User talk:CaroleHenson/Ben Swann/July 2018 review

Sources

In general, I think that there are some better sources that could be used for the article. For instance, I would like to replace Daily Beast, Salon, videos, blogs (even if they are by a journalist) -- where there are more mainstream news sources that can be used.

There are times that Daily Beast is ok, but in this case, the tone of at least one of the articles makes me think it would be better to get another source.

In the end, I think the points will essentially be the same, but I think it would be better to get the information from more neutral sources... and I am interested in the difference between the points made from mainstream sources.

There may be some cases, like the vaccines, where the information may need to come from a two sources that see the two sides of the issue. From a cursory look, I wasn't finding a good mainstream news source.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:22, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

As requested, I added this back.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:04, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

And, it's best not to use public speaker bios - they are essentially/generally a primary source. I am going to remove that one. If info is not in another published source, it's probably not that important.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:55, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Just as an FYI if anyone is looking: I am beginning to see why some of the sources are used, there aren't a whole lot of great sources. So Salon, Daily Beast, and a number of blogs have been used. And, again, under other circumstances, I wouldn't have a problem with those sources but for an alt-right / conservative BLP, it would be good to get more balanced sources. I am going to try to spread out the use of the mainstream papers... and add some articles that I'll "clip" from newspapers.com where I can.–CaroleHenson (talk) 15:20, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Intro notes

• Conservative / alt-right
• In the beginning of his career as a television news anchor, he won awards for his television news coverage
• After 2010, he became increasingly interested in alternative slants on the news, which resulted in the creation of what became a controversial show Reality Check.
• He became increasingly interested in social media, first Facebook, then his social media channel, Truth in Media, with the internet version of Reality Check
• He was fired for pursuing his Reality Check show and alt-right theories, particularly Pizza Gate.

–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:22, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

made updates.–CaroleHenson (talk) 02:40, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done Updated the article.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:32, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Edit comments

1. Most of the edits initially are comparing the content to the sources and making edits as necessary for POV and ensuring the content was covered by the source.
2. I am removing primary sources, or what are essentially primary sources (public speaker bio).
3. I think it is undue weight to include anything about vaccines. I could not find a reliable news source and just one book that mentions Swann regarding autism/vaccines (Richard Moskowitz, MD (September 19, 2017). Vaccines: A Reappraisal. Skyhorse Publishing. p. 282. ISBN 978-1-5107-2258-3.). The only source that mentions Swann and autisim/vaccines in the article is a primary source / video. — Update: As requested, I added this back.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:04, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
4. I removed The station's news manager left a few months later, after less than a year in the job. — It's very likely that it was due to Swann, but there could have been other reasons as well. It just doesn't seem right to have this there - it seems tangental and as if WP has made the connection that the two are absolutely related.
5. One of the first stories run by RT America when it launched, was called "911 Reasons Why 9/11 was (Probably) an Inside Job"; RT is part of Russian public diplomacy efforts and stories about conspiracy theories like those about 9/11 attract conspiracy-minded readers in the US, undermine the credibility of the US government and its domestic and foreign policies, and promote Russia as the world leader in checking US imperialism. — This paragraph and source don't mention Swann at all. I am not sure if this is meant to infer that Swann got his theories from the Russians? Something else? Anyway, some tie is needed for this info that looks as if its meant to supply context.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:21, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
6. In December 2017, the British Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament published their annual report which contains a short section entitled "Russian objectives and activity against UK and allied interests". This section quotes MI6 as stating: "Russia conducts information warfare on a massive scale... An early example of this was a hugely intensive, multichannel propaganda effort to persuade the world that Russia bore no responsibility for the shooting down of [Malaysian Airlines flight] MH-17 (an outright falsehood: we know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russian military supplied and subsequently recovered the missile launcher)". — Same thing as the item above... this seems like it would be good information for an article about Russian propaganda campaign against the U.S.... or a background section, if we can find information that ties Swann more clearly and specifically to a Russian propaganda / misinformation campaign.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:29, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
7. I took a stab at putting the claims and views info into a table (here), and it became clearer where areas need to be rounded out.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:03, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

References

More to come.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:41, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Again you are not dealing with PSCI and FRINGE. When somebody has made FRINGE claim X, we state reality adjacent to it. That is why I cited the British report. "Questioning" whether Russia shot down the plane is Russian disinformation about something that there is no ambiguity about.

I do acknowledge that this is ... difficult with regard to SYN. But not stating reality at all is also problematic which is why PSCI came into being. Editing well per the spirit of the policies and guidelines on people who take FRINGE stances like this is very difficult. Jytdog (talk) 14:34, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I assume that you are referring to items 5 and 6. I left in information in the article that clarified where Swann had a theory, but that has been disproven. Items 5 and 6 start getting into the Russian disinformation / misinformation campaign. There's a link to misinformation to get more information about that.

Adding that content where it was makes it seem that Swann was involved in Russian propaganda in that instance, but the sources don't say that. There is a case where a connection was made - Pizzagate... and I left that in.

If I didn't already say this, I think that there could be a background section to explain misinformation/disinformation--- and I think the BuzzFeed article about BuzzFeed is a good place to start because it explains the intentional efforts and the unintentional spreading of the info. Would that help?–CaroleHenson (talk) 15:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes it was about 5 and 6. A section on mis/disinformation would likely be as SYN as doing it on each "view". It is hard to deal with FRINGE stuff, especially when we have advocates screaming bloody murder. Jytdog (talk) 15:27, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Yep, on second thought, I think you're right.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:29, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

But per PSCI we should do it somewhere... Jytdog (talk) 16:35, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I assume you mean Fringe theories in this particular case.

I agree about providing information about the prevailing thought vs. conspiracy / fringe theories espoused by Swann. And, I will look to see if there are some areas where that needs to be clarified, perhaps 9/11, for instance.

I don't agree to adding information about what Russia was doing from a misinformation campaign perspective, unless there is a source that connects Swann to Russian misinformation for that specific theory, like was done with Pizzagate. Does that make sense?–CaroleHenson (talk) 17:43, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this further. We do need to state reality adjacent to where he states fringe theories but yes, putting content about the parallels with russian disinformation where no source connects Swann to that, should indeed go. What you did for example at the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 section was great. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 03:07, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I put the claims and views info into a table to see how it looked, Jytdog, which helped ID where info about prevalent thought (not sure that's the best heading, thoughts?) need to be added / expanded.

Regarding the similarity to Russian propaganda... how about: 1) adding a column for that or 2) putting it into footnotes. I don't think that his claims should be shown to be equal to Russian propaganda directly unless there's reporting to that effect. But a separate column or footnotes would help show the correlation, but not seem to indicate that he's a planner/schemer in creating Russian disinformation (i.e., he could be a follower - one of the "gullibles" described in one of the articles - I think BuzzFeed's Pizzagate article.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:23, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

comments

here you removed information about how he got into the news business. How does somebody go from being a pastor to being in the news business? This source makes it clear that his brothers were in it, and he followed them after he moved home.

The edit note said "in some cases there was additional information added that wasn't in the source)". That is not true.

You apparently don't have the whole source. I obtained it from the library. I can send it to you cannot get it yourself. Jytdog (talk) 21:09, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog,

• It was this part "Evening News at Six and Fox 19 Ten O'Clock News" that wasn't in the cited source. I did find another source, though, later... I just summarized it to evening news.

• To further clarify, since you seem to think my comments were completely off-base. This was based on your comment The edit note said "in some cases there was additional information added that wasn't in the source)". That is not true. I was referring to this bit of info. I found that later, though, from another source in the article.–CaroleHenson (talk) 04:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

• I just moved the information about the brothers also being in the business to the personal life section. It looks, though, like he did some work in news before he went to Portland.

• For further clarification, I don't see that he ever worked with his brothers. That's why I put the info about the brothers in the personal life section. If they had worked together at all... or in a meaningful way, that's when I would put it in the career section. We don't need to write in the same way as the original source.–CaroleHenson (talk) 04:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

• From another article, he was actually in the news business earlier than that. There is a really good article that goes into how he was an assistant pastor and in the news business here. I don't know if you have newspapers.com, but I was debating about whether to clip it and use some of the info... when/how he was ordained as a pastor, and more background about his early years. If you think that's important I can definitely add it.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:27, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

• It looks like you saw that he worked for another news station before going to Portland.–CaroleHenson (talk) 04:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and made clippings here and here. I was just debating about these... so I had the pages up.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

We seem to be not connecting here. The current article says: "After graduating from college at 15, he worked bagging groceries. When he was 21 he married and moved to Portland, Oregon, where he became an assistant pastor at a Presbyterian church. A year and a half later he moved back to El Paso. Three of his brothers worked as TV news photographers, and in 2001 he started working with them. He began filming, editing, and reporting his own stories. He became a morning co-anchor on a local station, and in 2008 became an anchor for the NBC news affiliate nightly news"

1st sentence is entirely supported by the Kiesewetler ref. which says: "Home-schooled in El Paso with nine brothers and sisters, Swann finished college by 15. After earning a liberal arts degree at Bingham Young University, he bagged groceries."

2nd sentence same, which says: "In 1999, at age 21, he married and moved to Portland, Ore., where he was an assistant pastor at a Presbyterian church."

3rd sentence, same. Ref says: "He and his wife, Jasmine, returned to El Paso 18 months later with a baby daughter and another on the way. (They now have five kids ages 3·10.)"

4th sentence, same. Ref says: ""My original intention was to be a minister, but became a news photographer because I needed a job," says Swan"....and later..> (right after the stuff above): "He turned to shooting TV news in 2001 - three brothers were El Paso TV news photographers - and it turned into a career."

5th sentence same: "Soon he was filming, reporting and editing his own stories years before today's TV shift to "one man bands" or "mobile journalists.""

6th sentence, same: Ref says: "After a stint as morning news coanchor, he jumped to the NBC station to anchor in 2008."

Now, the bit about that NBC job being "NBC news affiliate nightly news", that comes from the ref in the next sentence (this one). I could have seen you adding the ref there or removing just the words "affiliate nightly".

I take people saying that I generate content not supported by sources seriously. (if anything i was too close to them in some spots) So again, please explain what exactly was not supported by the sources. Did you not have access to the Kiesewetler ref? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:43, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, in my view , 1) that he changed careers from preacher to news person, and b) how he changed careers, are important element in his bio. Jytdog (talk) 22:57, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I just obtained the El Paso Times from 2003. You are right, that it says that through his brothers he got a gig as a cameraman before he went to Portland. It also says he was in Portland only 6 months, while the Cincinnati piece says it was 18 months. No mention of the wife and kids in the El Paso piece either. Hm. Hard! How to resolve? I would tend to go with the El Paso one since it is closer to the events in time.. but that kind of stuff is hard. Jytdog (talk) 23:04, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Re: After graduating from college at 15, he worked bagging groceries - I removed that because that didn't seem to be necessary information.

Re: When he was 21 he married and moved to Portland, Oregon, where he became an assistant pastor at a Presbyterian church. This is in the personal life section (except I said he was married in 1999), and the career section starts out, "After working in Portland, Oregon, as an assistant pastor," -- since this was a short period of time, it didn't seem that it needed a lot of explanation.

Re: Three of his brothers worked as TV news photographers, and in 2001 he started working with them. -- Again, I am not seeing that he worked with his brothers, so I put it in the personal life section . Where did you see that they worked together?

Re: He began filming, editing, and reporting his own stories. He became a morning co-anchor on a local station, and in 2008 became an anchor for the NBC news affiliate nightly news" This is in the article - just with a little more context.–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:06, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

It is very clear that he got into the news business through his brothers. Whether it is exactly with or not, is not relevant. Both the El Paso ref and the Cincinnati ref make it clear that he needed to make money and got work through his brothers. This is not somebody who started out aiming to become a news person. The specifics of a given person's story matter. Jytdog (talk) 14:32, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Re: I take people saying that I generate content not supported by sources seriously. I am sorry, I think some of this is a misunderstanding (see my first bullet above if you missed it). I also think what happened is that as content was added some of the citations got separated from the content, because I found a couple of places where I didn't find the content in the cited source, but I found it in another source later. So, that likely had nothing to do with the way you originally wrote it... but was affected by later editing. There's also a case where I missed it in the source, but found it later, my bad on that one. Sorry about that.–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:10, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

OK. Jytdog (talk) 14:32, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Re: I just obtained the El Paso Times from 2003. You are right, that it says that through his brothers he got a gig as a cameraman before he went to Portland. It also says he was in Portland only 6 months, while the Cincinnati piece says it was 18 months I thought that there was a bit of information that is helpful from the 2003 article, like his becoming ordained via a Southern Baptist convention. Regarding the time frame discrepancy, my approach would be to say he was in Portland six (source) or eighteen months (source).

That makes sense. Jytdog (talk) 14:32, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Is the net-net of this that you don't want any changes to content that you wrote? Or, that you were just trying to clarify where the sources came from (and missed my comment about the sourcing referring to the nightly news info).–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:17, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

net-net, In the narrative flow describing his career, the article should say that he aimed to be a preacher but came into the news business through his brothers. That is the key thing omitted in the diff at the start of this section, as I noted above. I also objected to the edit note saying the edits were based on removing unsourced content. But content-wise, the key thing is getting the narrative to make sense of how we went from preacher >> news. The version in the attached proposed revision leaves that jump unexplained. Jytdog (talk) 14:23, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Ok. It's a fair statement. It's been said that he became interested in the ministry at the age of 15 or a teenager. In one place he said he got into the news business because he needed the money. In the El Paso article, it said he left because of church politics. He obviously wanted to work in the news, because the El Paso article says that he tried to find positions with churches where he could also work full-time in the news business - while also working for the church, but most churches wouldn't hire him if he worked full-time. I'll work on it.

I also objected to the edit note saying the edits were based on removing unsourced content I am sorry. I don't know what to say. I do see that you were diligent in the sourcing of content that you added. I explained that in two cases that was true - but it was probably due to someone else coming and adding content later and distancing the citation from the content. Regarding the diff you showed me, I explained that this referred to the nightly news info that I found later in another nearby source. That happens sometimes in a line-by-line review. I apologized for the time I missed something (which was Jasmine/Ben's marriage timing)s. What do you want me to do about this?–CaroleHenson (talk) 15:16, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog, Updates to the article are done here re: interest in ministry and transition to the news. I didn't add the points that I stated above, but I think it gives a rounder view of his interest in the ministry. And, Martinez says four brothers were in the news business. I am guessing one dropped out by the time of the later articles. See what you think.–CaroleHenson (talk) 02:22, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

The last sentence of the new papagraph is the same information as the first sentence in the existing one below it i think. Otherwise, great. 03:05, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh, thanks. No, he returned to KFOX in a new role in 2001, I clarified that.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:11, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:PSCI

About this, please review WP:PSCI which is part of the NPOV policy, and the WP:FRINGE guideline through which we implement it.

Stating reality adjacent to FRINGE claims is NPOV per PSCI; removing it is POV. Your edit note was backward. Jytdog (talk) 21:12, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Please see Edit comments #3 above.

Thanks by the way, for chiming in with your comments. It's helpful to get feedback.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:30, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

you're welcome.. I will see above.Jytdog (talk) 21:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Also here; Swann's anti-vax advocacy has been extensively covered by David Gorski who is our go-to person for FRINGE medical things. Use of sources like this, for this sort of thing, is discussed in WP:PARITY which is part of the FRINGE guideline.

See for example: Gorski, David (27 January 2016). "Ben Swann's long-awaited report on the "CDC whistleblower" goes over like a lead balloon of antivaccine misinformation". Respectful Insolence.

if you have some concern about using such sources to debunk FRINGE pushing in matters of health, please see this RfC which was the last time it was tested that I am aware of. Jytdog (talk) 21:36, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

You were right to think that my initial reaction would have been to question the personal blog. I do see that the circumstances are similar to the RfC. My vote in that case would have been to not consider it a RS, it would have been much better if it came from a published article where there was some editorial control/oversight. But, I respect the decision from the RfC and see the similarity here.

I still think that adding this to the article places more weight on the subject than is deserved. He isn't creating much of a buzz about his postings about this.

If you and others disagree, I can add it back.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:51, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

In my view it is another piece of clear evidence of how he turned from being a decent reporter to a conspiracy-spinning fringe advocate. It is reported in the places where we find reporting on that kind of stuff. (Gorski has multiple pieces on Swann doing this) Jytdog (talk) 22:53, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm trying to write this as an encyclopedia article, not a means to dig up everything I can find against him... and there is more that sheds a poor light on him, but I don't think it's encyclopedic. His career devolved because of his conspiracy theories and the vaccine/autism theories haven't created much buzz. As I said, if I am overruled by other editors as well, I'll add it back in.–CaroleHenson (talk) 04:49, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

As requested, and briefly discussed at Talk:Ben Swann#Line by line review, I added this back.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:04, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I too am trying to write an encyclopedia. We summarize reliable sources. We have RS per PARITY on the anti-vax stuff; as i mentioned Gorski has covered Swann in that regard multiple times (as have other quackery watchers). Jytdog (talk) 14:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I think it overstates his impact in this area. I do see that there are some that buy-in to his theories and his findings regarding someone who worked for the CDC. (i.e., I think it will do more harm than good.) I fully admit that I could be a minority voice in this area. Does anyone else see the need for this information here?–CaroleHenson (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

More generally, i was only somewhat aware of the Russian disinformation thing but working on this article led me to learn more about it. If you are not aware of it, for more background please see for example this NYT piece on Sputnik and RT as vehicles of Russian disinformation as well as this from the Times of London.Jytdog (talk) 22:53, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar with the disinformation campaigns. It's very spooky!!!! I am not sure if you have a specific point for me here or not.–CaroleHenson (talk) 04:49, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Just important context, that's all. Jytdog (talk) 14:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Edward R. Murrow Award

I see two sources that say that Swann won the Edward R. Murrow Award - Fox 19 (which is cited in this draft of the article) and Salon. In Swann's Truth in Media site... and copies of that content on conservative sources... there's mention that he won two ERM Awards.

But, I am not finding other sources for this in newspapers (Newspapers.com) and google news. He's also not listed on Edward R. Murrow Award (Corporation for Public Broadcasting). Perhaps he won it for Edward R. Murrow Award (Radio Television Digital News Association) or Edward Murrow Award (Overseas Press Club of America).

It seems that if he received this award, there would be more press about this. Perhaps that is why it's not in the present version of the article? If anyone has any insight into this, that would be helpful.–CaroleHenson (talk) 17:56, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Ahh, I found this. So, it seems he won an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2004, not the major award, and it was decided to not include the award in the article.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:07, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I wanted to think about this a bit more....

The reasoning was that the Pizzagate conspiracy was a more important issue in his career - and I agree - but I don't understand why it's an either/or. I agree it shouldn't be in the lede if it's not the major ERM Award. I think this also shows that he had he had a great start to his career, but that changed as he began focusing on conspiracy theories. So, I think it should stay... getting even a minor ERM Award is notable, I think. It's a national award.–CaroleHenson (talk) 02:34, 28 July 2018 (UTC)