Talk:Benjamin Bryant (broadcaster)

For Further Discussion (re: Career Subsections)

I also reviewed past changes and edits and believe I disagree with a change made by a prior editor. Given my inexperience, I don't feel comfortable making any changes without presenting it here for discussion. Also, in recognizing my inexperience, I'm open to changing my mind if I can gain a better understanding of the removal. The "Military and Government" career subsection of this article was removed in a revision and the contents merged with the general career information.

I would like to make the argument from my background as a retired academic/historian that this subsection was both useful and necessary for clarity for readers and researchers. The subject of this article has had three very distinct (unusually so; thus warranting particular care to explain within the article) phases in their career: News and PR as a private citizen (broadcast and print journalist, communications consultant); high-profile public servant for projects with clear notability/likely historical import due for the military and government; and later-in-life creative (primarily film/television). In each of these areas, the subject has done work of notability, as described in the existing article. My concern with the decision to remove the military/government section and combine its contents with the news media and consultant work, is that given the particular notability of the government projects (performed for cabinet secretaries, the Congress of the United States, and the President of the United States) this construction does not best serve Wikipedia users, as any user researching this subject would be unlikely to be looking for his holistic biography but would be looking him up/researching his specific work in one of these three phases of his public-facing life/career, and, to my lights, most likely looking up his government work in the Bush/Obama administrations (as it is the most historic and relevant).

Finally, as a practical matter, collapsing these sections removed the table of contents/finding aid with links to just those sections that are extremely useful for those looking for information. For this reason, I think clarity, navigability, and utility is best served by the sections broken out and organized as they were, but without having that page at my fingertips at this time, may understand that the information within those sections needed to be organized a different way. I'd like to think about this more myself here AND put it out here on the talk page to see if anyone has any thoughts or perspective I may not have thought about. As I said, there may be something I'm not familiar with, so I'd love to be educated as part of this discussion by more experienced editors. Thanks.

OldKentuckyFriend (talk) 21:17, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

(UPDATED 1/21/2022) Completed neutrality review and clean-up on this article / cleared final requests for more info/additional citations / removed flag

1. Objectivity Self-Certification: I do not have a personal connection to the subject, but the work I've done helping to clear flags on my previous two articles (most recently the article for the film this subject directed) meant I'd already completed some common research, and was familiar with the subject. That level of familiarity, coupled with the requisite objectivity, made this an ideal choice for my next review/verification/validation project (something I'm looking to do more of on Wikipedia) and my background as a retired academic, semi-professional historian, and, briefly, freelance journalist (feature writing) give me the necessary tools to do a good job at it. I welcome any and all feedback from more experienced editors.

2. Steps taken:

a. I removed any incidence of repeated information that I couldn't assess as needed for clarity (excepting information presented in the introduction, of course). So if a biographical detail, especially an accomplishment or notable achievement, was already mentioned once, I applied a higher level of scrutiny to any reference to that same detail, accomplishment, or achievement later on. This resulted in several deletions.

b. I deleted additional, elaborative biographical details if they did not directly relate to the core biographical detail or section being discussed and/or whether they were ultimately redundant or unnecessary in nature. This included mostly adjectives or descriptive text that, while accurate/sourced appropriately, served no real purpose within the article. In my preparation for doing this kind of clean-up, I've seen this commonly present when article writers attempt to adapt biographies or source materials from company "about us" pages, newspaper/magazine profiles, or the like. Those writings, by definition, include a lot of descriptive text (arguably puffery, but appropriate to their purpose) and when authors attempt to paraphrase in their Wikipedia articles, they simply come out as too much detail and appear less than neutral, so I deleted small bits here and there to reduce this.

c. I noted all requests made by editors for additional information/verification (including "citation needed" and "when?" notes) and spent between 16 Jan 22 and 21 Jan 22 locating and verifying sources to clear these remaining requests. Finished clearing all remaining requests for additional information and/or citations on 21 Jan 22.

d. Requested feedback/opened additional discussion on talk page on 16 Jan 22, regarding the changes I'd made and to identify any other changes required, should any other editors desire to provide feedback or request additional changes.

e. With all steps complete, and all remaining requested information and citations cleared, and the flag left open along with a request for feedback (if needed) and discussion prompts receiving no response, I finally removed the flag, having completed my neutrality review.

NOTE: I am confident my neutrality review has addressed the core concerns, and that the time I allowed for discussion and feedback (prior to removing the flag) was sufficient. That said, I recognize additional improvements and refinements may be useful to make the article even better. I'll track this page for the next 90 days in case additional feedback or requests for information present.

OldKentuckyFriend (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2022 (UTC) | UPDATED 21:17, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Benjamin Bryant at KJCE in 1996.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:36, 25 May 2019 (UTC)