Talk:Roger Cohen

Objectivity

Barely an objective article. Words like "virulently anti-Israel" should and could be replaced by different wordings like "critical of Israel". The same goes for "minimized the oppression..." and others. This article is more than clearly biased. Perhaps it's good for the blogosphere but not for wikipedia. If one is unable too control one's political ideas, perhaps one shouldn't edit Wikipedia pages. 94.237.41.78 (talk) 11:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Iran writings and responses

This is the biography of a living person. The "Iran" section is too long (taking up 70% of the article's space), with too much weight and emphasis given to the opinions of a few partisan critics, some of which includes personal attacks on the subject. In my opinion, the section violates WP:Undue weight and WP:BLP. It should be summarized and re-written. --NewLionDragon (talk) 21:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

It is obviously a violation of policy and we are even supposed to delete the whole article if it can't be fixed:

"If the subject of the article is notable, but the existing page consists primarily of personal attacks against that subject and there's no good revision to revert to, then the attack page should be deleted and an appropriate stub article should be written in its place. This is especially important if the page contains biographical material about a living person." - Wikipedia:Attack page

Another issue is that Rabbi Wolpe's blog has dubious admissibility, see the mention of blogs on WP:RS. Astarabadi (talk) 02:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

One way to improve the balance would be to quote more of Cohen's response [1]. Astarabadi (talk) 03:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe there is WP:Undue weight on this "Iran writings" section given that so little of the rest of his career has been explored in the article. But I don't think that the "Iran" section constitutes a Wikipedia:Attack page more so than a controversy. And do page's like Richard Chesnoff's or Rabbi David Wolpe's on The Huffington Post clearly fall outside the realm of WP:Reliable sources?ShamWow (talk) 16:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The Huffington Post is a reliable source in and of itself.

The material in question is not under editorial control of the Huffington Post but only hosted by it. Both the pages in question are personal blogs in both name and nature. Chesnoff's blog is clearly inadmissible; this is precisely the sort of thing that the rules about blogs are meant to exclude. Admissibility of Wolpe's blog can be debated since Wolpe was a participant in the events he discusses. I deleted it more because it is wrong to fill up a section with repeated similar criticism, especially when no attempt was made to provide balance. McKay (talk) 06:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that the answer to this weighting problem is to expand the rest of the article until that section becomes proportionate. The Squicks (talk) 06:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

JTA is a reliable source. This is a reliable incident. As well, the article is relatively long and claiming that a few sentences is too much weight does not seem right to me. The Squicks (talk) 19:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

JTA is not a major newspaper or an academic source. Furthermore, the meeting in question was hardly reported by the mainstream media, and not notable enough to merit a whole paragraph here, not to mention that the current wording of the paragraph also violates "no interpretation of sources" clause of WP:OR. You are violating WP:Undue weight and WP:SYNTH on the biography of a living person. I strongly advise you to undo your edit. --NewLionDragon (talk) 19:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

First off, you should seriously check your tone and stop making things personal.

Second, once again, JTA is a reliable source. That story in particular was also printed in Forwards here and other Jewish-related news sources. The idea that Jewish-specific news sources must be ignored because they are not as popular as Gentile newspapers is simply silly. The Squicks (talk) 23:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The American Jewish Committee also commented about the incident in a press release. The Squicks (talk) 23:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, JTA is a reliable source by Wikipedia standards. And The Forward is a reliable source by any standards. Astarabadi (talk) 11:45, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I reverted the reference to 'Times of London' before, but it seems like an acceptable compromise to leave the 'London' word there but not as direct part of the name of that paper. The Squicks (talk) 03:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I feel there is no problem with the weight of critics to source. Very few people moved forward to defend Roger Cohen on the article, not even fellow Times writers. Additionally, a number of those blogs and people would not considered a reliable source per sourcing rules. If a well-known politician called for the end of the income tax for example, and no one stepped forward to defend the notion, but everyone stepped forward to complain about the article for legitimate reasons, then by definition any articles on it will outweigh the source. This is hardly the first time Roger Cohen has stated opinion that large numbers of people disagree with including Cohen has said that Iranian government does not want to kill Iranian Jews, his critics say they want them to convert and make life miserable until they do. One of the worst incidents I ever saw regarding Roger Cohen was a Jewish Iranian woman stood up to explain about her opinion which was oppression and was shouted down by the moderator, she did not even get to ask the question the event was so biased against her never mind a response from Cohen. Other times Cohen has defended the current leader of Sudan over the Darfur province. Also, he has stated that Jews (he said Jews, not Israelis I assure you) should ignore Iranian president Ahmadinejad's(sp?) rhetoric. The guy has some strange priorities in my opinion for the middle east editor of the United States paper of record. 68.228.51.49 (talk) 07:57, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Cohen is "anti-Israel" and "pro-Iranian nukes"

This is opinion, not fact. It's also highly inflammatory, and a BLP violation. I can see that editors have tried to have me blocked for pointing this out. But a BLP violation is a BLP violation.

The best thing to do is to quote Cohen himself, and to link to his articles/statements/appearances themselves. We should let the reader decide their opinions. Here, we must stick to facts. The Squicks (talk) 03:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Any energies spent debating the issue should be directed here. The Squicks (talk) 03:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletions

I'm sick of the stupid edit warring about this rather than talking.

Anways, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive64#Roger_Cohen

There was no consensus of editors in any direction. Three editors supported the inclusion of the paragraph and three did not. The discussion was not resolved. If it is to be resolved, please post here. The Squicks (talk) 20:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, but the BLP discussion seems resolved to me. The policy of WP:COATRACK is clear, and three administrators commented that the edit you are trying to add is a violation of WP:COATRACK. Your refusal to accept the consensus on BLP board is puzzling to me. --NewLionDragon (talk) 21:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Opposed to including the paragraph is Rd232, you, and RegentsPark.

In support of it is Astarabadi, me, and Whyzeee.

That's not resolved at all. The Squicks (talk) 21:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, that past BLP notice was primarily about A SENTENCE that has since been removed and resolved. Whereas the entire paragraph of material was another issue that was brought up at the notice and was not resolved. Please understand the difference. The Squicks (talk) 21:10, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

"...At this time and afterward, questions arose about whether or not Cohen's pro-Bosnian Muslim/pro-Sarajevo and anti-Bosnian Serb beliefs crossed the line, making him more of an advocate than an objective reporter..."

• All of Cohens allegations in respect to concentration camps and ethnic cleansing proved true and as far as I remember reporting on the truth is the very definition of journalism. So even if those "questions" arose in the brief time between Cohens articles and the red cross/ICTY investigations that proved them true- they have been silenced with cold hard fact since then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.36.199.205 (talk) 20:31, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

"Position changed"

Cohen has taken several different positions on different Iran-related issue, so we can not equivocally say that "he has changed his position on Iran" , which "position" are we talking about here? Is he advocating military action against Iran? Is he retracting his comments on Iranian Jews? The answer is no and no. This edit [2] is is a clear violation of WP:OR and WP:Weasel, since it is an OR interpretation and characterization of Cohen's latest comments. Please stick to what Cohen actually says, without any interpretation, and let the readers decide for themselves what it means. --Kurdo777 (talk) 23:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

He wrote "I erred", which is not something that there is room for interpretation about. He changed his opinion. The Squicks (talk) 07:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:

1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:52, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Education

An MA degree from Oxford, about the time Cohen graduated, is an honorary degree -- given to those who graduated with an undergraduate degree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxbridge_and_Dublin)

The article needs to clarify whether it refers to the honorary degree or to a degree awarded for postgraduate studies. At present, it reads as if Cohen studied for two postgraduate degrees. If this is correct, it should be written with the proper nomenclature (Master of Studies). Does anyone have more information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.218.243.152 (talk) 11:50, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified (January 2018)

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What College?

"would have entered College, the scholars' House, but was told that a Jew could not attend College"

What College? ---Dagme (talk) 16:34, 28 May 2019 (UTC)