Talk:List of journalists killed in the United States

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This article was nominated for deletion on 21 December 2012 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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Maps

I don' t think we need the maps. They don't add anything and create a huge white space. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 15:36, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not finished posting pins yet for all locations (more names can be added, too), but for now they're showing differences in location over a 50-year period. It may be better for us to wait and see. Crtew (talk) 15:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's an interesting concept, but it will have no meaning unless an outside WP:Reliable source mentions something about a geographical connection or observation. Otherwise, it looks like WP:Original research or WP:Synthesis. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, OR? The map information is all verified by references. Every article mentions place, and you can check each one individually if you wish. Secondly, a visual display of information by mapping further organizes information. Wikipedia has a project on maps. In order for it to be OR some kind of synthesis that goes beyond basic fact would need to happen. That's not happening here. This is low order information display and no synthesis is being drawn from it.Crtew (talk) 14:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Red links

Probably shouldn't have any red links. See Wikipedia:BLP1E#Subjects_notable_only_for_one_event and Wikipedia:CRIME#CRIM. Write an article first if the victim was really Notable, then post here with a blue link. My thoughts, anyway. GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those are currently listed in Articles for Creation.Crtew (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why should we create an article about a person noted only for being the victime of a crime? I don't get it. GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate for WP?

I'm not sure this list is appropriate for WP. See Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information. I am willing to ask other editors to weigh in. GeorgeLouis (talk) 01:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've read that policy. First, there is an entire genre of lists out there and WP has policies that sanction their existence (Wikipedia:LISTPURP), and more specifically a number of lists of journalists killed articles also exist. None of these would be "indiscriminate collection of information" because they are all focused, add context to the specific person or event, and are backed up with sources. Moreover, this list, as well as the others, meet all of the criteria of LISTPURP by adding information, encouraging the development of further articles, navigation, and beneficial redundancy of lists/categories. Crtew (talk) 14:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not persuaded and would hate to see a lot of effort go into something that will not be acceptable to the WP community. It happened to me once. I think a RFC is in order. GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, there is supposed to be a discussion here, but I'm not even sure what the exact focus of the discussion is. George, would you please care to articulate exactly what is objectionable or unacceptable and focus it a bit more. If you would, please don't just put a link on the page, but expand upon your points and provide your reasoning. I appreciate discussions that are low on jargon. If have no idea what you're thinking is at present. Crtew (talk) 19:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, if you're not persuaded (see above), then please articulate why.Crtew (talk) 19:51, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For anybody coming into the discussion, please note that the page was in progress and is not finished. The maps are in progress, some articles are being developed or in progress, and the introduction is just a starter. Crtew (talk) 19:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 protects expression as one of our basic rights as humans. In war zones, journalists are further protected by the Geneva Conventions. When a journalist is killed, the harm goes beyond the individual as a society loses access and often the right to information. Since the killing of a journalist is considered to have a societal impact it falls under a different classification than a typical murder crime, and governments, for example, have been encouraged to make the killing of journalists a federal crime with harsher punishments given to the convicted.

This list and others like it generally fall under the interest of WP:WikiProject Human rights, WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech,WP:WikiProject Journalism and each individual country project, which in this case is WP:Wikiproject United States. In articles about individuals WP:WikiProject Biography is relevant.

This list is no different than:

The Category:Murder victims by country and Category:Murder victims by occupation also seem to be questioned by the objecter User:GeorgeLouis above.Crtew (talk) 20:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the community wants to add another list of victims, fine by me, although I don't think Ruben Salazar, for example, was covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please respond in a neutral manner (otherwise known as NPOV). It is not appropriate for you to express your political opinion here. The points above are not meant to make a political point, but instead describe the international treaties and conventions that are of relevance to this topic.Crtew (talk) 00:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - So, the question the community is being asked to comment on is... "should this article exist?"? Yeah. Yeah, it should. These people clearly share a set of attributes notable enough for them to be listed together. As of 14:44, 20 December 2012 (UTC), the list also looks large enough and well enough referenced that it doesn't need to be kicked back to userspace for polishing, it should remain live for the wider internet to read and augment. I'm not sure the maps are well-advised, but that's a tiny quibble about style, not an argument for deletion. The question in hand would be better answered at AfD - if you have the strength of argument to delete it, take it there. If not, it stays. That will be the community's definitive answer either way. I'm guessing they'll tell you it should stay, but then I've guessed many things wrong in my day. ☯.Zen Swashbuckler.☠ 14:44, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this article should go to WP:AFD and will do so. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk)

Murdered or Killed

George, you changed all of the "murdered" to "kill" without looking at any of the sources based on assumption that a court didn't make a judgment in the case. If you had looked at the sources, you would see that there were court cases.Crtew (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that advice. I will do so. Where there judgments of murder in all the cases you have there? GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:27, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Who is included?

Are journalists who are killed accidentally to be included here? Or just homicides? GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The journalist can reasonably be believed to have been killed by someone while they were reporting or because of their status as a journalist is how the focus reads. There are military conflicts to consider, such as the Civil War, etc. Crtew (talk) 19:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A few examples: At the end of 2012, an American paparazzi photographer was killed trying to get a photograph of Justin Bieber getting a traffic ticket issued to him (which turned out not to be the case as he wasn't driving) and the photographer was killed after a police officer told him to move away from the scene. A car then struck the photographer going around a blind curve. [1] This person would not be included. First, his death was accidental. Second, one could justifiably argue that the person was not a journalist. In contrast, Michael Kelly was killed in the Second Iraq Invasion when his vehicle was fleeing enemy fire and ran into a ravine like area and driven by a military driver. Even though Kelly wouldn't be included in this list because he was killed abroad, his situation is illustrative for an example. First, He was killed while reporting, and the maneuvers were a direct result of enemy fire while Kelly was reporting. Second, he was definitely a journalist, and he was credentialed as such as an embedded journalist with a US unit.Crtew (talk) 22:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reuben Salazar

GeorgeLouis, as you changed the lead sentence to state that only homicides should be included (a change with which I strongly concur), Salazar must stay in. If one person kills another person by accident, it's still a homicide. Regardless of whether anyone meant to kill Salazar, he was still killed while reporting a story, and so should be included.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:31, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

39 journalists

This is a lovely new source, and I think that the information definitely belongs in the article. I wonder, though, if it belongs in the lead. The scope of the list includes journalists who were killed while reporting, not just journalists who were targeted specifically for their work as journalists. E.g. the new source almost certainly isn't counting Irving Carson, who is on the list, killed by a cannonball during the civil war. The figure 39 has only to do with journalists targeted. Perhaps we could revert the lead back to what it was and put in a new sentence making this important distinction?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Be bold! Crtew (talk) 22:44, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

US journalists killed outside the United States

Is there a similar list for US journalists killed outside the US? I was about to add journalists and media workers Don Harris, Bob Brown, and Greg Robinson, before I realized that this list is strictly for those killed within the United States. -- JeffBillman (talk) 18:03, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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The manipulative scope of such lists

The list for the USA so far makes sense, but overall such lists are a political tool since the likes of the CPJ that compile them decide whether a journalist "can reasonably be believed to have been killed by someone while they were reporting or because of their status as a journalist" in a totally arbitrary way.

Journalists in the USA get regularly killed in circumstances that do not meet the criteria and they do not get counted, and it is accurate, but for countries that belong "the enemies list" like Russia almost all deaths of journalists are counted as if they met the criteria, while in reality they do not: just look at 2016-2017 cases listed in the corresponding article; they are not better than, say, 1998 murder case from the USA: http://www.thedailybeast.com/missouri-governor-halts-execution-of-marcellus-williams-after-questions-about-dna-evidence and many more cases that did not end up in this page.

So the question is, should we update this page with many more cases that do not really have anything to do with journalists' activities, or should we clean up the articles on other countries where all of the dubious and even clearly unrelated cases of deaths get piled on anyway? 95.27.82.241 (talk) 08:56, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, that's a very good question. Thank you for coming to the article's talk page. I'd like for more people to join if possible and give their POV.

Now, I can only speak for what I've done at List of journalists and media workers killed in Mexico, and what my guideline is there. I add journalists who were murdered or are currently disappeared (though the source has to mention they were presumably kidnapped). This includes journalists who were killed in a crossfire, in a robbery attempt, during an altercation at a traffic stop, stabbed to death by their significant other, or under other (perhaps unknown) circumstances. Proving that their deaths were "work-related" is an incredibly difficult task to do (even in the U.S.), so all the CPJ can do is suggest authorities to consider their profession as a possible motive. Keep in mind many of these cases usually do not reach a verdict from a judge.

Impunity is a topic I want to talk about too. Not all murders are work-related, but I think the overall theme of such lists (at least in CPJ's eyes) is that people can get away with murdering a journalist. Whether or not that journalist was killed for being a journalist might be irrelevant. As long as you can get away with it, and as long governments have a tendency to avoid considering journalism as a possible motive, these lists will continue to exist (again, this is in CPJ's perspective). I don't have numbers for cases where it was proven that journalists were indeed killed for their profession. But in Mexico, I can tell you its very low, so our list would probably consist of less than a handful.

One thing we could probably do in this list is removing the "Notes" section altogether. I think a lot of the descriptions seem to suggest they were killed for their profession, when most of the time this might be inferred by the sources but not proven. By linking to a seperate article about the journalist/case, readers would get a better understanding of what really happened. I think we have to be really careful summarizing an entire case in 1 or 2 sentences, or using preliminary sources to dictate a motive. MX (✉ • ✎) 14:05, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are also a number of journalists whose deaths were officially suicide or accidents, but towards which various suspicions have been raised. For example, Michael_Hastings_(journalist)#Controversy_over_alleged_foul_play. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 04:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Carlos Castro

Wondering whether to add Carlos Castro (journalist), beaten to death in New York by his boyfriend in 2011, for personal reasons that don't appear to have been related to Castro's profession. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 21:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hastings

Why isn't Michael Hastings listed? 24.157.135.56 (talk) 21:15, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]