Talk:Mark Halperin/Archive 1

Archive 1

TPM Rant

Goethian, come back with some better sources indicating how this one particular instance is notable enough for inclusion. Otherwise it be gone and it stays gone. One sentence that precisely one partisan commentator saw fit to whine about does not a noteworthy addition to a WP:BLP make. CENSEI (talk) 15:58, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. An opinion published on TPM is not particularly notable, nor it evidence of sufficient notability of the Halperin commentary. Anyone that thinks otherwise should state their reasons here on the talk page. DiggyG (talk) 07:40, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

"An opinion published on TPM is not particularly notable." TPM is the winner of a Polk Award and is widely considered to be among the most important sources of online news. The fact that your own political leanings are clearly to the right should not cloud your judgment about this. Increasingly, wiki is seen as the Fox News of the internet. Comments like yours only reinforce this opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.240.130.251 (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is the first thing in his personal section the statement that he was born into a Jewish family? I would think the most prominent thing about his biography is that he is the son of the well known Morton Halperin, who had a prominent career in government as a foreign policy expert, who was wiretapped by the Nixon Administration because of his opposition to the way the war with Vietnam was being conducted. He also was head of the ACLU- well you can read the rest of his bio. Just seems like it makes more sense to mention the family relationship first, especially since his father is so prominent. Do Wikipedia biographies usually mention the religion of the person's parents? What's the relevance? Iful (talk) 23:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sentence needing sources

I'm moving the following sentence from the 2006 elections section here for discussion:

This was the first of several predictions that earned Halperin a reputation for inaccurate prognostication.

In a WP:BLP, a negative claim like "reputation for inaccurate prognostication" needs strong sourcing (and Glen Greenwald, dailykos.com and HuffPo employees are not acceptable in this context!). Producing a lot of examples of Halperin's bad predictions is not enough (and violates WP:SYNTH); we would need an authoritative source using "reputation for bad predictions" or equivalent words.

Does anyone have a good source for this claim? Or even a not-that-great source we could discuss? CWC 13:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Decrapectomy

On taking a closer look, I noticed this article contained quite a lot of unsourced or badly-sourced controversial claims. I just did a big edit to remove that stuff (as required by WP:BLP), while making some minor improvements. I do not claim that the result is all that great, only that it conforms to Wikipedia's rules more closely. Further improvements welcome, particularly finding good sources for claims I removed and putting those claims back.

Please note that blog posts, HuffPo opinion items, Daily Kos items, etc attacking the subject of a BLP are never acceptable as sources. In fact, it usually violates WP:EL to even link to them! (OTOH, mainstream media reports mentioned in those posts/items are usually quite OK ... hint, hint.)

BTW, I suspect that some of the claims I removed are correct. That doesn't matter; we need to following Wikipedia's (extremely cleverly designed) rules. Cheers, CWC 16:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

As a casual reader I found this article to be unhelpful because, instead of explaining who Mark Halperin is and what he has done, it attacks him. It reads like it was written by someone who has it out for Mark Halperin personally.

P.S. De-Crap-Ectomy is redundant

Article about one statement by Halperin should merge here

I have suggested that the new article "I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday" should merge here. It is a WP:FORK of this article, in my opinion. Halperin is not notable enough for a separate article to exist about one episode of his work life. Sharktopus ^talk 12:05, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support per my comments at Template talk:Did you know/"I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday". rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:42, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose The incident garnered sufficient media attention that it's notable on it's own. As the coauthor of Game Change and a senior political analyst, Halperin is notable enough to have a fork.Smallman12q (talk) 21:53, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support zero real world notability, just TV infotainment echo chamber nonsense. --Daniel 22:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
• Merge; nothing of substance in the sources, not even worth much of a mention here (based on past examples). --Errant ^(chat!) 22:58, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
• Ah ha. Um, User:Smallman12q created the article "I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday" as a joke. People, please, do you have to be told this? Hahaha. Herostratus (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
• Merge. Summarize and merge, as covered in "Mark Halperin#MSNBC suspension". Otherwise that separate article violates 7 issues: WP:NOTNEWS, WP:GNG, WP:POV, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:HUMOR, WP:SARCASM, WP:SEOBOMB, etc. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• • All over, nothing to see here. Article was speedy-deleted as per the comments of Wikid77 above; now Halperin even has his job back. Sharktopus ^talk 23:03, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Japan/Youth For Understanding material

An IP editor has twice restored unsourced material to this BLP. (No, it is not sourced by the Walt Whitman High School citation.) Furthermore, when re-adding it, the editor has undone other fixes to the article. Please take care to revert more surgically. AV3000 (talk) 23:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

With All Due Respect (TV series)

To add: With All Due Respect (TV series). ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:15, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

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Sexual harassment in employment is not "private conduct"

Sexual harassment in an employment setting is not "private conduct." It is a civil wrong and not private when it involves employment. Thus, the clause "After allegations were made about his private conduct" should be changed to "After allegations were made of sexual harassment in the workplace." This change would comport with wikipedia's guidelines since factually, the allegations are of sexual harassment in employment. Leaving it as it is perpetuates notions that workplace harassment is somehow between two people, perhaps of equal power, rather than acknowledging it as the wrong, usually based on power differentials, that it is. "Private conduct" usually involves a consensual relationship, not one in which a powerful man is propositioning or wrongfully touching less powerful women in the workplace — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.126.98.177 (talk) 15:51, 26 October 2017‎ (UTC)

Entirely reasonable points, now adjusted more or less as you suggest. Philip Cross (talk) 16:06, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Sexual harrassment allegations

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/25/media/mark-halperin-sexual-harassment-allegations/index.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.251.69.173 (talk) 07:14, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Does anybody know what the response of his girlfriend, Karen Avrich, is to these reports of his sexual harassment? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.96.42.184 (talk) 10:04, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure she's thrilled. No source, however. Tvoz/talk 03:34, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Political orientation

User Hans100 made an edit to this page, changing "is an author and senior political analyst" to "is a conservative author and senior political analyst." The revision should be reverted to the original version, as there is no evidence provided that Halperin's political orientation is conservative. Suddenly pinning a "conservative" label on Halperin's page immediately following his sexual misconduct allegations, when that label had never been used previously would appear to be political bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.151.220.21 (talk) 10:34, 27 October 2017‎ (UTC)

Fixed issue. Philip Cross (talk) 10:53, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

grammer- "here he became a bar mitzvah"

Is this correct grammer? "here he became a bar mitzvah at Congregation Beth El". It's the same wording as the source but, assuming the grammer is incorect, should we not reword it to make it so?

btw I haven't participated in many talk pages so let me know if I'm doing this wrong! Thesowismine (talk) 14:57, 2 June 20017 (EST)

First, you're right. From a grammatical standpoint, the text ought to have read simply "he became a bar mitzvah at Congregation Beth El". Just not quoting the whole sentence from the source fixes it - leave the "here" at the beginning out and you've repaired that part of it.

I can't find the source you refer to in our article's reflist, and don't feel like going back through the article's history for that. Further, someone seems to have cut the knot and deleted the text you speak of from our article.

Just in case someone adds it back, let's talk about a subtler issue with the source text: According to the article "What Does Bar Mitzvah Mean" in the "My Jewish Learning" Web site Mr. Halperin became a bar mitzvah by attaining the age of thirteen. Having a bar mitzvah ceremony doesn't change that. Like the rite of Confirmation in Christian sects, it merely marks the age at which one becomes fully morally responsible.

But when the source text mentions a specific place where Halperin became a bar mitzvah, it errs. He may have had his bar mitzvah ceremony there, but on his thirteenth birthday an observant Jewish boy "becomes a man" in the sense that he's now fully responsible for his actions from a religious standpoint. The ceremony, a relatively recent addition to Jewish tradition, is optional to "becoming a bar mitzvah". The best way to avoid the issue is deleting the text entirely, because it's not an especially notable episode in anyone's life to have attained the age of reason - unless the subject of the article (for example) wrote a notable book or essay about his coming of age.

Friendly advice: "grammar" is how you spell the word. But you did make a good call on the poor grammar of the source text - congratulations! loupgarous (talk) 13:46, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Problems with this article

There are still a series of things cited under 2006 elections and 2008 elections that are highly questionable with respect to their notability. It seems that someone has gone through and cherry picked statements that he made that proved not to pan out, in order to make him look bad.

Particularly for an active television pundit who needs to make random opinions on how the election is going every day, a prediction that Bush would be over 53% soon, a prediction that didn't pan out obviously, is not particularly notable at all, is it? Unless there are multiple third party reliable sources indicating that this statement is an important part of his career that had some real impact, it should be removed.

Similarly his comments on the Drudge report: unless there is significant third party reliable coverage of his remarks, I fail to see how we can in good conscience include them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Having received no response for several days, I have removed the sections in question. To re-iterate my point here: the problem with the sections wasn't so much that they weren't well-sourced but that they covered incidents that don't appear to be notable in any way. He's a television pundit who makes statements and predictions every day - some of them turn out to be wrong, but unless they generated some third-party press coverage, cherry-picking things he said that didn't pan out is WP:UNDUE and not encyclopedic.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the diffs of your edit on 20 January 2011 and I'm puzzled that you deleted this:

"On November 21, 2008, at a Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election, Halperin called the election media coverage "the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war. It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage." In a 2010 interview on The O'Reilly Factor, Halperin pointed out the use of subtly racist language in headlines on the website Drudge Report, and accused the site's creator, Matt Drudge, of exploiting racist sympathies, though he also added that Drudge was not himself a racist. As evidence, he cited a headline on the Drudge Report that read "Obama Goes Street: Seeking 'Ass To Kick.'", saying of Drudge: "he knew full well that [the headline] was provocative and racial" and that Drudge "knows how to tap into the sentiment of a lot of his readers." For those reading this who haven't seen it, this is a clip of that O'Reilly Factor interview of Halperin

The first Halperin quote was not only notable, it shows him taking a stand against media bias favoring Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential race - which was a principled stand, irrespective of his personal political beliefs. I have trouble seeing that as not notable, coming from someone who's worked as a political analyst for two of the big three broadcast television networks in the United States. Most serious readers of political news in the US are aware of Halperin's memo while political analyst at ABC News telling writers to handle Kerry's distortions differently than Bush's in the 2004 Presidential race. The quote you deleted balances the reader's view of Halperin by showing that in the 2008 Presidential race he was vocal on the issue of media bias in presidential elections. It gives the reader a more positive and complete view of Mark Halperin.

The second Halperin quote you deleted was Halperin calling Matt Drudge out on what he thought was dog whistle racism in a headline in The Drudge Report about Barack Obama. That accusation may or may not have been valid (having "ass to kick" isn't just a "black thing" anymore - Ted Kennedy boasted he was going to kick Jimmy Carter's ass in the 1980 Democratic primaries, and he wasn't notably dark). But Halperin's comment on the subject showed he was vocal about the risk of media bias against as well as favoring Barack Obama.

I suggest we place that material back in. Not only is it not critical of Mark Halperin, it changed my mind about Halperin and made him much less of an ideologue than I thought he was based on his work at HBO. I'm sure at some point Mark Halperin will survive #metoo, and we ought to give our readers as balanced a perspective on his work as we can. loupgarous (talk) 14:36, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Laughably inept edit and reversion

"He was born in Bethesda, Maryland, or Cambridge, Massachusetts"

So which is it? Does anybody have a clue? Is it considered better to have an obvious inconsistency displayed than a ridiculous error? Why is that? Perhaps the whole sentence can be removed until someone can confirm where this guy was born. Perhaps ClueBot (who BTW missed the ironic edit before the reversion) could ferret out Mark's place of birth. (Yeah, I know what ClueBot is and his very high opinion of his ability to detect fake edits. It's a wonder to me he missed this one.) Style-wise this is very un-ecyclopedic. The inconsistency should have at least been noted in the text and some effort made to explain it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.72.243.156 (talk) 23:08, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

See WP:Conflicting sources. AV3000 (talk) 00:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, so what? To repeat: The inconsistency should have at least been noted in the text and some effort made to explain it. Bad style can't be justified by a policy. 'Policy' doesn't write articles.50.72.187.226 (talk) 06:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

So why aren't you suggesting an improvement rather than complaining? AV3000 (talk) 03:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Because I am merely a tocsin.50.72.183.139 (talk) 02:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I know it's five years late, but WP:Conflicting sources says "Of course, if the matter concerning which the sources differ is of at best marginal encyclopedic interest and reporting on several views may lead to giving it undue prominence, then a reasonable approach is to omit it entirely." And someone did just that - gave Halperin's birth date, which doesn't seem to be in question, deleted the unencylopedic detail of his birthplace. Thanks. loupgarous (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2017 (UTC)