On 3/29/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I'm troubled here by the shifting argument. First
it's from a
tabloid. Except it's not from a tabloid - it's from a reputable paper
that did original research. But then when it's pointed out that NOR
isn't relevant to this either it becomes insignificant.
Still not the case - if we're having an article on the guy, this is a
sensible thing to put in it.
I wholly agree. We don't have a policy of avoiding scandalous or
unfavorable information about living persons - we have a policy about
being strict about our sourcing.
This story was published by a paper that yes, is alternative and local
- but not a tabloid by any means - and was republished by other
alternative-press papers including the Village Voice. These are
sources that exercise editorial judgment and fact-checking, and they
are big enough to be vulnerable to lawsuits if they publish libellous
untruths, just like the major press.
Stories like this rarely make the major press simply because they are
not the kind of stories they're interested in. In my experience,
personal scandal like this is generally not reported in the local
mainstream press unless real-world consequences occur - criminal
prosecutions or dismissals, for instance - and even more rarely in the
national or financial press unless the individual is of national
significance and the scandal has grown to have substantial real-world
consequence. The tabloid and celebrity press is generally not
interested in businessmen unless they're stupendously rich or a media
whore a la Donald Trump.
IMO, this is using BLP as a hammer to beat scandal and negative
stories out of Wikipedia, even a well-sourced one, and I suspect that
it is done out of a belief that Wikipedia should not be reporting on
such - that it is 'unencyclopedic'. I don't think that point of view
has strong consensus.
-Matt