Template:Did you know nominations/Post-truth politics

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:08, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Post-truth politics edit

(

)

... that post-truth politics, identified as a tactic of Donald Trump and Brexit campaigners, was also seen in the 17th-century pamphlet wars that fueled the English Civil War and American Revolution?

ALT1: ... that post-truth politics has been credited with the rise of climate change denial, the 9/11 Truth movement, Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn, Scottish nationalism and Brexit?
ALT2: ... that post-truth politics, identified as a tactic of Donald Trump and Brexit campaigners, has been blamed on false balance and social media clickbait?
ALT3: ... that post-truth politics has been blamed on false balance and social media clickbait
Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/ACE and Buntine Oration

Created/expanded by Smurrayinchester (talk). Self-nominated at 15:50, 11 July 2016 (UTC).

No issues found with article, ready for human review.
- ✓ This article is new and was created on 13:55, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- ✓ This article meets the DYK criteria at 8855 characters
- ✓ All paragraphs in this article have at least one citation
- ✓ This article has no outstanding maintenance tags
- ✓ A copyright violation is unlikely (16.0% confidence; confirm)
  - Note to reviewers: There is low confidence in this automated metric, please manually verify that there is no copyright infringement or close paraphrasing. Note that this number may be inflated due to cited quotes and titles which do not constitute a copyright violation.
No overall issues detected
- ✓ The hook ALT0 is an appropriate length at 191 characters
- ✓ Smurrayinchester has more than 5 DYK credits. A QPQ review of Template:Did you know nominations/ACE and Buntine Oration was performed for this nomination.

Automatically reviewed by DYKReviewBot. This bot is experimental; please report any issues. This is not a substitute for a human review. --DYKReviewBot (report bugs) 23:34, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

This article does a very good job of being neutral and citing reliable sources on a topic which is potentially controversial. My only suggestion would be that the article focuses mostly on the British application of the term, and the American side could be expanded a bit more, but that is beyond the scope of DYK review and would not preclude a promotion. I have confirmed the bot analysis; spot checks reveal no close paraphrasing. I however think the hook could be better; the connection to 17th century pamphleteering just seems a bit out of left field, and I think there are more punchy hooks in the article, if you'd be willing to suggest one or two more. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 23:49, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

@Antony-22: Thanks! I've added a couple of alternative hooks (and I've also tried to add a bit more about US use of the term). Smurrayinchester 09:46, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

We have to be extra careful with this topic, as it is mainly applied to people and groups by their critics, and I would doubt that any of them would describe themselves as supporting "post-truth politics". Being that there are BLP implications, if a specific person (or, perhaps, group) is mentioned, there should be an in-hook attribution. Alternatively, the "Drivers" section contains material for hooks that would not mention a specific person or group.

One additional thing I noticed: the sentence "claims from the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign that the Democratic Party candidate selection was rigged towards Hillary Clinton" doesn't really fit as "post-truth" given the recent email leaks; even though the cited source supports it, it has become outdated by subsequent events. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 03:15, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: Pinging. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 22:20, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, I was on holiday and missed the ping. I tried to make a blurb based on the "Drivers" section. However, I worry it may be too bland. Smurrayinchester 07:31, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry also for the delay; I've been traveling or moving for most of the last month. The new hook is acceptable but you're right that it's kind of bland. Good hooks might be based on the first sentence of "Description" (repeating untrue talking points), or focusing on either of the low trust in major institutions or the social media filter bubble. I'd suggest hooks myself but then someone else would have to review them. Also, I have to check recent changes to the article for DYK compliance. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 05:09, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: Still awaiting new hook. Note that anyone can suggest them, not just the nominator. If I don't get suggestions in a week or so, I'll approve the existing hook. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 04:50, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

ALT4: ... that Conservative Member of Parliament Sarah Wollaston switched from supporting to repudiating the pro-Brexit Vote Leave group, calling its repetition of debunked claims "post-truth politics"? Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 21:34, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

ALT4 is supported by its source and within policy. I've copyedited it for clarity, and it is good to go.

@Smurrayinchester: Now that I've had time to dig into the article more, I notice that there is no treatment of the response by Trump/Brexit/etc. supporters to allegations of using post-truth politics. To satisfy neutrality, could such a discussion be added, perhaps a paragraph each for the American and British politics subsections? Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 22:54, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@Antony-22: Hey, sorry I've been AWOL here for a bit. I've had a search for responses from the Trump campaign and from the main Brexiteers (and also from a couple of other groups, such as Corbyn's Labour and the SNP) and I couldn't find any. It looks like by and large, people don't try rebutting the label itself (maybe sensible, since it is just a label, and one that is still mostly used in the Westminster bubble/inside the Beltway). So for instance, I found quite a few articles where Michael Gove reinforced his claim that the country doesn't need experts (most recently), but none where he addressed the "post truth" label. Smurrayinchester 08:21, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: I found several sources by Googling "not post-truth":

The idea of a 'post-truth society' is elitist and obnoxious (The Guardian)
No, we’re not in a ‘post-fact’ era (Poynter)
It's Always Been "Post-Truth" Politics (WNYC)
Fact check: This is not really a post-fact election (Washington Post)
The truth about ‘post-truth politics’ (The Spectator)

Plenty of sources to write a balancing perspective from; I'm sure there are more. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 03:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

@Antony-22: I thought you meant responses from the campaigns themselves. I've got some sources that rebut the general concept in there already - I'll pull them into a separate section to make them clearer, and add a few of the ones you identified. Smurrayinchester 07:21, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

OK, I've added them all except the Guardian one (which isn't a rebuttal of post-truth politics, but accuses "post-truth" politicians of elitism) and the Spectator one, which was already in there. Smurrayinchester 07:39, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I'm satisfied that this satisfies verifiability and neutral point of view. ALT4 is approved. I suggest that it would be wise to delay this until after U.S. Election Day on Nov. 8 since it is an inherently political topic. For the same reason, the promoter should give the article a once-over to make sure there's nothing I've missed; the more eyes on it, the better. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 04:03, 2 November 2016 (UTC)