Talk:Raw Story/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Sources

Highly credible and well-sourced? I'm not trolling, I'd feel better with some evidence to back that up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HiS oWn (talk • contribs)

i agree with you. should that statement be removed? User:Anthonymendoza12.203.178.107 13:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Moderate-progressive

"Moderate-progressive?", based on the 'journalists' associated with this group, they're definately not moderate. Progressive is a nice squishy label. Removing "moderate". Kyaa the Catlord 12:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"Broken stories"

How would we go about verifying this section? Is there any way of knowing retrospectively who first broke a story? Are sources possible? Can we think of a better section title? ("Scoops"?)-Will Beback · † · 10:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I dont think there needs to be this section. Is there a broken stories section on the BBC page? Its irrelevant and not verifiable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.176.213.114 (talk) 19:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Founder(s)?

Is there a founder of TRS? Is there an editor-in-chief? QLineOrientalist (talk) 03:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Advertising? Money maker?

How is it financed? Advertising? Is it profitable or does it have a loss? If anybody has time for the research, these are some good questions to have answered. GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Megan Carpentier and the Tax Foundation

I wonder if, for the purposes of full disclosure of this organization, this article should include (maybe in the criticisms section) something about Megan Carpentier's former lobbying for the Tax Foundation, since her name is listed and this organization is supposed to be leftist/progressive/liberal/whatever. Just wondering what others here think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.76.183.67 (talk) 02:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Just add it. GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:37, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Creating a section

there are a couple of sites online(including disqus and reddit boards) where users complain about censorship to express their opposing views on raw story. How would i go about creating a section about comment censorship. Would it go under criticism? 108.184.123.245 (talk) 07:52, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

We don't usually have criticism sections (see: WP:CSECTION). You should begin with one or more reliable sources (i.e.; not forums or websites like disqus & reddit) which cover the subject, then convey what those reliable sources say in your own words here. What section to put the content in (or what new section to create, if needed) often becomes evident or obvious once that content is created. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 03:03, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Reliable sources noticeboard

FYI, there is a pending question that may interest both friends and foes of this article or its subject matter. Join the discussion here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:13, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Criticism

Someone needs to put some critisims of this site on this page. The site is a partisan hack job. This page needs to reflect that, especially since all of their "investigations" about the "Plame leak" were disproven. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.248.9.162 (talk • contribs)

Gee, numbnuts, maybe you should add the sourced criticisms yourself. It's wiki-friggin-pedia. a n y o n e can add. 24.147.229.211 06:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Disproven? Here's a hint, by just saying that, twisting reality, doesn't make it so. Stewiegfan 22:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Admittedly "progressive". There you have it ladies and gentlemen. See how far the termites have spread...EyePhoenix (talk) 00:29, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Raw Story is nothing more than a pro-Hillary Clinton propaganda site for Neo-Liberals. Most of their articles are nothing more than clickbait. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.11.160.19 (talk) 00:22, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

First sentence

First sentence seems to be sourced to an aside made by Howard Kurtz in a rush transcription of a conversation aired in 2005, where he refers to it as "liberal blog RawStory" [sic] http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/12/rs.01.html Suggest not reliable or NPOV summary, the website's own claim is that it's a "progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media." Eversense (talk) 03:08, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, while the word "tabloid" originally referred to the physical size and shape of a publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_(newspaper_format), it has since come to refer to a style of journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_journalism. Since The Raw Story is only published online, the word is clearly not being used in the first sense but the second, and violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy.3eguoxn02 (talk) 12:18, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Lead

Users have repeatedly removed well sourced content from the Columbia Journalism Review and the Oxford Internet Institute from the lead and replaced it with promotional content, such as the unsourced sentence: The Raw Story publishes content produced by Reuters, Salon, ProPublica, AlterNet, The Conversation, The Texas Tribune and other outlets. Random writers and editors who work at the Raw Story are also being inserted in the lead for no apparent reason. There's an entire section called "Staff" where that material should be included. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:38, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

The CJR link doesn't work. Looks like it's been removed from the CJR site. There's probably a good reason for that. The Oxford Internet Institute study is repeated twice in this article. The study took place over a single week, offers no supporting material as to how Raw Story meets its criteria other than a single link to a single story that checks out -- and doesn't meet any of their other stated criteria for the descriptor of "junk news." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)

The Humboldt Institute study relies on the designation from the Oxford Institute and offers no additional data proving Raw Story is a "junk news site." It's also interesting that the source material CJR used (it was essentially a duplicate of someone's masterlist elsewhere on the Internet) also classifies OANN as a "reliable" news source.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)

Seems like the "junk news" thesis falls apart once you click on the actual sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)

Everyone sees what Dr. Swag Lord does here. Look around Wiki... he's all about going after anything left of center. there is no problem putting the info there but why bounce all the good way down while finding a couple of negatives and bringing them up the pages. And then the page gets locked by the guy causing the company harm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.244.209.131 (talk • contribs)

can someone stop Dr. Swaglord?

Off-topic post and personal attack collapsed. Chetsford (talk) 20:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

This is really hard to understand. Everybody on Palmer Report agreed on partisan liberal blog in the header. I didn't like it but was overuled. The whole thing with Palmer report died down or seemed to. Now, without getting aproval Swag went and changed it to "fake news". Palmer Report is NOT afake news site and I really do not care what Swaggy says. Can he prove, with reliable sources that no article PR wrote was ever the truth? Because otherwise that "fake news" does not need to be in the header. It would appear Dr. Swag gets of on the drama as he is geting the same feedback I see on Rawstory. He is allowing his political biases to consume him and I have seen comments on here that people pretty much know this. EVERYBODY had decided PR's header. It is in the archived talk. But because Swaggy is determined to keep people from reading them, he went without ANY aproval and switched it. I would like to see his edit reverted and if not I will make a complaint on here about him and invite anyone including Raw story people to join me. 2600:6C65:7E7F:B93E:7509:328:C6D3:1B85 (talk) 19:59, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

CJR

The CRJ claim in the lede is false. That CJR resource has been deleted. The article claims CJR tags Raw Story as "click bait" in the present tense. This is false. What would be accurate is something like, "In 2018, in a now-deleted resource, CJR tagged Raw Story as a "click-bait" news site. Of course, there are other interesting and relevant things CJR has said about Raw Story. This piece, for example: https://archives.cjr.org/the_kicker/must-reads_of_the_week_68.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spoonpassport (talk • contribs)

As Chetsford already explained to you, a dead link does not mean a source is unreliable anymore or "false." You can clearly see the archived version in the citation or here. This was not from 2018--it was archived just over a month ago. If you like, I can add in the other CJR article in the content section. But we're not going scrub away all the unflattering content.Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 01:49, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm dispassionate about this article, however, I will make a general observation (not necessarily specific to this article) that including the phrase "in a now-deleted resource" could constitute WP:OR by making a conclusion about some tangible qualities of a source not otherwise evident from that source or other WP:RS. Invoking the past tense verb "deleted" implies an intentional action by a source which would usually require evidence of intent as opposed to the more likely possibility that it was simply lost to WP:LINKROT. I defer to other editors on whether or not this point applies here, though. Chetsford (talk) 02:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

In this sentence, who is "we"? "We're not going scrub away all the unflattering content." Is there a group discussion/consensus happening somewhere else on Wikipedia regarding the Raw Story article?

Also, I never requested what you state I requested. I asked you to correct something that is no longer accurate and demonstrably false as written in the present tense. I did not ask you to "scrub away all the unflattering content." So far, I've asked about 3 very specific issues. Spoonpassport (talk) 02:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

By "we" I mean the voluntary editors who regularly edit Wikipedia--not accounts with a single purpose who have a conflict of interest with Raw Story. You have still have not provided any evidence that CJR redacted Raw Story's classification as a clickbait site. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:11, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean "redacted" or another word? I have proof that their claim has been deleted and no longer exists. As do you. Spoonpassport (talk) 03:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Once again, a dead link does not mean a claim has been "deleted" or "no longer" exists. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:27, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Your sentence re CJR is written in the present tense. This is a falsehood. Spoonpassport (talk) 03:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, maybe you meant "retracted"? Spoonpassport (talk) 03:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Satire vs. Fake News

It seems disingenuous to place a clear piece of satire in your "false claims" section for Raw Story. The folks who aggregated the satire piece were spreading fake news, but not Raw Story. The Buzzfeed article cited clearly says that the sites who aggregated it were the ones spreading false news. Spoonpassport (talk) 00:21, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with this and I've moved it. I don't like your word choice "disingenuous", which makes it sound malicious when I can see someone reasonably not thinking that it would connote that The Raw Story were to blame, but I do think readers will be getting the wrong end of the stick and the main section directly above fits the content just fine. Thanks for the suggestion, Spoonpassport. — Bilorv (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

It was in a section called "false claims." The request to adios or move the story was ignored by more than one editor. And now that it's been moved, it still includes the loaded "fake" when applied to a clear piece of satire. Spoonpassport (talk) 02:10, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

If you actually took the time to read the source you'll see that BuzzFeed News refers to it as both as "satirical" and as "fake news": "Two left-wing pages, Occupy Democrats and The Other 98%, posted a link to an article on U.S. Uncut that claimed the surgeon general of the US warned that drinking every time Trump lied during the first presidential debate could result in "acute alcohol poisoning." That story was an aggregation of a satirical Raw Story article with the same information, published earlier that day...The fake news story about the surgeon general of the US warning that drinking every time Trump lied during the first presidential debate could result in "acute alcohol poisoning" originated on Raw Story. We incorrectly said it originated on National Report, but their hoax was published after the Raw Story piece." But I'm fine with Bilorv's edit moving it out of the "false claims" section. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 02:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Why are you accusing me of not taking the time to read the source? They were referring to the spreading of "fake news" by the sources who aggregated the story. Spoonpassport (talk) 02:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

That's what they saying doing in the first part. In the second part, they are unequivocally saying that the fake news story originated on the Raw Story (by the way, it may be a good idea to clearly mark your stories as "satire," which wasn't done in this case). Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:32, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

It's not "my" story. And they aren't "unequivocally" doing anything. That is your claim. And it's not true. Spoonpassport (talk) 03:39, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

The word "fake" is being used not to apply judgement, but as a descriptor. The story was intentionally fake—the whole point is that it was a fake story. I think it's very clear from the phrase "satirical article" that The Raw Story were writing a fake story and not intending for it to be spread as truthful, but that it was. I really don't see how the paragraph reflects badly on The Raw Story (though it is embarrassing to Occupy Democrats and US Uncut). — Bilorv (talk) 10:37, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

As for The request to adios or move the story was ignored by more than one editor, we're all volunteers here. Personally I am trying to monitor around 2000 pages on my watchlist while reviewing at least several drafts of articles by new editors each day and taking time to write new articles (which is the part of Wikipedia editing I most enjoy). It's no-one's job to read and evaluate the talk page in full before dropping a comment about something different, and you should request changes to pages you don't have permission to edit by starting the section with the code {{Edit extended-protected}} (or the right variant depending on the protection level). — Bilorv (talk) 10:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

NewsGuard Review

This 2021 NewsGuard review seems more relevant than many opinion pieces sourced on this article: https://api.newsguardtech.com/label/rawstory.com?cid=cb491c78-2077-4963-aba4-b46546893a6f

You have to have a subscription login to access it, but that's true for a lot of trusted sources used on Wikipedia -- including the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and many others. Spoonpassport (talk) 23:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism of Raw Story's Wikipedia Page

As requested by Wikipedia's editors in an email of Sept 9. 2021, I am writing to report vandalism and bad faith editing on The Raw Story's Wikipedia page by an editor with an agenda. The editor has spent months filling Raw Story’s page with citations that fit an exclusively negative narrative. He/she also reverted efforts to repair the page to a neutral balance. This individual’s political agenda has been documented repeatedly on his/her talk page: Dr.Swag_Lord,_Ph.d

Given this editor's agenda, we believe he/she should be blocked from editing the page and the page should be restricted to editorial review from experienced editors. The editor has been repeatedly cited for his/her behavior, including but not limited to a recent edit war and questionable edits. A detailed review of his edits to Raw Story reveal a prolonged and obsessive attempt to misrepresent Raw Story's nearly two decades of journalism and delete positive references to its work.

Good faith edits were attempted to Raw Story's entry without success. Editors attempted to add useful information and contextualize issues this editor introduced. Edits were meant to improve and build upon the content, rather than to delete criticism. If criticism was deleted, it appears to have only been intended to restore meaningful balance to the page such that it doesn't serve the agenda of a single editor with a personal vendetta.

To advance his/her attacks, this editor has gone to great lengths to find abstruse citations for claims where the original source no longer exists. There is no longer any Oxford Institute Junk News aggregator, so the editor found sources that referenced it, none of which provide evidence of Raw Story being junk news, and even some of which question its methodology. The editor also linked to a source calling RawStory a clickbait website, which also no longer exists (it was retracted). The editor linked to a self-published book by a member of the Republican National Committee, which was contested in one of the edits. The extremes to which this editor tries to find “valid citations” seems oddly personal and vindictive.

This editor's continued attempts to delete positive and meaningful references to Raw Story's work is coupled with a multi-month attack on Raw Story's content and its staff, (even going so far as to highlight a medical procedure performed on one of Raw Story's prior editors.) The fact that all of this editor's edits are negative should be suspect enough of someone determined to factually represent Raw Story’s work.

There are myriad problems with the editor’s citations added to Raw Story's page. Apparently unable to unearth enough "false claims," this editor began to blame Raw Story for errors of other sources. Citation 35 blames Raw Story for an article published by a Fox affiliate. Citation 38 blames Raw Story for a Guardian article; this would be like blaming the Times for reprinting an article by the Associated Press. Citation 39 is misleading, as Raw Story reported that the Inquisitr was inaccurate. Citation 42 references an alleged error made by Gawker. Citation 55 doesn’t reference Raw Story. Errors published daily by the New York Times are not labeled “false claims,” particularly when the Times relies on credible third-party sources, as Raw Story repeatedly did.

This editor also repeatedly deleted important information about Raw Story. Raw Story is hardly a “junk news site.” In fact, Raw Story is partnered with a Pulitzer-Prize winning former New York Times reporter, as part of an effort to expand the nonprofit’s important journalism. The editor deleted this, and instead inserted references like, “The Raw Story was the 9th most shared media source on Twitter by Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2016 United States presidential election.” Is not partnering with a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter more relevant than who Hillary Clinton’s supporters were interested in?

Raw Story was first known for reporting on closeted Republicans who sought to bar LGBT Americans from marrying or adopting children. For no apparent reason, this editor has also sought to erase Raw Story's role in LGBT history. In 2004, Raw Story reported on the closeted the chairman of President George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, Ken Mehlman. It reported further that Bush's campaign sought to prevent newspapers from reporting on their senior staffer's sexuality, by lying outright. Mehlman, who came out as gay in 2010, superintended one of the most homophobic campaigns in U.S. presidential history, and would go on to be instrumental in passing gay marriage legislation in New York State. Raw Story also reported on closeted California Rep. and former House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA), a gay congressman who endorsed efforts to bar LGBT Americans from adopting children.

Efforts to disparage Raw Story have surfaced in lockstep with our focus on white supremacist extremism, critical original reporting that should be part of Raw Story's page. Raw Story's reporters have risked their lives to cover white nationalist protests. The “Proud Boys,” which appeared on Americans’ radar following the failed Capitol Hill attack, have been the subjects of Raw Story’s original reports for years. Since 2018, Raw Story has warned, through completely original content, of the growing menace of anti-Semitic, anti-government extremist groups – the same groups who would later organize and lead the Capitol insurrection. Such original reporting can be seen in Arun Gupta’s October 19, 2018 exclusive Here’s the truth about the pro-Trump “Proud Boys” and their connections to neo-Nazis, Arun Gupta’s November 20, 2018 exclusive “Damn straight I support white pride”: Far-right organizer Haley Adams embraces white nationalism in exclusive interview, Jordan Green’s December 12, 2020 “Anybody got a bazooka?” Proud Boys wreak havoc on DC as Mike Flynn and others rally Donald Trump loyalists, Jordan Green’s December 13, 2020 A “rise in white supremacy”: Black pastor alarmed by Proud Boys night of violence and vandalism in DC, Jordan Green’s December 21, 2020 Proud Boys rallies result in violence against people of color -- but their driving ideology is hatred against women, Arun Gupta’s January 19, 2021 Years of impunity for right-wing extremists began with the Bundys and led to the failed Capitol Hill coup, and Jordan Green’s January 6, 2021 “We’re gonna kill Congress”: Trump’s far-right supporters promise violence at today’s DC protests.[1] This sampling of Raw Story’s original content do not represent idle partisan reports, but are high-interest and timely original works. Jordan Green’s “We’re gonna kill Congress”: Trump’s far-right supporters promise violence at today’s DC protests” was published literally hours before the Capitol attack.

This list of issues is not exhaustive. We kindly request that editors thoughtfully review this editor’s attacks on our page and prevent him from making further edits. We also request that the page be monitored, since we think it likely another editor will try to attack the page if this editor is banned from editing it.

We then ask that either we be allowed to re-add highlights of our original content, or that other thoughtful Wikipedia editors fairly examine and write about our entire body of work. Raw Story’s page should allow for criticism, but we don’t believe it should serve a single editor with a personal agenda.

Thank you for your time and thoughtful assistance.

Sincerely,

John Byrne, CEO/Founder, Raw Story

Artlover404 (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

[1] This is just an illustrative sampling of Raw Story’s original content. More articles by Jordan Green and Arun Gupta can be accessed at Jordan Green's Profile Page and Arun Gupta's Profile Page, respectively.

References

Hello and welcome Artlover404. Thank you for your very detailed comment and I'm sorry for any discontent this article has created for you. This is a lot to go through so let me try to address this in pieces.

1. First, it's important you police your comments about other editors and assume good faith. Talk pages are most effectively used by describing specific edits you'd like to see made to an article (e.g. "add XYZ", "delete ABC", etc.) instead of making allegations and accusations against others. This is critical to maintain our collaborative editing environment.
2. "The editor also linked to a source calling RawStory a clickbait website, which also no longer exists (it was retracted)." Do you have a reliable source that supports the statement this [1] citation from the Columbia Journalism Review was "retracted" as opposed to simply suffering WP:LINKROT?
3. "Given this editor's agenda, we believe he/she should be blocked from editing the page and the page should be restricted to editorial review from experienced editors." I acknowledge your opinion, however, our WP:BLOCKING policy does not permit the blocking of editors for this reason.
4. "The fact that all of this editor's edits are negative should be suspect enough of someone determined to factually represent Raw Story’s work." Wikipedia's policy on neutrality (NPOV) explains that "It is a frequent misunderstanding of the NPOV policy ... that articles must not contain any form of bias, hence their efforts to remove statements they perceive as biased. The NPOV policy does forbid the inclusion of editorial bias, but does not forbid properly sourced bias. Without the inclusion and documentation of bias in the real world, many of our articles would fail to document the sum total of human knowledge, and would be rather "blah" reading, devoid of much meaningful and interesting content." Often, when the only WP:RS about a subject are negative, the article itself will read negatively. That does not mean the editor is "out to get" the subject of the article, merely that they are obligated - by our policies - to include an accurate representation of what is written about the subject. For instance, Frank Gaffney and Alex Jones' articles read rather negatively because no reliable sources have written anything positive about them. If you can, however, suggest specific sources that cover therawstory.com in a positive light we could (and absolutely should), of course, include them.
5. "Raw Story was first known for reporting on closeted Republicans who sought to bar LGBT Americans from marrying or adopting children. For no apparent reason, this editor has also sought to erase Raw Story's important role in LGBT history. In 2004, Raw Story reported on the closeted the chairman of President George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, Ken Mehlman." This, like many of the accomplishments you'd like added to the article, is sourced to therawstory.com itself. The Wikipedia community has collectively determined the following: "[therawstory.com] is generally unreliable for factual reporting, based upon a pattern of publishing false and sensationalized stories." For that reason, therawstory.com is probably not a reliable source for coverage of therawstory.com, I'm afraid.

I hope the preceding was helpful in some way. I know it may not have provided the specific resolution you were seeking but, hopefully, it offers some ideas about specific edit suggestions you could make in a follow-up comment that would help mitigate any bias you perceive. Chetsford (talk) 18:43, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello Artlover404. Chetsford has already given you a very detailed response and so I won't repeat him. However I will add that any discussion of sanctions (blocks, page-blocks, topic bans, etc.) against Dr.Swag Lord would need to happen at a noticeboard like WP:ANI or WP:AE. I will also leave you a note on your talk page with some housekeeping details around conflicts of interest on Wikipedia. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:10, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Most of these complaints are unfounded. Here is the so-called "neutral" content your partners kept trying to re-insert in the article. As you can see, a good chunk of the content is either unsourced or sourced to the Raw Story's own website. Also, trying to add in random reporters who work at Raw Story into the lead seems rather promotional. When one of your partners asked me to insert a Colombia Journalism Review ref into the article, I happily did so. If you have other sources that are both reliable and independent of the Raw Story, please share them. Let me address some of your grievances

• citation 35 blames Raw Story for an article published by a Fox affiliate. I think you mean citation 37. Other editors and myself have already explain to your partners that Raw Story made erroneous claims about the knock-out game
• Citation 38 blames Raw Story for a Guardian article;this would be like blaming the Times for reprinting an article by the Associated Press: According to the source, At no time in the entire case were there “five feminist editors” up for a ban. But understandable outrage at the supposed misogynist move blew up on the Internet. And more stories followed—in Gawker, Raw Story, the Mary Sue, Inquisitr, and ThinkProgress—all sourcing the Guardian, spreading the myth of the fabled five feminist editors who were the only thing holding off Gamergate’s takeover of Wikipedia.
• Citation 39 is misleading, as Raw Story reported that the Inquisitr was inaccurate: According to the source, A number of web sites aggregated the story from the original Inquisitr article without independently examining its veracity, including The Frisky, IJReview, Raw Story, and Addicting Info.
• Citation 42 references an alleged error made by Gawker. According to the source, Occupy Democrats cited Raw Story, which in turn cited Gawker, which reported that O’Reilly had “lost custody” of his children in February 2016, but that article, again, did not suggest that O’Reilly was denied custodial care of the children due to violent behavior
• Citation 55 doesn’t reference Raw Story. According to the source, Corresponding Misinformation:...“Congressman erupts on Trump’s health ofcials for not correcting his ‘bizarre’ lies about coronavirus - Raw Story.”...“‘Stealth attack on Social Security’: Trump condemned for exploiting coronavirus crisis to push tax cut – Raw Story.”
• Errors published daily by the New York Times are not labeled “false claims,”. Of course they are. In fact, we have an entire article called List of controversies involving The New York Times which details some of the Times' falsehoods.
• Is not partnering with a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter more relevant than who Hillary Clinton’s supporters were interested in? That's not up for us to decide. The sources you provided are not independent of the Raw Story since the first source is a press release and the second source is a blog written by Byrne. In contrast, the source for who Hillary Clinton’s supporters were interested in comes from a study published by top researchers at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center.
• Efforts to disparage Raw Story have surfaced in lockstep with our focus on white supremacist extremism, critical original reporting that should be part of Raw Story's page. We do, in fact, include your reportage of white supremacy in this article. We included the time when Raw Story falsely claimed that the chief deputy of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office was a white supremacist who "plotted to abduct, rape and murder 'a black man or a Jew.'" Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:48, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Good morning. Thank you for your detailed replies.

David Cay Johnston won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting in 2001. Raw Story’s partnership was announced in an article at the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter’s nonprofit. The collaboration has provided a needed investment in more than a dozen hard-working journalists. “Partnering with Raw Story promises to provide DCReport with the resources we need to expand our hard-hitting investigative reporting,” Johnston said in the announcement. Good faith editors tried to include this in Raw Story’s entry, and it was deleted.

Johnston produced a five-part exclusive for Raw Story on the tax evasion of Charles Koch, a brother of the controlling shareholders of Koch Industries and Palm Beach neighbor of former President Donald Trump, showing how he used an elaborate series of tax evasion measures to avoid nearly $1 billion in US federal tax. Raw Story’s Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter revealed, with documents and emails, that the IRS had been notified by a whistleblower of the tax avoidance scheme in 2018. Raw Story’s reports were of critical public interest; indeed, Koch hosted a fundraiser for President Trump headlined by Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversaw the IRS and oversaw passage of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. The lawyer for the whistleblower who revealed the tax-dodging strategy mentioned Mnuchin by name. In addition, Raw Story's Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter disclosed that an IRS criminal investigation was abruptly closed months after Trump took office. Raw Story’s Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter further revealed that the IRS ignored documents showing that the billionaire Trump fundraiser avoided millions in taxes on his Cape Cod estate where he hosted a 2016 campaign event for Trump. The White House declined to comment on the report, and Koch’s representative said the whistleblower was fired for cause. Good faith editors tried to include this in Raw Story’s entry, and it was deleted.

Raw Story has been accused of inserting of inserting biased content into its page. Following is the “so called neutral” content offensive to the editor who has written most of Raw Story’s entry. The following was deleted.

• That Raw Story reprints content from the Guardian, Salon and Pro Publica
• That Raw Story employed a senior staff editor for the New York Times
• That Raw Story employed an NBC News Reporter
• That Raw Story’s former Executive Editor was Executive Editor for The Village Voice
• A citation from Politico stating that the Raw Story was conceived as an alternative for The Drudge Report
• That Raw Story partnered with a Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter in 2019
• The Raw Story's aforementioned Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter revealed the aforementioned tax evasion of billionaire and Trump neighbor William Koch
• That Raw Story originally focused on national security reporting and outing closeted gay political figures who worked to deny rights to LGBT Americans
• That Raw Story outed former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, after he left two messages on a gay sex phone line
• That Schrock resigned Aug. 31, 2004, after Raw Story’s report
• That Raw Story exclusively revealed, in March 2007, the location of a secret CIA prison in Poland that served as a core piece of the President George W. Bush's secret rendition program involving enemy combatants. (Raw Story’s report was the first to expose a European location of the U.S. black sites first revealed by Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, for which she won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.)
• That Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland between 1995 and 2005, later admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site at the location
• That Raw Story reported on the Ammon-Bundy led occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge in 2016
• That Raw Story’s reporter Jordan Green, who Raw Story hired to focused on white supremacist extremism and domestic terrorism, and who reported the day of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot that protesters were determined to kill members of the U.S. Congress, received a journalism award for his coverage of white supremacism for an article co-published with Raw Story

This is the offensive version of Raw Story’s page. It hardly shows that Raw Story was hardly trying to remove disparaging content. And while we question the inclusion of sources that don’t exist, this version contains both the spurious “junk news” and “clickbait” assertion, but is more neutral than the present version which cherry-picks and parrots an entirely biased version of Raw Story.

It appears there is no defense for “clickbait website” and “junk news,” since they have been removed from the Web, short of the Columbia Journalism Review and Oxford putting out a press release. These outlets appear to be cited because they are esteemed — and as reputable organizations, they reputably removed the lists as they were false. None of the sources linked to regarding these claims demonstrate The Raw Story is either of those things; they merely repeat a list to which Raw Story was erroneously added. Adding them at the very top of The Raw Story’s page, especially given the fact they don’t actually exist, is cherry-picking to support a predetermined conclusion.

Editors defend erasing Raw Story’s role in advancing LGBT rights, claiming Raw Story is not a reputable source. I wrote these reports. I published the recording of former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA) announcing his desire for to find a man in “very good shape, flat stomach, good chest, good arms, [and] well hung,” looking for someone to “go down on me” on a gay phone sex line; I revealed that former House Rules Committee Chairman and onetime possible House Majority Leader David Dreier (R-CA) had a secret relationship with his chief of staff Brad Smith; I reported that former Bush-Cheney campaign chairman and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman lived a secret gay life while overseeing a campaign distributing homophobic anti-gay flyers in the battleground state of Ohio; and I reported that Chris Crain, the editor of Washington D.C. gay newspaper, The Blade, covered up Mehlman’s sexuality and chose not to report the fact he knew that Bush’s campaign chairman was gay. “Chris would confirm it,” I reported, but “he wouldn’t give out any names [of his sources].” Blade reporters told me that Crain was part of this culture of secrecy because he was a colleague of Mehlman’s at Harvard Law School. Multiple White House reporters told me at the time that they knew Mehlman was gay but they were afraid — or rather, they couldn’t — report it.

This was seminal work. No one had outed members of Congress and White House staff in the press before. The White House press corps refused, preserving “decorum” to retain access. Reporters and editors covered up the fact that Mehlman was gay, despite the obvious public interest in a closeted gay man running the anti-gay Bush White House and the anti-gay Bush campaign. Mehlman would later become Republican National Committee Chairman, leading a party that sought to deny the right of gay couples to marry; the right of gay men and women to adopt children; and the right of gay men and women to serve openly in uniform defending the country they loved. Rogers and I pointed out that throughout this period of media silence, and closeted privileges Republican congressmembers enjoyed, gay teenagers continued to kill themselves at alarming rates, ostracized by their families, friends and classmates, under a reign of anti-gay discrimination propagated by conservative men who were themselves gay.

The outing of closeted anti-gay politicians and anti-gay staffers in Washington changed the game on Capitol Hill. Closeted individuals who were party to anti-gay legislation and anti-gay rhetoric now knew they had a good chance of being exposed, and as a result, they were less likely to be vocal or take votes they knew could result in their hypocrisy becoming public. It became perilous for gay men to be part of the conspiracy to deny rights to their own. And slowly and steadily the mood shifted in Washington, such that even the somewhat conservative Supreme Court decided that same-sex couples deserved equal rights in 2015.

Raw Story has offered myriad examples of its important original journalism. It continues to publish exclusive reports on white supremacy in the United States, for which it has received awards. Just yesterday, we reported on ex-Marines in a neo-Nazi terror cell who planned to attack the U.S. power grid as precursor to assassination campaign. It is beyond absurd that the only mention of white supremacy in Raw Story’s entry is regarding an error we made in picking up a story that appeared to be real by another website, which we promptly removed.

--John Byrne Artlover404 (talk) 14:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

References

• Hello, Artlover404. If you can, please provide specific text you would like to see added or removed from the article, along with WP:RS supporting those additions or removals. Wikipedia is a project maintained by volunteers and it is very difficult for us to translate descriptive expository and personal narrative into actual encyclopedia content. Also, when replying, please keep in mind that the Wikipedia community, across five discussions spanning 13 years, has almost unanimously determined that therawstory.com "is generally unreliable for factual reporting, based upon a pattern of publishing false and sensationalized stories." Therefore, sources about therawstory.com will need to be from outlets other than therawstory.com itself. Wikipedia operates according to a collaborative/consensus-building framework so no single person has the authority to unilaterally reverse this determination the community has made and any objection registered here is not one that could be realistically acted upon, unfortunately. Thanks! Chetsford (talk) 15:32, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Artlover404, I will once again attempt to answer your complaints, but, as Chetsford mentions, it's very difficult to respond to these essay-like inquiries. Please try to condense your grievances (possibly in bullet-point format).

• For all of your references, please provide sources that are independent, secondary, and reliable. Please do not cite stories from the Raw Story directly. Also, do note cite blogs written by Bryne or Raw Story's tax returns.
• That Raw Story reprints content from the Guardian, Salon and Pro Publica: This was neither sourced nor particularly relevant
• That Raw Story employed a senior staff editor for the New York Times: This is already included in the staff section
• That Raw Story employed an NBC News Reporter: Lacks proper sourcing
• That Raw Story’s former Executive Editor was Executive Editor for The Village Voice: This is already included in the staff section
• A citation from Politico stating that the Raw Story was conceived as an alternative for The Drudge Report: Will try to re-add this citation If you're referring to This Politico article (which is written by Rogers), then it does not verify that Raw Story was conceived as an alternative for The Drudge Report.
• That Raw Story partnered with a Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter in 2019: Lacks proper sourcing
• The Raw Story's aforementioned Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter revealed the aforementioned tax evasion of billionaire and Trump neighbor William Koch: Lacks proper sourcing
• That Raw Story originally focused on national security reporting and outing closeted gay political figures who worked to deny rights to LGBT Americans: Lacks proper sourcing
• That Raw Story outed former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, after he left two messages on a gay sex phone line: I think this did have proper sourcing but it seemed tangential to the Raw Story
• That Schrock resigned Aug. 31, 2004, after Raw Story’s report: See above
• That Raw Story exclusively revealed, in March 2007, the location of a secret CIA prison in Poland that served as a core piece of the President George W. Bush's secret rendition program involving enemy combatants (Raw Story’s report was the first to expose a European location of the U.S. black sites first revealed by Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, for which she won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.: Lacks proper sourcing. Also, the Pulitizer site does not mention Raw Story
• That Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland between 1995 and 2005, later admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site at the location: Lacks proper sourcing
• That Raw Story reported on the Ammon-Bundy led occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge in 2016: Lacks proper sourcing
• That Raw Story’s reporter Jordan Green, who Raw Story hired to focused on white supremacist extremism and domestic terrorism, and who reported the day of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot that protesters were determined to kill members of the U.S. Congress, received a journalism award for his coverage of white supremacism for an article co-published with Raw Story: Lacks proper sourcing Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Editors:

I want to acknowledge an overabundance of enthusiasm and frustration in my prior responses. While I maintain that recent edits to Raw Story's page have been one-sided, I acknowledge lack of awareness of some of Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines and hope to provide more helpful feedback going forward. Also, I want to apologize if my responses have felt like attacks on Wikipedia's broader community of editors. At no point did I mean to offend or attack Wikipedia's community or question its mission. Could you point me to where Wikipedia lists what sources it considers trustworthy and reliable, so we don't waste anyone's time?

Here are some starting points for useful citations that might be useful to your readers. I didn't want to overwhelm the page, so I've just included a few to start. Let me know if these are helpful and I can provide more.

Providing a reference for an earlier request

Raw Story's former reporters include Sahil Kapur, a national political reporter for NBC News

• https://www.cnbc.com/2010/12/02/bank-of-americas-risky-wikileaks-strategy.html
• https://www.nbcnews.com/author/sahil-kapur-ncpn1123791

Wikileaks Exclusive

In 2010, Raw Story was the first to report that Wikileaks had obtained the hard drive of a Bank of America executive, which caused the bank’s stock to drop and led to Bank of America buying up anti-Bank of America domain names. An associate of Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, later said he had destroyed some of the data to protect sources.

• https://www.cnbc.com/2010/12/02/bank-of-americas-risky-wikileaks-strategy.html (Sahil Kapur at Raw Story was the first to connect the dots)
• https://www.cnbc.com/id/40437169 (it has been picked up by Sahil Kapur at the Raw Story...)
• http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2010/11/30/wikileaks-next-target-bank-of-america.html (Read it at Raw Story)
• http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/12/bank_of_america_buys_up_anti-b.html (In a preemptive move against a potential Wikileaks attack...)
• https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bankofamerica-wikileaks/some-of-wikileaks-bank-of-america-data-destroyed-idUSTRE77L55P20110822 (to protect sources)

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

In 2010, Raw Story revealed that Fox News had rejected a television ad criticizing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a military policy that kept LGBT service members in the closet to avoid their dishonorable discharge.

• https://www.glaad.org/2010/11/23/palm-center-fox-wont-air-dadt-repeal-ad (Raw Story reports the Palm Center sent the ad to Fox News, but)
• http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/11/happy_hour_roundup_135.html (A public policy think tank says Fox News has refused to run their ad pushing for DADT repeal.)
• Original Raw Story article: https://web.archive.org/web/20101126115142/https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/fox-news-reject-ad-dont-tell/

In 2010, Raw Story discovered that the Washington Post had failed to disclose that one of its bloggers had ties to the Obama Administration. The Post then updated the blogger’s biography, and its Communications Director said that the paper would “update their bios and disclose any potential conflicts.” The report was highlighted by several conservative bloggers.

• https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/07/wapo-fail/185191/ (have they not disclosed that one of their bloggers also moonlights for the Obama administration?)
• https://www.imediaethics.org/washington-post-blogger-lack-of-disclosure-called-out-fixed-quickly/
• Original article: https://web.archive.org/web/20100703105216/https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/0702/washington-post-fails-disclose-blogger/

Siri and Abortion Clinics

In 2011, Raw Story’s Executive Editor discovered that Apple iPhone’s Siri could not locate abortion clinics in New York or Washington, D.C. Siri users in Washington, D.C. were instead directed to anti-abortion pregnancy clinics in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Asked why she was against abortion, Siri said, "I just am." Siri was able to find escort services and Viagra, Raw Story found. The story was picked up by The New York Times, PC Mag and NBC News.

• https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/siri-struggles-to-serve-up-certain-results/ (Megan Carpentier, the executive editor at a blog called The Raw Story, noted that )
• https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/apple-explains-why-iphone-wont-find-abortion-centers-flna118794 (As Raw Story's Megan Carpentier — one of the first bloggers to notice the abortion center search issue — points out)
• https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/siri-questioned-about-abortion-clinics/1906072/ "Why are you anti-abortion, Siri?" the app answered, "I just am," according to Raw Story.
• https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/americans-demanded-freedom-tracking-during-covid-then-grabbed-their-phones-ncna1273007 (Recall that early incarnations of Siri could find prostitutes and Viagra but not abortion providers.)
• https://www.pcmag.com/archive/siri-are-you-anti-abortion-291205 (The Raw Story, meanwhile, has helpfully put together a list of "things the iPhone Siri will help you get instead of an abortion.")
• Original article https://web.archive.org/web/20111201082422/https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/29/10-things-the-iphone-siri-will-help-you-get-instead-of-an-abortion/

Coverage of White Nationalists

Staff reporter Jordan Green’s reporting on the Proud Boys was cited in 2021’s “Pride and Prejudice: The Evolution of the Proud Boys,” by West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center, which noted “the Proud Boys act as a radicalization pathway for more mainstream political organizing into harder white supremacist and white nationalist spaces.” Green’s reporting has also been cited by Elon University and the North Carolina Triad City Beat. Raw Story's reporting on white nationalist Haley Adams was also cited by Rolling Stone.

• Jordan Green’s reporting for Raw Story about the Proud Boys was cited by West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center. (https://ctc.usma.edu/pride-prejudice-the-violent-evolution-of-the-proud-boys/);
• Elon University (https://www.elon.edu/u/nclnw/2021/01/16/nc-local-for-jan-13-covering-the-current-crisis-local-journalisms-role-resources/);
• and North Carolina’s Triad City Beat (https://triad-city-beat.com/memorial-day-reopen-rally-greensboro/)

Thanks, Artlover404 (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Artlover404, Thank you very much for making your edits more readable. A non-exhaustive list of sources Wikipedia deems reliable, unreliable, or mixed can be found here: WP:RSP. I'll go through your list when I am able to. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:57, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hi Artlover404 - you requested a variety of additions to the article that would credit therawstory.com with being used as a source in other articles. This seems, to me, to present two problems:

• The biggest problem is that many of the sources you cited to support your proposed additions have been determined by the Wikipedia community not to be reliable (e.g. News Busters, therawstory.com), or to be of limited unreliability for the topics you're seeking to cite them for (e.g. the Christian Post and abortion, Rolling Stone and political and social issues, etc.), or are reliable only for attributed statements of opinion (e.g. ThinkProgress), or don't even mention therawstory.com at all in the references you've provided (e.g. here [2], here [3], here [4], etc.; by my count, about half of the remaining references).
• Secondly, the requests for the addition of indiscriminate, routine information that does not add any encyclopedic value violates our WP:NOT policy. For instance, today, The Times of Israel sourced an article to The New York Times [5]. We are probably not going to add that fact to the New York Times WP article as it is merely routine information; a glancing mention that is insignificant and occurs many times each day. Our NOT policy says that "A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject." If a reliable source described The Raw Story breaking a story, or provided some analysis or context of its significance, that would probably be appropriate for the article. But one-sentence acknowledgments that a news website wrote a news article probably falls within our general practice of not including random, indiscriminate information.

That said, it's very possible another WP editor might add some of this but I, personally, am not comfortable doing so. Best regards - Chetsford (talk) 23:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Chetsford - I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, if mentioning your name flags you? I really appreciate your time in explaining this.

It would seem like Raw Story breaking the Siri story is material, and Raw Story was mentioned by name by multiple reliable sources? I included the RawStory.com articles just so that an editor could read the original story -- you'd mentioned that RawStory.com can't be referenced. I just didn't want an editor to have to go fishing in archive.org. I deleted also the conservative websites; again, I was only trying to provide a fuller picture. I'll keep in mind that Wikipedia doesn't hold Rolling Stone and Christian Post to be sources for news citations. Artlover404 (talk) 01:26, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

• Raw Story's former reporters include Sahil Kapur, a national political reporter for NBC News: I added this into the staff section. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:05, 19 September 2021 (UTC
• Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell In 2010, Raw Story revealed that Fox News had rejected a television ad criticizing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a military policy that kept LGBT service members in the closet to avoid their dishonorable discharge. I don't feel comfortable adding this in. The Washington Post article you cited doesn't even mention Raw Story. A hyperlink to the Raw Story is not good enough. The other source, GLAAD, is an advocacy group. We try to avoid advocacy groups as much as possible. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:17, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
• In 2010, Raw Story discovered that the Washington Post had failed to disclose that one of its bloggers had ties to the Obama Administration. The Post then updated the blogger’s biography, and its Communications Director said that the paper would “update their bios and disclose any potential conflicts.” The report was highlighted by several conservative bloggers. I don't feel comfortable adding this in. The one sentence Atlantic article you cited doesn't even mention the Raw Story. It merely links to the Raw Story. The other source, "iMediaEthics," is much more in-depth about the Raw Story's reporting. However, I am completely unfamiliar with the reliability of this source and I was unable to find any discussion of this source in our archives. Given that "iMediaEthics" is not notable enough for its own Wikipedia article, I doubt this source fulfills our due weight policy. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
• Staff reporter Jordan Green’s reporting on the Proud Boys was cited in 2021’s “Pride and Prejudice: The Evolution of the Proud Boys,” by West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center, which noted “the Proud Boys act as a radicalization pathway for more mainstream political organizing into harder white supremacist and white nationalist spaces.” Green’s reporting has also been cited by Elon University and the North Carolina Triad City Beat. Raw Story's reporting on white nationalist Haley Adams was also cited by Rolling Stone. I don't feel comfortable adding this in. The West Point Study doesn't mention Raw Story. All it does is provides a link to a Raw Story article in the notes section. This is the same deal with the source from Elon University. The sources actually have to explain what the Raw Story was reporting. Simply stating: "see this Raw Story article" is not substantive enough. The Triad City Beat article is better since it explains what the Raw Story was reporting. However, since Jordan Green is also an editor for the Triad City Beat, then this does not appear to be an independent source. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
• In 2011, Raw Story’s Executive Editor discovered that Apple iPhone’s Siri could not locate abortion clinics in New York or Washington, D.C. Siri users in Washington, D.C. were instead directed to anti-abortion pregnancy clinics in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Asked why she was against abortion, Siri said, "I just am." Siri was able to find escort services and Viagra, Raw Story found. The story was picked up by The New York Times, PC Mag and NBC News. I think it's fine to add this in. Since this was picked up by multiple sources, and since the sources note Carpentier was one of the first reporters to make this revelation, then I feel it is substantial enough to include in this article. Unless Chetsford or another editor has reservations, then I am prepared to make this edit. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:47, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, thank you for reviewing my suggestions, and for providing the link to Wikipedia's reliable sources. I appreciate your interest in including the Siri abortion story. Though it's limiting to require Raw Story be mentioned, I'll try and work through it with you. I've had a chance to do more research into Wikipedia's reliable sourcing process, and I found the Buzzfeed / Buzzfeed News discussion interesting. It provides some perspective. Jordan Green's work is quite different than our typical breaking news stubs.

Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d and :Chetsford: As Raw Story is now dubbed up top as a "junk" news site and clickbait website, I wanted to suggest including trusted Wikipedia news sites that have reported on Raw Story's work, as a way of providing some balance. Do you think this might be productive? Our original reporting has received broad coverage by numerous Wikipedia reliable sites that mention Raw Story by name. I understand now from your comments that its necessary for Raw Story to be mentioned by name, and for it to be material, so I think I can narrow what I have to fit your requirements.

Here is another story we broke, for you consideration.

In 2011, Raw Story’s Stephen Webster revealed that the US Air Force awarded a $2.8 million contract to a California firm to create fake online personas to target overseas adversaries as part of the US “War on Terror.” The contract provided for 50 U.S. military spies based out of a Florida base, who would each create 10 fake personas, then mix web traffic sources in an effort to maintain “excellent cover and powerful deniability.” Raw Story noted that an “army of fake people could fake a consensus opinion in online comment threads or suppress stories.” The Military Times noted that such a program, if used on Americans, would violate U.S. law, though the Pentagon said it would only be used overseas. A CENTCOM spokesman told Webster details of the contract were “classified.”

• https://web.archive.org/web/20110320183341/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8388603/US-military-creates-fake-online-personas.html (The contract was first revealed by The Raw Story, a US news website.) Behind paywall at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8388603/US-military-creates-fake-online-personas.html
• https://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/18/sockpuppets-and-screengrabs-make-for-more-fun-for-anonymous/ (broken several weeks ago by the Raw Story website ‘s Stephen C. Webster.)
• https://www.wired.com/2011/03/jihadis-next-online-buddy-could-be-a-soldier/ (Raw Story's Stephen C. Webster reports that the actual CENTCOM activity is "classified," as spokesman Bill Speaks told Webster, but an Air Force contract specified that the command wants to create "detailed, fictionalized backgrounds, to make them believable to outside observers.")
• http://outsidethewire.militarytimes.com/2011/03/02/pentagons-unleashing-social-network-warriors/ (The Raw Story notes that a army of fake people) Artlover404 (talk) 18:58, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Raw Story Rated as Left-Biased

This website is becoming more popular, and it should be reflected accurately, and that is as a news source with a left orientation. That assessment comes from the MediaBiasFactCheck, which rates it as "left" on their scale of "Left/Left-Center/Least-biased/Right-Center/Right" scale.

The MediaCheck website itself is pretty straightforward, though I think somewhat kind -- they rate the NY Times as only "Left-Center" when it is hard left these days, and Fox News as "Right" when it is far more right/center in any real universe (editorially right -- but news, more objective). This is the website source:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/?s=Raw+story

Since Wikipedia itself has fallen prey to the left in many of its articles, with certain administrator/editors colluding to skew political articles to their own viewpoint, somehow I doubt this recommendation will be well met, at least by them -- and they can and do manipulate the system adeptly. Still, I am giving it a shot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sychonic (talk • contribs) 14:38, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Biased attempt to hurt company

Here's the situation. A user who is, according to a Wiki employee, a known problem decided to political go after our site. We have no issue on the full disclosure of all information. But, as you can see from the August 9, 2021 version, this person is intent on destroying the company's reputation, not by adding new information, but by pushing positive information down the page and elevating negative information. Who can help with this. Why is this allowed to go when Wiki is aware (one only need look at the person's history to see just what is going on here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.244.209.131 (talk) 03:24, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Infobox request

Hello editors, my name is Nathalie and I work for Raw Story. I've spent some time reviewing the rules of Wikipedia and know that I can't make edits directly because of my conflict of interest, but I'm hoping that editors on this Talk page will find my requests acceptable improvements to the encyclopedia.

I have several requests I hope to implement, but for starters, I was hoping we could update the infobox. The Raw Story is owned by Raw Story Media, Inc. It was founded by John K. Byrne and Michael Rogers, as mentioned in Plus and The Oberlin Review. Could we remove John and Michael from the list of owners and add them to a Key people line in the infobox? I think this will make the infobox more aligned with other articles for news outlets. Please let me know! Thanks in advance for your help. Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:32, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nathalie at RS:  Done 1063774814 It should be noted that although some of the links you provided suggested Rodgers as a founder he is not actually listed that way in the website's Masthead nor in his Staff Bio page there. —Uzume (talk) 21:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the help, Uzume.Nathalie at RS (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

History request

Hello! Nathalie here again with another request. I have an alternative draft for the History section I was hoping editors might review. I hope you'll find this version is more complete and more accurate, fleshing out the timeline of the outlet through 2019 and clearing up the details surrounding the founding of the site, as well as offering a few improved sources while not changing the existing text too much.

Extended content

Byrne, the former editor-in-chief of The Oberlin Review, founded The Raw Story he graduated from Oberlin College in 2003. The outlet officially launched in 2004, with Rogers joining the site the same year. The Raw Story was a finalist in the Online News Association's Online Journalism Awards in 2008 in the "Investigative, Small Site" category. The site was nominated for the article "The permanent Republican majority", about improper partisan influence in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman following Siegelman's conviction for felony corruption. In 2017, The Raw Story was accepted as a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. In April 2018, Byrne and Rogers acquired AlterNet via a newly created company, AlterNet Media. The outlet partnered with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston in 2019, providing funding for Johnston and his outlet, DCReport. References

I won't make any edits directly because of my conflict of interest. Uzume, you were kind enough to review the last request I had, might you also take a look at this one? Thanks in advance for your help! Nathalie at RS (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Nathalie at RS, could you explain your rationale for removing the cited paragraph "An August 2017 study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society found that between May 1, 2015, and November 7, 2016, The Raw Story was the fourth and fifth most popular left-wing news source on Twitter and Facebook, respectively. The study also found that The Raw Story was the 9th most shared media source on Twitter by Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2016 United States presidential election.[18] During the election, The Raw Story was heavily shared by Twitter accounts operated by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm known for spreading fake news online.[19]"? I have marked your request as declined for now; after replying, please reopen the request by removing the "|D" from the {{request edit}} above. Spencer^T•C 23:03, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi Spencer, great question! I suggested we remove the Berkman Klein source for a few reasons. The main reason is that its inclusion seems like it goes against what Chetsford said when responding to our founder, John Byrne (I had some trouble getting a link to this specific response, but it's a few replies down in this discussion.

• "indiscriminate, routine information that does not add any encyclopedic value violates our WP:NOT policy"
• "a glancing mention that is insignificant...Our NOT policy says that "A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject.""

I've gone through the source, and Raw Story does appear on a few lists and in the infographics embedded in the study, but the outlet isn't discussed in depth at any point in the paper. It seems like including these sentences (about being shared by Clinton supporters in 2016 and being shared often on social media) in the Raw Story Wikipedia article would be a violation of that rule, though maybe I am misunderstanding it. I'd love another perspective! It also seems to me that people sharing Raw Story content isn't really part of our history, making that irrelevant to the article, but again, I am open to alternative arguments. I'd also note that the study is not present in the The Daily Beast's article, for example, despite the Beast also appearing in the study.

As for being shared by the Internet Research Agency, again, I'd argue that who shares our content is not really part of our history and isn't really encyclopedic content. I'd also note that the cited paper only mentions Raw Story in passing a total of four times and that it is a data report and was not peer reviewed that I could find. Here's an updated link to the report. I think it's also worth noting that NYU specifically separates their data reports from their scholarly/academic article (NYU website). This report did happen, but again, it really isn't part of Raw Story's history and I'm not sure a website being shared by the IRA on social media really holds a lot of encyclopedic value. I am a little concerned that its placement and the phrasing of the sentence is being used to discredit Raw Story for something that we cannot control, but again, I am open to other interpretations/discussion! Thanks again for taking the time to review, I appreciate your help, Spencer! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

 Partly done Hi Nathalie, I went ahead and partially implemented your suggested edit, doing the following: 1. Added additional detail regarding founding 2. Removed the Byrne quote from the MotherJones article since it does not mention The Raw Story and thus wouldn't be directly relevant to this article. 3. Added a revised version of the sentence about DCReport (I added some additional detail about what the partnership entailed, and removed "Pulitzer prize-winning" since that seemed a little flowery and wasn't directly related to The Raw Story.

I will leave the request open for another editor to review regarding the Berkman Klein Center and Internet Research Agency. To me, given the context of the whole article about how content has been used by different politically oriented groups especially during a major election, it seems relevant to me (in contrast with your statement that "people sharing Raw Story content isn't really part of our history"). Furthermore, a main motivation behind removal is due to concern that "its placement and the phrasing of the sentence is being used to discredit Raw Story" which is problematic. If you have alternative suggestions about wording and placement within the article - rather than carte blanche removal - I encourage you to make a suggestion about what you think would be better reflective of the sources. Best, Spencer^T•C 17:08, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Spencer, thanks for taking the time to explain! I think one of the bigger problems with the text in that section is the phrase "a Russian troll farm known for spreading fake news online." The direct implication there is that Raw Story produces fake news, which I and my coworkers naturally take issue with. Perhaps we could cut that phrasing and move the study to the Content section as a compromise? I really appreciate all your help with this. It's tricky and I'm trying to make sure I follow all the rules. Thanks! Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

That's fair. I have reworded this sentence; let me know what you think. Spencer^T•C 16:52, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

This works for me. Thanks for all your help on this. Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Staff update request

Hello editors, Nathalie here with another small request. I was hoping someone might help me update the Staff section? This will make it more up-to-date, accurate, and fix some typos. What I was hoping for is below.

Extended content

According to the site's masthead, the editor and publisher of the site is Roxanne Cooper as of June 2021. Other editors include managing editor Eric W. Dolan and senior editors David Edwards, Travis Gettys, Sarah Burris, Bob Brigham, and Tom Boggioni. Editorial staff are members of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. Notable former editorial staff include New York Times senior staff editor Michael Roston, NBC News political reporter Sahil Kapur, and former Village Voice executive editor Tony Ortega. References

Please let me know if you have any questions. Since I have a conflict of interest, I won't make any edits myself. Spencer, you were so helpful with the last request, would you be willing to take a look at this one? Thanks in advance for your help!Nathalie at RS (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done I'm not necessarily sure that all of the senior editors should be listed or "notable former editorial staff" without an article should be listed, but this is already in the article so I will make the change as requested. However, this could potentially be trimmed by another editor later. Spencer^T•C 16:56, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

That's understandable. I appreciate your help on this! Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Content section update

Hi editors, Nathalie here again with another request, this time to update the Content section. I was hoping we could update the opening sentence to read:

The Raw Story is an alternative news site that aggregates stories from around the web and produces original journalism.

References

I'd like to make this change (mostly the removal of the phrase "mostly aggregates") because Raw Story does a significant amount of original journalism and it really isn't accurate to say that we are mostly content aggregators. This change also rescues the Palm Beach Post source, which had a broken link. Most other sources refer to Raw Story as an "alternative news" site, however, I understand that editors may prefer to keep language about content aggregation present. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thanks in advance for your help. Nathalie at RS (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Untitled.docx, I noticed you made an edit to the article. Might you be willing to look at this request? I'd really appreciate it! Nathalie at RS (talk) 20:51, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done Looks good, I've made the revision. Feel free to ping me if you need any more help. Untitled.docx (talk) 00:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the assist! Nathalie at RS (talk) 18:29, 17 March 2022 (UTC)