tag and pick up where events left off.AzureCitizen (talk) 03:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Any thoughts on my above comment? I forgot to follow through. †TE†Talk 05:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi TE! I think everyone was relieved after that long running thread just kind of ended - I haven't looked at the comments above for months now either. You brought out some of the material in the AG Report that isn't addressed (San Diego's personal information items dumped out, that employees did discuss prostitution and/or made suggestions, that ACORN's CA successor is run by the same people, etc) - obviously, the stuff is fair game, but nobody has been motivated to pursue it and the article seemed to have stabilized after the big proposed RfC event just dematerialized in July. Feel free to pick it back up if you have the energy to do so... I've been focused on other things, but the James O'Keefe article did see some activity recently. --AzureCitizen (talk) 05:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I imagine eventually I'll probably have a few things to say about this page, and there are probably some points I'd like to make. I also imagine it'd take me a while to catch up and figure out where things stand and what issues you've already been through. From what I've read on this talk page, there's a lot of nonsense in there, lol, so it could be tedious. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 06:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I wish there were some way I could do this simultaneously with the O'Keefe page. Most of the remaining problems with the O'Keefe page have to do with the ACORN matter. Are there people who have been following this page that still have matters they want to address as well? SpecialKCL66 (talk) 06:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and reinstated the neutrality tag on this page. I have gone through a significant portion of the archives, but I noticed that it was really all over the place, not to mention fairly old. I'd like to have a much more logical, concise progression through the issues here to sort out all of the problems with this page. It seems as though most of the editorial decisions on this page have been made while taking arguments and evidence in or from the media that are critical of the videos at face value rather than simply presenting the opposing arguments and evidence. Most of my objections will be along those lines. I'm also putting the tag back up because I want to get the attention of people who intend to be fairly consistently and methodically engaged in evaluating the ACORN controversy as well as this page. I want to bring some of those people back into the discussion here. Thanks. SpecialKCL66 (talk) 18:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

SpecialK is suspected of being a sock and has mysteriously disappeared as an editor. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 23:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Reopening an old wound here. The language of the lead sentence is suggestive. The overall article may well be balanced, but the simple fact is O'Keefe produced an "undercover" interview of an organization with political ties. "Heavily edited" and so forth suggests dishonest content vice technical proficiency. The lead needs to be clear and fair. 24.214.238.86 (talk) 15:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

"Heavily edited" doesn't "suggest" dishonest content, it plainly states it. Can you please provide more information as to what you are suggesting? Xenophrenic (talk) 17:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)