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RfC: "news coverage" section

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the text in bold be added to the section "Polls and news coverage"?: Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Some supporters raised concerns that publications such as The New York Times minimized coverage of the Sanders campaign in favor of other candidates, especially Trump and Clinton. The Timess ombudsman reviewed her paper's coverage of the Sanders campaign and found that as of September 2015 the Times "hasn't always taken it very seriously. The tone of some stories is regrettably dismissive, even mocking at times. Some of that is focused on the candidate's age, appearance and style, rather than what he has to say." She also found that the Times's coverage of Sanders's campaign was much scanter than its coverage of Trump's, though Trump's was also initially considered a long shot at that time, with 63 articles covering the Trump campaign and 14 covering Sanders's. A December 2015 report found that the three major networks—CBS, NBC, and ABC—had spent 234 minutes reporting on Trump and 10 minutes on Sanders, despite their similar polling results. The report noted that ABC World News Tonight had spent 81 minutes on Trump and less than one minute on Sanders during 2015.

A study of media coverage in the 2016 election concluded that while Sanders received less coverage than his rival Hillary Clinton, the amount of coverage of Sanders during the election was largely consistent with his polling performance, except during 2015 when Sanders received coverage that far exceeded his standing in the polls. Studies concluded that the tone of media coverage of Sanders was more favorable than that of any other candidate, whereas his main opponent in the democratic primary, Hillary Clinton, received the most negative coverage of any candidate. All 2016 candidates received vastly less media coverage than Donald Trump, and the Democratic primary received substantially less coverage than the Republican primary.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! noted that on March 15, Super Tuesday III, the speeches of Trump, Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz were broadcast in full. Sanders was in Phoenix, Arizona, on that date, speaking to a rally larger than any of the others, yet his speech was not mentioned, let alone broadcast. However, political scientist Rachel Bitecofer wrote in her 2018 book about the 2016 election that the Democratic primary was effectively over in terms of delegate count by mid-March 2016, but that the media promoted the narrative that the contest between Sanders and Clinton was "heating up" at that time.

References

Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes. Per NPOV, content should seek to cover "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". It's not NPOV to only have content in the article that supports the pro-Bernie POV that the media is biased against him when RS paint a far more complicated picture. The section used to be balanced until 21 January when the editor Gandydancer removed all the long-standing content that failed to support the pro-Bernie POV.[1] The editor defended this edit by claiming that she was trimming content, but it's obviously not NPOV to remove all content that supports one POV while keeping all the content that supports a different POV. In particular, when the highest quality sources (academic research) are culled, whereas the lowest quality sources and minutiae are kept in the article. If anything, priority should be given to peer-reviewed research and wholistic academic assessments over time-specific commentary by the NY Times ombudsperson and Democracy Now! Whether you agree or disagree with the "media is biased against Sanders" thesis is besides the point. Per NPOV, we are supposed to cover the thesis in a balanced manner. The four sentences above, which are exclusively sourced to peer-reviewed research and academic assessments would add that balance and make the existing text NPOV-compliant. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. There is a striking lack of verifiable facts in politics articles of late, and the proposed additions add what is sorely needed. --WMSR (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• No. Don’t include. Burrobert (talk) 14:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
• Conditional yes If the first paragraph is there, then the bold-face additions need to be there for balance of viewpoints. However, there is an argument for moving all the text shown to Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign with a short summary left behind, since this is a biography, not an analysis of his campaign. HopsonRoad (talk) 14:33, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
• No, the proposed addition doesn’t add any value, and seems a bit incoherent. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:22, 29 January 2020 (UTC). (Continued later said) No - putting a dismissive end to each item is more a POV violation than a good, especially as these seem like improper junk. The prominent DemocracyNow having a count of coverage is not well responded to by a two years later obscure book passage side note that the media was portraying Clinton-Bernie contest as heating up. The NYT omsbudsman conclusions are contradictory to a study remarks. Plus the part about Hillary having the worst coverage of all Candidates doesn’t seem credible - worse than Donald ? The line is dubious who was considered and how they were counting. If you want a response to Bernie supporter concerns, get a response explicitly to them and don’t just tack any old thing there. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• ^This editor has voted twice. The editor is claiming that peer-reviewed research is wrong for no other reason than dislike for the findings, and the closer should judge (i.e. completely dismiss) this editor's two votes accordingly. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 05:50, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• oops, sorry for my confusion in entry ... thanks, I will shift that down to form one bullet. Otherwise I would discourage imputing motives as that doesn’t address the edit or change the material being a poor addition and just looks bad. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:38, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, I'm not sure this is actually a study, in terms of peer-reviewed. It's actually a book. Also, this seems to present the findings of a single work on a complex issue as fact, and I don't think we can do that based upon a single source even were it peer-reviewed. If this information is presented, it should be presented in an "attributed" fashion, and if any reliable sources provided contrary findings, also should include what those say. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:21, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Seraphimblade, Princeton University Press books are absolutely peer-reviewed, so you should strike part of your comment. It's also the second-most esteemed publishing press in political science.[2] If peer-reviewed research in the best outlets is not going to be allowed in the article, do you hold the opinion that the vastly inferior content sourced to the "Tyndall Report", and commentary by the NYT ombudsperson and Democracy Now belongs? How is that in any way defensible? That's why it's such an egregious NPOV violation. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:19, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose It was not my intent to keep only favorable content. A new split article had opened up and we are in a process of trying to cut this article back, especially right now considering that he may be soon getting a lot more media coverage. Keep in mind that we've got one House and two Mayor and Senate's worth of info here. The info from Patterson and Sinks, was, IMO, complicated and hard to understand by presenting just a few lines and would be best presented in the media split. I still feel that way. For example, one of the sources said that while he wasn't getting any media coverage to speak of during his his early campaigning it picked up during the second of three periods (of a certain number of months) and it stressed how important the early media coverage is as compared to the second period of time - I believe the book/article said it is almost impossible to catch up without that early coverage. Snooganssnoogans has added some wording from a book written by Rachel Bitecofer - I haven't looked it up yet but I can't see where it adds much to our understanding of this issue with what I see written here - I'm more just puzzled by it. As for adding the copy about how Sanders' "tone", etc., was reported as more favorable than Clinton's, well that's no surprise. A lot of people just did not like Hillary Clinton starting with when she said she was not going to stay home and bake cookies, etc. And then she was dealing with the Benghazi and email problems as well. So we don't need to cram that info into this short bio, IMO. And finally, there is no need to mention Trump's vastly larger amount of coverage a second time when it's already in the first para. Gandydancer (talk) 02:55, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, why should the text talk about how Sanders received more favorable coverage in a section about purported media bias? Getting the best coverage of any candidate is clearly irrelevant to the subject, whereas random commentary by Democracy Now is perfectly pertinent /s Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:19, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• The proposed edit is talking about Hillary’s coverage being the worst, which yes seems irrelevant when the article is supposed to be about Bernie and the thread was amount of coverage. It’s also not very understandable what was measured nor is it credible compared to Trumps coverage which other studies had at 80 to 90 percent negative yet the Shorenstein cite says Trump got far more “good press” than “bad press”. The comparing of Trump to the entire Democratic field is also not about Bernie and this section thread about whether Hillary got more coverage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:02, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• This^ editor knows better (and has cited nothing in support of anything he's said) than peer-reviewed and academic assessments on the topic, and thus the peer-reviewed research can't be included, because the editor's preconceived notions are contrary to the findings of actual research. Egregious NPOV violations should be left to stand because editors agree that one POV published in the lowest quality sources is correct and that a POV published in peer-reviewed research is incorrect. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 04:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
• If you only oppose mentioning that Bernie's main opponent got the worst coverage, and that the Democratic primary got substantially less coverage than the Republican primary (which are all things that obviously relate to questions of media bias for Sanders), then you should argue that, and argue for the inclusion of content which explicitly mentions Sanders. Instead the argument is that anything that diverges from a particular POV ("the media was against Sanders") should be scrubbed, even though that POV is obviously disputed in RS. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 04:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Yes. The section is Polls and News Coverage, hence, reports that provide evidence concerning these areas are pertinent. Moreover, this section, as mentioned by another poster, requires balance. It currently has one point of view. Darwin Naz (talk) 02:26, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. Seems perfectly relevant and appropriate. Gleeanon409 (talk) 17:15, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. Yes. The statements are relevant, noteworthy, and are from reliable sources. When reliable sources of ~equal weight contradict each other, it's important to present both sides. ☃ Unicodesnowman (talk) 06:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Primary loss and endorsement of Hillary Clinton section - Add short sentence on Sanders supporters supporting Clinton.

Hi - I couldn't add this. It refutes the myth that Sander's supporters didn't vote for Clinton and cost her the election, a prevalent myth. It balances the sentence about the booing. "In the end, Sanders was more effective in getting his supporters to vote for Clinton than Clinton was in getting her supporters to vote for Obama." WebMaven2000 (talk) 13:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

References

I agree it belongs, although we could discuss the phrasing and the actual figures should be presented in a footnote. It might be better to compare Sanders supporters to candidate supporters in general, rather than just Hillary. TFD (talk) 16:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

This is a common partisan argument usually made by supporters of Senator Sanders. I do not believe it is appropriate for an encyclopedia. Msalt (talk) 21:24, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Early Life

Sander's Mother's parents came from both Poland and Russia. Someone change this. There are links for this. Guardian10 (talk) 09:57, 09 April 2020 (UTC)

Not necessary; let's avoid confusion. The current content doesn't mention background only takes into consideration "modern-day borders" concept. The rest is clutter. Oliszydlowski (talk) 17:45, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

What is the point of this line? Seems completely unnecessary and unencyclopedic.

A lot of renowned musicians uttered sad and thankful comments about the end of his presidential campaign.[284]

63.69.65.83 (talk) 19:22, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I agree and just deleted it per WP:NOTNEWS. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:30, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Section re: debate on electability

The entire section I added has been removed with the reason given "remove debate about electability. hard to understand why a sentence devoted to peer-reviewed research is being removed for being undue while several paragraphs are added which are devoted to low-quality content about a 24-hr old dispute over a candidate's electability." In the first place, this editor is apparently referring to a disagreement we had some time ago and is seemingly getting back at me for that. I must again say that until this editor became active in this article we all got along and worked as a team--and it was a joy to be here working together. One did not see this sort of childish, spiteful editing. Now, as for "24-hr old dispute" I have no idea what that might mean. This talk about "anybody but Bernie" has been going on for weeks and needs to be addressed in the article. I will return my edit after 24 hours unless other editors also feel that it was out of place. Gandydancer (talk) 01:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Either the page suffers from size constraints or it doesn't. This is about as low-quality and recentist as content can get... it's a temporary debate about electability with some weak arguments thrown in both directions. It doesn't deserve several paragraphs. It might deserve one sentence that goes something along the lines of "During the primary, critics of Sanders's candidacy raised doubts about his electability", but even that seems undue. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:01, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

I concur with Gandydancer that such a wholesale removal of material should be preceded by respectful discussion, followed by consensus. My feeling about the content in question is that it more properly belongs in Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign than in his biography. Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 02:04, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

That was good removal I think. Yes, this could be included to another page Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, but even there I would rather not as a quickly changing opinion/debate that is probably already in the past. My very best wishes (talk) 16:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC) Still seems to be widely debated in sources. My very best wishes (talk) 03:57, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks HopsonRoad. I still see this as worth including. It was discussed on both Face the Nation and Meet the Press this weekend besides a lengthy discussion on PBS News Hour this evening. But with three editors in disagreement and nobody in agreement I will step aside. Gandydancer (talk) 04:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I would oppose removal given the attention it's received in reliable sources. Recentism is not a prohibition on information about current events. The lead currently includes information from the last several weeks. There's ample evidence in sources that this is a not just a "changing" or fleeting discussion. It's also not really our job to qualitatively evaluate whether the arguments on either side are "weak" or not. Certainly there is no "right" answer and our subjective opinions, for or against, should not serve as a screen to public discussions/debates that have been covered in reliable sources. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 14:34, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree. At any rate, it is constantly discussed by the media. Watching commentators last night during the election returns they noted that every time Sanders was given air time it was discussed that he may (or more often may not) be electable by the pundits. Not so with the others (Biden and Trump). Even the stock market jump today was ascribed to Biden's big wins. Be assured that there is a good plenty of political maneuvering going on... Gandydancer (talk) 20:23, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikieditor19920, the recent reversion of your "Electability" section suggests that there's not a consensus on inclusion of that material, here. I continue to suggest that material is more suited for Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, since it's not really biographical. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 13:15, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussions over electability re: presidential general election were noted in 2016 and 2020. It is not exclusive to either campaign, it is an aspect of the subject's career (i.e. biography). The assertion that it "isn't biographical" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The material is well-sourced, relevant, and there is support for it's inclusion on its page. The arguments for removal are specious, and it seems improper for entire sections of sourced material to be purged from a page absent a compelling explanation. Specific concerns can be raised and addressed but it is absurd to simply delete entire sections. We are required to present the public views of the subject in its entirety. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 19:10, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I also am not convinced we need this information, especially in its present form, in an article this size. If the campaign is over, Joe Biden or Donald Trump wins over Bernie Sanders, and the reason is generally cited as electability concerns, than I would be willing to agree. That's not the case now; instead we have speculation on one side that Bernie's socialism is unelectable against Trump and on the other that according to multiple polls Bernie polls better than Biden against Trump, so I see no reason to devote an entire subsection of the article to discussing these views at this specific moment in the campaign. We have dedicated articles for the Bernie Sanders 2016 and 2020 campaigns where inclusion would be OK; putting the electability debate into what is supposed to be a summary of the subject's life bloats the article. Unfortunately this happens not just here - for example this tendency to overwhelm the reader with too much is even worse in the Joe Biden article, where the reader is bombarded with minute details, such as the score of the World Cup soccer game Joe attended as Vice President - yet much information on his legislation during three decades in Congress is never mentioned. We do have to make editorial decisions as to what we keep and what we don't, and since this content can simply be moved to a dedicated subarticle, that's where it should go. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 01:04, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

How about: “Counter-arguments often point out that a higher proportion of Sanders primary voters eventually voted Clinton in 2016 than 2008 Clinton primary voters did for Obama.”

Or something like that. A tad more factual and clear (rather than simply “more”) and pointing out the political argument nature of the statement. Jdftba (talk) 19:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)