Talk:Daniel Seaman

Israeli Civil Service Commission

This text has ben removed from the article:

• On 11 March 2007, Haaretz newspaper reported that the Israeli Civil Service Commission is investigating foreign journalists' accusations that Government Press Office Director Daniel Seaman has treated them improperly and enforced the procedures for receiving a press pass in an inequitable manner [1].

I checked the source and this is a fair summary of it. However I cannot find any article that gives the disposition of the investigation. By itself, an investigation is not especially noteworthy. It is the outcome of the investigation that matters. Does anyone know if this was either dismissed or pursued? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

After a thorough investigation that included dozens of journalists and an attempt at political manipulation by a member of the prime minister's media staff (she was later relieved of duty), all of the accusations were dismissed. In December 2007 Seaman however, received an administrative reprimand by the deputy director general of the prime minister's office for remarks he made in this article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtStEngPE.jhtml?itemNo=774653&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&title='Foreign%20reporter%20challenges%20GPO%20over%20visa%20policy

'&dyn_server=172.20.5.5#top

basically a tap on the wrist which will probably be reduced after an appeal.

removed

• Interview on Fox and Friends during Gaza War
• [2] The Foreign Press Association had petitioned Israel's High Court to get unfettered access to the Gaza Strip.
• Denies that government policy banned foreign reporters from Gaza from 8 November 2008 through 21 Jan 2009, and denigrates the media as "crybabies...unwilling to make effort" who act as "a figleaf for Hamas"

Links no longer work.

needs to be worked into the article:

• "The boycott threat was issued by the director of the GPO, Danny Seaman, in response to a program broadcast from Lebanon that covered the welcome-home festivities for Kuntar. In it, the head of Al Jazeera's Beirut office, Ghassan bin Jiddo, heaped praises on Kuntar, for instance by calling him a "pan-Arab hero."

"[3].

Okip 02:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

What offensive and racist comments?

The article says that he made "offensive and racist comments," but it provides no evidence. How is telling the truth racist? The Japanese were just as bad as the Germans during World War II. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.252.49.199 (talk) 09:34, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

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WP standard procedure: quote reliable source indicating URL and it's kosher - that was done, see Ravid's Haaretz article. Argue with that. Besides, comments against Arabs (eating each other), Palestinians (too stupid to grasp basic facts), Japanese (have to shut up forever about Hiroshima and suffering under its long-term effects because of their own previous WWII crimes) are hate speech and very offensive by any definition; if that's "racist" or not is semantics. Saeb Erakat should "go f*** himself" needs no comments.
PS: as usual with D. Seaman fans: please do bother to sign, anonymous edits and comments are never taken serious, and for good reason.Arminden (talk) 17:50, 9 June 2015 (UTC)Arminden

Anyone from WP monitoring this page?

Almost ALL cases of "fixing" critical comments on this page are done by ANONYMOUS editors using very similar language... In the past, Mr. Seaman did some corrections himself (he self-identified by commenting openly in the first person singular). That's against all WP guidelines. Anyway, DS is a very contentious public person and not all the means used by him are 100% kosher, although he is sure to disagree, so I would appreciate a moderator paying attention.

"Kol Israel" means "Voice of Israel" in Hebrew. MANY times its name is rendered as "Voice of Israel" -- just google for "Voice of Israel"+"Kol Yisrael" together: 4000 (!) hits. "Kol Israel" has been and still is looking into the issue of this very obviously CONFUSING name choice, to say the least, on LEGAL grounds. I'm not making anything up. In Europe it would long have been taken to court. Imagine a French station not affiliated with "Voice of America" broadcasting under the name "Voix d'Amerique". It would never fly. In Israel, with the right connections, it can work, at least for a while. All else is semantics.

For the record: I have no personal issue with Mr Seaman. That would be impossible as I don't know him personally. Ethically, from ALL that's available in the media by & about him, I certainly do and I reserve the right to edit this page within the frame of WP rules, as far as I understood them in spirit (would take ages to study them all in letter).

Knowing about the massive effort and financial means mobilised by the Israeli government and associated organisations (of which Mr Seaman was supposed to become the coordinator before being fired), of letting paid young "volunteers" anonymously do the online work which is usually done by a state's Ministry of Propaganda, I am bringing here my tiny contribution at keeping things a bit more balanced. Unlike others, I'm not getting paid for it. Nobody ever does as much harm to any country as misled zealots - and I don't mean myself, although Mr. Seaman would again disagree. Being watchful towards them is the best lesson one can learn from history. Arminden (talk) 15:45, 12 July 2015 (UTC)Arminden

How can tags be removed?

Hi. There are two tags at the top of this article:

• This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. (June 2015)
• The neutrality of this article is disputed. (June 2015)

I strongly disagree with both, and I am not alone. If I may, I will quote a very respected senior editor, Nishidani, who wrote here [n.b.: the "correction" was made by the man in case, Nishidani; I still do insist he's deserving of most everyone's respect, but won't revert his edit - out of respect]:

"I don't see anything problematical in the controversies section. I've crosschecked all of those remarks and they are in the Israeli mainstream reportage, in books and the foreign press, and Seaman was fired because of this kind of remark, for which he was notorious. I don't know of many I/P BLP pages which don't minutely register comments by subjects which have stirred anger or controversy. What is unusual of the Seaman page is that he was employed to promote and manipulate images, was active on that page, which just repeated his CV from Facebook, and efforts are being made to keep it cleansed of the usual full record." Nishidani (talk) 20:18, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

So, what can be done to close this issue? The arguments against these tags are:

• THE RIGHT TO KEEP A WP RECORD OF MR. SEAMAN'S PUBLIC ACTIVITY
  

Mr. Seaman is a public person, very active in the media, thus his political statements become very much a matter of public interest - and cannot be considered private.

• THE RIGHT TO QUOTE HIS OWN STATEMENTS
  

The most incendiary statements quoted here were penned by Mr. Seaman himself, which he never denied.

• THE QUALITY OF THE QUOTED SOURCES
  

All comments to his public activity, particularly his policies and statements, are quoted from serious, mainstream sources. Mr. Seaman might hate the guts of every editor of the Haaretz newspaper, but that doesn't make Haaretz less of an excellent source to quote from. If he has any issues with Haaretz, he can always sue the newspaper; he never did, so WP is NOT the right place to contest the validity of the Haaretz assessments of Mr. Seaman's activity.

This said, I don't see why "[t]he neutrality of this article [should be] disputed", nor why "[t]his biographical article [would need any] additional citations for verification."
There are public personalities who are, by their own choice, very conflict-prone, who make inflammatory statements, support policies strongly opposed by many, and once in a position of some power, make decisions which push to their limits the concepts of legality, democracy and free speech. It is their right to do so. But it is not their right to stifle the reactions aroused by their conscious political decisions and public actions. Wikipedia is in no way obliged to be more cautious about dealing with them than a serious media outlet. If I write "s_ _ t", it will stink back, and it's not someone else's fault.
So, these tags have been gathering a lot of dust. Who knows how to deal with them? Thanks, ArmindenArminden (talk) 17:48, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

They can be removed, on consensus, which means if not reasonable arguments for their retention are forthcoming. This place works by patience. I never unduly worry about tags when they are posted. I note these were never posted when the page consisted of a WP:PROMO rehash of Mr Seaman's Facebook page or CV, but only when some 'controversial' statements were added. So, there's no hurry. Let's wait for further discussion.Nishidani (talk) 17:56, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Nishi, thanks. I see we're on the same page regarding Mr Seaman and his many seamanship skills. Patience I'll have to learn.
PS: I know nothing about Japanese vernacular, but Pajero is one of Mitsubishi's best- and longest-selling cars, and to Spanish speakers its name means, if you would excuse my French, wanker. 'He' maybe means the-man-who-brought-the-fire-from-the-guano-cave in Old Swahili or Inuit, or "well seasoned Oxbridge moonshine" in 18th-century Rotwelsch. I wouldn't go down that path. Cheers, ArmindenArminden (talk) 18:40, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Normally tags are removed after a discussion, which is started by the one who added the tags, is concluded. In this article's case however Wikipedia:Tag bombing occurred. On a normal article the disruptive editing would be reverted but because this article is related to Israel-Palestine...well your ability to edit depends on how your point-of-view aligns with the powers that be. Sepsis II (talk) 02:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

"The powers that be" - there weren't supposed to be any. Not on WP. So let's continue the process. Nishi explained here that the removal is the result of a discussion - well, I've started that discussion, set up a bulleted list of pros & cons. If anyone has anything to say, please do so, point by point. Adding LOGICAL items to the list is always welcome. Once the new pros or cons run out, the conclusions are drawn and followed up on, those contested tags can be removed.
This doesn't change anything about the facts of the process so far:

• NOBODY objected the LACK OF OBJECTIVITY and LACK OF SOURCES as long as the article was a copy of Mr. Seaman's own CV, with more superlatives in it than North Korea's national anthem.
• The tags were arbitrarily introduced (and re-introduced) with NO DISCUSSION (bombing you call it?) by people who neither edited, nor made themselves familiar with the topic. It just apparently aggravated their highly subjective perception, and while lacking arguments, they just acted.
• The Seaman supporters are running the process like any tricky lawyer would, disingenuously and with no scruples: a vast majority of the edits are done anonymously, tend to blank major parts of the article, as blatantly selective as Orwell's 1984 censors - and with NO effort put into arguing why they're doing it. Short edit summaries are the most one gets.
  

This being the full and objective truth, there is nothing but polemical or shrewd legalistic counter-arguments to make here. This all is but a proxy conflict between hasbara-to-the-bitter-end and Israel-is-right-by-definition advocates, and those who think the best way to destroy a cause is to leave the extremists in charge of it (those are the adversaries of the former, NOT the born enemies of the cause, who are an unchanging factor of the equation). This can never be solved anywhere, and this here is only a shadow boxing match reflecting the real-life one. That much honesty is needed. Cheers, ArmindenArminden (talk) 09:33, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Nearly all of that is correct observation. But the procedure is to (a) open a discussion (b) address objections, if any and (c) proceed on the basis of a majority opinion. (a) has been done (b) we're still waiting for objections...On a final point or two, if one can find two sources for each incident in the controversies section (try to restrict the search to Haaretz, Ynet, The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, and Walla!, it would be better (ii)keep the summary of each controversy short and sweet, and put, wherever sources give them, Seaman and his defenders' responses. This shouldn't be hard.Nishidani (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Nishi. I really should be doing something else, so anyone reading this should feel free & invited to have a go - provided it's in perfect good faith. Cheers, ArmindenArminden (talk) 14:59, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Improving article accuracy

Hi guys, I stumbled upon this while researching Israeli "hasbara" and it seems that some work is needed here. If I have some spare time I'll try to improve it (although it is not high on my priority list, to say the least). So please feel free to talk and see how we can best improve this.

Cheers!PasterofMuppets (talk) 17:00, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

"Offensive" Comments

Hi, I removed the word "offensive" (used to describe Seman's remarks about Japan) in the opening paragraph because it is subjective and in my opinion does not abide by Wiki's NPOV standard. This edit was reverted Arminden because: "Objective, not subjective. He was SUSPENDED by his own gov't BECAUSE it was out of place. See source!"

Firstly, calling something "offensive" is clearly a subjective description. Something can't be objectively offensive. Quite simple.

Secondly, I don't see any proof from the sources that the Israeli government called the statement offensive. Saying because he was suspended therefore it must be offensive sounds logical - but you still need a valid source. There is no indication what the government thought of the statements, or if they were simply reacting to outside pressure.

Thirdly, it's important to note that the two sources are opinion pieces and not articles/editorials. I think that should be further examined in the future.

But in any case, for the sake of NPOV the word "offensive" should not be included. The whole point of Wikipedia is to provide the reader with the unadulterated facts and let them arrive at their own conclusion based on the facts. What he said is included in the article and that's enough. The readers could decide if it's offensive of not. PasterofMuppets (talk) 12:20, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

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Profoundly disagree. If a disciplinary administrative measure is taken, it's clearly a result of a thorough consideration. Nobody who is a close associate of the ruling gov't is removed from an important office for "neutral" comments: Seaman was offensive and rude, anything but diplomatic, and instead of receiving the promised higher position, he was removed from office. Nothing "subjective" in sight.

I got used to either Seaman himself, or his associates, starting by removing single words, and then, if no counter-action was taken, removing EVERYTHING critical from the article. I have little time now to deal with this one (important) word, but if you intend following this pattern, I'll make very sure that I find the time to put everything back in where it belongs - as discussed more than once and decided on this talk page. PUBLIC figures having key roles in "public DIPLOMACY" (the usual translation for hasbara) can't ask for privacy when making obnoxious, undiplomatic (to say the least) remarks on SOCIAL networks. Peace, Arminden (talk) 09:10, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I am sorry if this sounds a bit crass, but I am a bit worried that you might be personally invested in this article and it is swaying your objectivity. "Seaman was offensive and rude," is a very personal statement. Listen, I don't know if you know Seaman, if he wronged you, or what the deal is. All I am asking is to please try to view this article as you would any other article - NPOV. Thank you PasterofMuppets (talk) 18:43, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

PasterofMuppets, careful...

Your slice-by-slice approach can only go so far. You are using strictly formal criteria to remove facts you yourself know perfectly well are correct. Once I or someone else will find the time to find better sources, these facts will be back in the article, so do yourself and everyone else a favour and desist from continuing in this direction. Thanks. Arminden (talk) 10:58, 11 October 2017 (UTC)