Talk:MintPress News

Accurate use of sources?

'A media adviser and business strategist for MPN is Kate Hindes, a veteran journalist, "an industry leader, national author and keynote speaker on emotional integrity and authenticity in today’s online media."[citation needed] With over 15 years of published experience from running regional magazines to leading newsrooms, Kate-Hindes is fluent in: "Long-form Journalism, Copywriting, Proofreading, Ghostwriting, Communication Strategy, Biographies and Brand Platforms," according to GirlMeetsGeek. Mnar Muhawesh raised "her startup capital, which is currently covering all of Mint Press’s costs" from her connections to the nonprofit world in Minneapolis, MN'

when you go to the Colombia journalism article I don't think it says covering costs 'from her connections to the nonprofit world in Minneapolis, MN' it says - "As an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas, he also has links to the nonprofit world. Muhawesh says her father’s Minnesota business connections allowed her to raise her startup capital- which is currently covering all of Mint Press’s costs. She declines to name investors, saying that they choose to remain anonymous.-

it seems to me this got elided a bit in the re-telling -

and is the material from girl meets geek relevant - who is kate HIndes - has she been introduced to the article via RS - 'she speaks on 'emotional integrity and authenticity' - ffs, lol, etcSayerslle (talk) 19:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

now we are getting three paragraphs or something abuot kate hindes and her entire CV - can't isabellabeab be banned as a SPA with a pov pushing agenda and not being a Wikipedia editor in the sense that an editor is someone who edits articles - not,just one article and that in a stupid pov way. just my opinion. Sayerslle (talk) 18:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The article talk page is not the correct place to discuss topic bans of users. Please take to the appropriate noticeboard if you feel it is warranted. I agree the content is overcoverage; it has been removed twice now so if it is re-inserted without discussion that should go to WP:EW/N. VQuakr (talk) 20:11, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

@Vquakr and @sayerslle, if you recall I listed several other news organizations' wikipedia pages and we came to an agreement that this page would be written in a similar manner. I'm trying to do that, but Sayerslle keeps insinuating that this Odeh man is behind the whole operation and discredit it. I've looked into the site, and yea they had one big Syria story that came with a controversy - so did all the other organizations. This is a news organization, or course it's going to have a controversy, and it is rightly cited, but it is given due weight, in it's own small section like all other controversies are cited on other wikipedia pages for news sites. My only concern here is Sayerslle's insistance that Odeh is behind Mint Press, which is clearly not the case even based on all the articles. There is a media adviser Kate Hindes, why do you keep removing her. All other news wikipedia pages I cited lists all the board of advisers. And why the obsession with Iran and Syria? The website doesn't even really have coverage on that. The editor is clearly anti-war, so it's not suprising she's calling for better understanding and relations with Iran and anti-US intervention in Syria. But the question is why is that the only thing that Sayerslle keeps focusing on here? There are more quotes that describe her anti-war perspective? isabellabean (talk) 4:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The content on Hindes was removed as overcoverage. Per WP:BRD, the next step is to discuss the reasons on the talk page, not attempt to force it in repeatedly. The coverage on this page should reflect the coverage that can be found in reliable, secondary sources - the Syria/Gavlak article received a relatively high amount of coverage in secondary sources, so it should be mentioned prominently in this article. VQuakr (talk) 07:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

No-one said it was fact

Mnar A. Muhawesh @MnarMuh · 4m ago @Brown_Moses of course I do, that report was based on interviews with locals and their allegations. No one said it was the fact.

aren't the locals real people? did they not say it was 'fact'? was it all always just phantoms.loathsome. Sayerslle (talk) 15:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

'Navstéva ‏@Navsteva · 56 mins

Hersh in no way contradicts the @MintPressNews story on Ghouta. It corroborates it. @MnarMuh'

blimey. Sayerslle (talk) 16:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC) [1] - mintpress criticises the press - but is it open about its own alignment? Sayerslle (talk) 19:39, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

This section is not easy to read. How is this supposed to improve the main article? Please reword this section so one can better understand this. Thank you. Esperion (talk) 13:06, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

depuffed

Tried to stick to actual notable "stuff" -- for example an award given by a person to one of his students is not intrinsically notable, nor is material not picked up by reliable outside sources. The Syria story may be interesting and notable, however. Collect (talk) 12:27, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Overall, I think this was an improvement. Another editor recently reverted all the depuffing, which I just restored. I do not think it should be added back in without clear consensus here. VQuakr (talk) 22:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Why is this page focused on Syria and negative coverage?

The page is heavily focused on a single Syria article compared to the thousands of articles published by this site about different topics. It seems like editors of this page are trying hard to discredit the news organization by citing blogs and mostly negative articles. But from a basic search of this site, the editor and the writers -- Syria is not a main focus of their coverage. Online, Mint Press News is linked and referenced mostly for it's coverage of Israel and Palestine, US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and South America and corporate takeover of American democracy. It's hard to edit this page when most of what is referenced is a handful of negative articles, where there are tens of neutral articles to choose from. Compared to other news organization's Wikipedia pages, this page does not fairly depict the organization. It looks like one article about Syria and it's controversy behind it is hijacking the edits. I suggest creating a page about the Syria article, since this website has published thousands of articles on other topics. I've made a few edits to allow for a neutral voice but it's up to the editors of the page really to keep it neutral, and not so negative. A search online for citations shows this website has good and bad coverage of itself, which is not unusual for any news organization. The question is why only focus on the negative here? LanceMinister39 (talk) 14:01, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Because secondary sources have largely covered this subject in relation to their Syria reporting. Per our policy on neutral point of view, we cover topics roughly in proportion to their level of coverage in reliable, secondary sources. Feel free to add content on other aspects of their coverage if it has been reported by sources unrelated to MPN. VQuakr (talk) 03:20, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Understandable, thank you for your reply. There are supportive and more neutral sources as well. I'll work on linking to those as well. As for the last section of claims and counter claims, isn't it against Wikipedia policy to cite citizen blogs or editorials? Anyone can write those, but that doesn't make them a legitimate source. If the page is to cite them, there are other neutral and supportive blogs that were written too that are not even cited here. There seems to be questioning about funding on this page as well, but I looked on the site and there are sponsors listed and featured. On the youtube page of the Mint Press News, there are multiple videos thanking sponsors, even naming them, and lists how many citizen sponsors support them. Doesn't that counter the blog claims of not disclosing funding in that last section? LanceMinister39 (talk) 11:02, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Which blogs are you talking about? News sites host WP:NEWSBLOGS which are not considered self-published sources. If you are talking about BuzzFeed, it had recently been inserted and I agree with its removal in this case. VQuakr (talk) 16:50, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

That resource helped, thank you. This helps my point in which I'm referring to the citizen blog by Terry Burke. She is not a journalist nor an expert but a concerned citizen that wrote to the editor and got the letter published in the citizen blog section of the Star Tribune. It's cited in the claims and counter claims of pro assad coverage. This I think should go. In addition to this, Brian Lambpert of Minnpost makes an accusation that funding is not disclosed, but the website and youtube channel of the Mint Press News lists sponsors. The website even lists a sponsorship coordinator. In the information about the website page, it states that the Mint Press is a for profit business start up. The Daily Beast, Huffington Post and the New York Times are all for profit organization but none of their financial backers are listed. Making a claim is one thing, but his claim contradicts the fact that the sponsors are listed on the site, not to mention the advertisers. He also says the writers of the Mint Press News are far flung bloggers, but on their author pages, they are listed as investigative reporters who write for Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, Xinua News Agency, the BBC and more. How does one differentiate between negative blogs vs. factual ones? My concern is that the blogs that are listed do not accurately depict the website and this doesn't seem to fit the "neutral" coverage wikipedia is intended to give. LanceMinister39 (talk) 13:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

That is not a citizen blog, it is an opinion piece. Citizen blogs are self-published; the Burke article is published by the Star Tribune. We are required to provide context for the source, which we do, but there is no reason to exclude it from the article. Re Youtube as a source for sponsors, see our policy on original research. VQuakr (talk) 17:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

That makes sense. However, for the funding, sponsors and advertisers are listed on the website in the "about us" page not just the youtube videos. How do we address that on this page? LanceMinister39 (talk) 13:45, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The "claims and counter-claims" section isn't great. It is barely relevant enough for the article. As Lambert says, the feud between Burke and Muhawesh is "a skirmish on the edges of the local media universe." Burke's opinion piece has one paragraph on MintPress, and it focuses on the sarin story detailed in another section. Muhawesh's response needs to be cited if the Burke sentence stays, but not the sentence on Obama. If Lambert hadn't published his piece, I would say the dueling op-eds weren't worthy of the article. Maybe just include the story through his statements, while keeping the op-eds as citations. As it stands, the last two sentences are weak. You can barely call the paragraph coherent. BTW, there is another local source to the sarin story linked in MinnPost. [2]. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 20:11, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. The Syria coverage from several years ago is hijacking the page, it's already been addressed in the Ghouta coverage section, and seems repetitive. The Mint Press News did receive attention for it's Israel and Palestine coverage, actually much more than it did on Syria. My suggestion is to add a new section on that, since the site received far more coverage for it's reporting on Israel's Operation Protective Edge than this Syria. In addition, the star tribune's op-ed and Brian's blog contradict the facts about the website. How do we address this here? LanceMinister39 (talk) 11:45, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

We'll see if @VQuakr: has input on removing or pairing down this section. Why don't you post the URLs of the coverage of MintPress here. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 20:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

The article is pretty short overall. I suggest we add content based on what is available from secondary sources for their more recent work in Israel/Palestine, then step back and evaluate the article as a whole for balance. I agree in general that the section can be improved. VQuakr (talk) 23:36, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Length is not a good reason to leave the section as is for now. And that's not how NPOV works. The section should be evaluated on its own. Do you think it is relevant enough for inclusion in the article? - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 11:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I guess I disagree with your first three sentences. Our NPOV policy, specifically the section WP:WEIGHT, directs us to report viewpoints in rough proportion to their coverage in reliable secondary sources. By definition, that requires comparison with sources that cover other aspects of the topic to assess (and while we are identifying those sources, let's go ahead and add the content sourced to reliable, secondary material to the article since that should be done in any case). There have been some vague assertions that thisthere is additional coverage, but not enough, IMHO, to make the assessment. Hence the suggestion in my previous post. The mention of article length is even simpler - if this article was over ~100kB in length we could discuss whether it was editorially favorable to trim some sections for length, but we are not close to that point now. To address you last question, I am not convinced that the section is so irrelevant that it should be removed at this time. VQuakr (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand you. What does "evaluate the article as a whole for balance" mean? And I think you ended your sentence "By definition..." prematurely due to the parenthetical. "To assess" what? - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 18:35, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Sure, it was a wordy sentence. Rephrasing the sentence that had a parenthetical, hopefully this parses better: "Assessment of compliance with WP:WEIGHT requires the use of secondary sources to verify that the depth of coverage is roughly proportional to the level of coverage in those secondary sources." VQuakr (talk) 02:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I still don't know what "evaluate the article as a whole for balance" means. As for the depth of coverage of the claims/counter-claims, the long paragraph has citations of two primary sources and one local online post. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 14:59, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

In context, I meant it as a synonym for "assess compliance with WP:WEIGHT". None of the sources in "Claims and counter-claims of Pro-Assad coverage" are WP:PRIMARY (not that primary sources would be automatically problematic), and I didn't think we were only discussing that paragraph. VQuakr (talk) 19:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Of course Muhawesh's op-Ed is primary. And Terry Burke is an activist on Syria. Neither is worthwhile enough to use in the article. How about writing a short paragraph in the History section using the MinnPost article? Having a section on this minor dispute elevates it to the same level as the Sarin story, which attracted lots of world-wide press. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 04:15, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

LanceMinister39, so, do you have any articles to share? - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 04:15, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

On "they are famous for 1001 Arabian Nights stories!"

While this allegation is sourced, the allegation itself is hearsay and does not merit inclusion in this article.

It is irrelevant for an understanding of this news agency that this weapons inspector thinks so.

It should be deleted.

In its place it can be considered to write a section on a catalogue of actual stories that are poorly sourced, if these news stories exist.

If this allegation pertains to the story about the chemical attacks, please present the factual basis why this weapons inspector thinks the sources are wrong.

Esperion (talk) 13:07, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

It is not irrelevant. It is a shining light of authoritative , informed opinion about the worth of mintpress reporting, a shining light of illumination in an otherwise fairly useless article full of self serving and self sourced puffery about a useless propaganda 'news' source. A single sentence makes it clear that informed , intelligent opinion, regards mintpress (IRGC aligned), as a joke. Mug punters may think it an 'alternative' news source. Educated observers know different. 78.144.80.158 (talk) 18:15, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

List of citations

We're not going to list all the places they've been cited. It's not encyclopedic and it lacks and context. (What were they cited for? Critically or not?) It smacks of promotionalism as well. Neutrality^talk 01:44, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

And this new source ("mediabiasfactcheck.com") is a sketchy primary source with no indication of reliability at all. The authors aren't journalists or scholars; they are apparently random folks with no clear methodology. It's apparently one freelance writer guy ("Dave Van Zandt") with no apparent credentials or experience, riffing on the basis of his personal opinion. If you think that is an acceptable encyclopedic source, go over to Wikipedia:Reliable sources noticeboard and the folks there will disabuse you of this notion. Neutrality^talk 01:57, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

List of citations is extremely relevant and gives context to the impact the organization is having and its footprint. "It smacks of promotionalism" does not ring true, as those publication have no beneift to the organization, those publications are otherwise unrelated to Mint Press and do to benefit Mint Press in any way.Bleepsnap (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

No. Look at the articles about other websites. We don't list "where they are cited" because we are not a directory. See WP:NOTDIRECTORY. It's also trivial. And at least one of these "citations" is to a work published by a vanity press. It's clearly promotional and you need to self-revert yourself. Immediately. Neutrality^talk 04:11, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

A list of citations isn't editorially favorable here and using it to establish impact would violate WP:SYNTH. If you want to write about the website's impact, then cite a reliable source that discusses the impact. I had a look at mediabiasfactcheck.com and agree it doesn't look reliable. VQuakr (talk) 05:25, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

CAMERA and charges of antisemitism

I would like to see at least one other RS report on this controversy besides CAMERA. For instance, it appears the MintPress Youtube channel was never down, or if it was, it was very temporary. Youtube I'm okay using accusations of CAMERA in the article, just with other supporting sources. I would also like to see the charges be directed at MintPress, rather than American Herald Tribune, If Americans Knew, and Veterans News Now. Below is the text I removed. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 00:23, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

MintPress News has been linked with hate sites such as The American Herald Tribune and If Americans Knew. In 2016, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) alerted Yahoo of this affiliation, prompting Yahoo to remove MintPress News from its news feed, with a Yahoo spokesperson saying, "MintPressNews does not uphold the editorial standards of Yahoo and was immediately blocked on January 21."

"The mystery of MintPress News" article corroborates MintPress News's anti-Israel agenda, which was further confirmed by CAMERA. The blood libel cartoon, also reported by CAMERA, indicates a clear-cut case of antisemitism. The cartoonist himself, Carlos Latuff, was employed/contracted directly by MintPress news, and there is good evidence to charge him with antisemitism as well, having participated in Iran's holocaust cartoon contest, a contest decried as antisemitic by multiple sources and news outlets. (The Wikipedia article on Carlos Latuff supports these charges.) If CNN were to employ a cartoonist known for antisemitism it would be a scandal. Additionally, MintPress regularly used information from the American Herald Tribune and If Americans Knew, which has been labeled by the Anti-Defamation League as antisemitic. Can you imagine if CNN featured sponsored content from a KKK website or the Daily Stormer? Even once?

In conclusion: the blood libel cartoon is clearly antisemitic and reported by CAMERA, therefore conforming to Wikipedia's No Original Research policy. And then we have three independent sources, MinnPost, CAMERA, and Yahoo agreeing MintPress's coverage is anti-Israel to antisemitic. We also have direct employment of a cartoonist known for antisemitic work. To respond directly to your objection, association is enough in this case; no respectable news source would consider doing any of the above, and the association is not a one-time error, but a repeated occurrence. MintPress must be held to the same standards as any other news source.

People wishing to learn about MintPress News have a right to know of its antisemitic association.46.244.29.114 (talk) 11:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

How about you suggest an edit that you feel is fair? Rather than deleting the entire section, you could modify the part you find objectionable. If we cannot come to an agreement, which I suspect is likely, I suggest requesting arbitration to prevent an edit war--I have revised the text several times, adding additional sources from multiple third parties, and addressed your concerns, but it doesn't appear you are willing to compromise. In the meantime, I'm going to revert and will leave it to you correct any perceived errors.46.244.29.114 (talk) 14:36, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Let's separate the content in section "Claims and counter-claims" from your new "Antisemitism" section. The claims section is based on one editorial that directly deals with MintPress in one paragraph. MintPress responded with another editorial and one small MN outlet covered the "controversy". I've always felt the whole section is WP:UNDUE, but was okay with the previous version. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 20:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

For the new "Antisemitism" section, please request arbitration. I asked for one additional RS that reported on MintPress' Facebook post on the cartoon. You have not provided one. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 20:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration seems premature. RfC would be a reasonable next step if the IP insists the section should be added based on one source. VQuakr (talk) 20:40, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Re-added the paragraph on Carlos Latuff and blood libel and reversed weasel-word changes such as "complained" in the sentence about Yahoo. Removed the section on MintPress's self-reported concerns over attempts to censor it -- this is unrelated to the charges of antisemitism.176.231.76.138 (talk) 08:02, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Have re-added this section again, I noticed someone had removed it again without discussion or explanation, and re-added their own opinions which I have also rectified. Antiallesaktion (talk) 00:55, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

"Without discussion or explanation"? Um, you are replying to a section in which there is discussion about the section, and agreement from multiple editors that inadequate sourcing has been presented to warrant this level of coverage. Stop edit warring. VQuakr (talk) 00:40, 21 October 2018 (UTC)