Talk:Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar's Current Writings Can Be Found At Asia Times

For more of Pepe Escobar's decidely NON-western oriented writings go to >>>

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/Escobar.html

http://atimes.com/atimes/others/Pepe2011.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.250.155.34 (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Globalistan

There should be a separate Wikipedia article entitled Globalistan. Globalistan is a large topic and merits its own article. Billions of people are forced to live in Globalistan against their will and yet Globalistan does not even have its own WIkipedia article.

-some have suggested it could be merged with the WIkipedia article NBA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.67.17.194 (talk) 08:29, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

It seems biased that the only article of Escobar's mentioned in the page is the one where he made a huge mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.39.92.104 (talk) 04:10, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore, the cited article does not contain the mistake that this page claims it does. The cited article is inaccurately summarized by whomever put it there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.2.164 (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

This article is biased on the opposite side, because Pepe Escobar was fired from a Brazilian newspaper in the 80´s due to plagiarism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.87.240.5 (talk) 02:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

"Context" about Escobar

I removed a paragraph added by Philip_Cross which IMO violates BLP and BALASP:

The Anti-Defamation League described Escobar as a "anti-Israeli journalist". Escobar was among those attending the New Horizon Conference in Tehran, Iran in Fall 2014 along with others the ADL described as antisemites and Holocaust deniers.

It took me just a moment of searching on Google to discover a detailed article about the conference based on information from Gareth Porter , who "was upset by the content of the conference ..[because] the organizers had assured him that extremists wouldn't be there...Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin and Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, also in attendance, were equally upset about the conference."[1] Jeremy Stone, who funded Porter's travel, remarked "in our half-century of efforts to prevent war, terrorism and genocide, and forestall the collapse of civilization, it is not feasible to avoid attending Middle East conferences that might, in the end, be attended by various nuts in varying proportions." Devoting a paragraph to an attack piece from ADL without other context violates BLP and greatly unbalances this very brief article about Escobar. HouseOfChange (talk) 13:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Notability, per NJOURNALIST 1: "widely cited by peers"

Pepe Escobar's peers would be other journalists who take an interest in world affairs. Based on multiple citations from multiple journalists over multiple years, he meets WP:NJOURNALIST #1, widely cited by peers.

• 2012 The Atlantic
• 2013 Mercury News
• 2015 The Week
• 2016 Oliver Stone in Interview magazine
• 2019 Jacobin and Secret Notes from Iran
• 2021 Times of Malta

The article needs more third-party sourcing and better content, but Escobar is clearly a notable journalist. Of course, it is always a problem to Google material ABOUT journalists because there is typically so much more material written by said journalists. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

References

The Atlantic is the only source you have there that approaches RS, the one article (from 2012) merely mentions him in a long list of Al Jazeera contributors (doesn't "cite him"), and the other - again, from 2012 - features a single quote complaining that the contemporaneous US President (Obama) is beholden to AIPAC. So no, he doesn't meet the threshold for notability. One citation from a decade ago does not equate to "widely cited by peers". It proves the exact opposite, he's not a peer. He does have a single recent publication to his name in a non-partisan RS. Not a one. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 15:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@EnlightenmentNow1792: Notability is not temporary, nor does it require non-partisanship. Please AGF that my edits to the article are intended to improve Wikipedia by providing NPOV information about a journalist notable enough for an article, probably just barely so, but nevertheless notable. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:22, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:NJOURNALIST #1: "widely cited by peers"

Here are recent examples of PE being "cited by peers":

• Straits Times (August 28, 2021 ): In contrast, the Taliban had limited fire power. As Pepe Escobar put it: 'They relied only on Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades and Toyota pick-ups — before they captured American hardware these past few days, including drones and helicopters.'"
• The Business Standard (September 3, 2021): "Afghanistan then presented two different models of governance. Pepe Escobar, in his book, Massoud: From Warrior to Statesman, noted..."
• Jacobin (October 22, 2019): "The fact remains that, in the words of journalist and international relations analyst Pepe Escobar, ..."
• Vision (Summer, 2017): "The urbanization drive, as geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar puts it, 'is at the heart of the Chinese Dream.'"
• Le Temps (June 16, 2016) "La présence de personnalités charismatiques crédibles et qui possèdent un discours de contestation de l’ordre établi comme Julian Assange, Edouard Snowden ou encore Pepe Escobar sur RT, contribuent à propager l’image d’une chaîne dissidente..." (The presence of credible charismatic personalities who have a discourse challenging the established order, such as Julian Assange, Edouard Snowden or even Pepe Escobar on RT, contributes to propagating the image of a dissident channel...)

To be "cited" as a subset of NCREATIVE means to have your work quoted or your name mentioned as a presumably well-known-by-others type-of-NCREATIVE, by your peers, those best able to judge. It does NOT require being "cited as an authority" (contrary to this edit summary). HouseOfChange (talk) 17:42, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Right, so that's two reverts each. Now, where are these reliable sources? EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 19:08, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

You understand what's required of you, yes? You need to prove he is "widely cited" by "notable journalists" (aka "peers"), and that this is published in RSs. Can you give me, say, one? EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

So would you agree with my assessment that you have one source so far, that of "Steven J. Rosenthal" from some institution called "Hampton University", who publishes articles in fringe journals that often get zero citations (this was the most impactful piece of work of his that I could find: https://doi.org/10.1300/J134v03n02_04), that is not so much a "peer", but is, well, at least an academic (of sorts).

I don't see anything else though. Wouldn't you agree that the difficulty you're having is most likely due to the fact that he is not, in fact, a notable "widely cited" journalist/analyst/commentator on... anything? EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 00:00, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

I have already listed my sources for journalists citing PE, which include The Atlantic, Straits Times, Mercury News, and Times of Malta. You are mistaken to think that I am trying to portray him as an expert or authority--he is a journalist, widely-cited enough that it is a service to our readers to provide them with some information about him. If you consider him not notable as a journalist, I suggest filing an AfD so that others can express an opinion. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Do you honestly think that 4 mentions of his name - they don't all qualify as citations - over a three-decade-long career is what is meant by "widely-cited"? EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 00:19, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

"Dubious" tag, what is "disputed" about a sentence describing one notable person's opinion?

Quoting what Arnaud de Borchgrave said, and linking to its published source online, accords with WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.

Surely nobody disputes that Arnaud de Borchgrave made the statement attributed to him? The "dubious" tag is not intended to be used as "I disagree with the opinion of Arnaud de Borchgrave." HouseOfChange (talk) 15:15, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

It's extremely dubious, for a whole range of reasons. I haven't been wrong on a source yet have I? I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, you'll never learn that way (you've been making the same mistakes over and over again for weeks now). I want to see if you can figure it out for yourself. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 16:03, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Update, EnlightenmentNow1792 explained on his talk page why he considers that brief quote "dubious": Now comes the demonstrably false claim that Escobar "is well known for breaking stories in the Arab and Muslim worlds."[18] The source for this is a friend of Escobars, a former backpacking pal, who somehow managed to blog, once, at The Atlantic Council. But never again. If you read the piece you'll see why. He implies Escobar used to be a CIA agent and he predicted al-Qaeda's presence in Libya before anyone else. This friend of Pepe refers to non-existent articles for think-tanks Escobar never worked for. Escobar has never repeated any of this claims.[2] But the sentence tagged as "dubious" does not quote anything related to supposedly "non-existent" articles by Escobar--and the sole article mentioned by Borchgrave isn't non-existent, but online at Asia Times, as you can verify by comparing B's direct quotes to E's article text. Presumably, "Maldon" republished the piece, and that is where Borchgrave read it. But none of that has anything to do with the short quote used in the bio to show the topic areas of Escobar and another reporter's OPINION that he is "well known". HouseOfChange (talk) 00:34, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

The opinion from a notable journalist has been properly attributed. The dubious tag should be removed. If there are reliable sources that question the accuracy of the opinion, they can also be included in the bio. Burrobert (talk) 03:20, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Unreliable sources

I strongly believe The New American is not a reliable source, as per WP:RSP which says "There is consensus that The New American is generally unreliable for factual reporting. Some editors consider it usable for attributed opinions regarding the John Birch Society." If we use it, we can only do so in a form such as "The John Birch Society cited this article by Escobar". The Michael Collins cited via the blog "Flesh & Stone" is not Michael Collins (writer and broadcaster). I've unpacked and attributed for now, but would suggest we remove those two. ping HouseOfChange who reverted my edit, for explanation. Happy to discuss! BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I did not revert your edit; I used those two sources elsewhere as examples showing the story got wider comment.

I was mistaken, and should have been more careful, in assuming that Michael Collins was the notable writer. Directly attributing a quote in The New American to "The John Birch Society" seems a bridge too far, as is the SYNTH from listing four decade-old sources I found via Google that these four are the only ones who commented on this particular story. I have reduced cites to two in hope of reaching consensus. HouseOfChange (talk) 20:01, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Good edit. Thanks. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:01, 1 March 2022 (UTC)