Talk:Nick Cohen

This article is a mess.

For a supposed biography, this article is in terrible condition. It seems to have descended into little more than an extended argument over what Nick Cohen's views are, what he said and how he should be characterised. Much of the criticism of him here - e.g. the 'neoconservative' description - is poorly sourced, which is unacceptable per WP:BLP. The extensive discussion of his political views and positions is, frankly, unnecessary: we do not need to add something to this article every time he publishes a new opinion column, but this seems to be what some people have been doing. All this article should be is simply a description of Cohen, a brief summary of his views, and the most notable things about him. I am seriously considering reducing it to a stub of about four sentences or so; at the moment, that would be a great improvement on the present state of the article. Robofish (talk) 22:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree entirely. I didn't know who Nick Cohen was until about 20 minutes ago, but this article is a real hatchet job, and I'm sure is in violation of much of WP:BLP. I'd be appalled if I cared enough! HarunAlRashid (talk) 08:21, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree entirely, too. WaldiR (talk) 18:56, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The entire article is a mess, but worst of all is the Attacks on Liberals & Greens section, which is so intellectually and academically dishonest it verges on libel. It employs quotemining, distortion, de-contextualisation and misrepresentation on an grandiose scale to make Cohen look ultra-conservative, totally reactionary and borderline fascist. -Lumiere- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.38.150 (talk) 12:57, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

POV

This article seems to be a cherry-picked mess of citations and such, so that Nick Cohen would look like a very stupid person. Perhaps he is stupid, I do not know him, but the article does not really seem to present his own arguments well and fairly. --Arrala (talk) 16:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, yeh I can see why you say that. It also seems excessively long for a person who is simply a minor British journalist... something of a nobody on the world stage.(Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC))

To be fair, midnightblueowl is only saying thjat because Nick Cohen has no time for unreconstructed communists who play dungeons and dragons and believe in fairies. He is arguably, the one journalist who operates with both eyes open. Tony Riley (----)

Ha, you know, I've only just seen this comment of Tony's. I would cite Wikipedia:No personal attacks but admittedly his description of me made me laugh. I guess that's the impression that you make on people when you edit pages on both Fidel Castro and Wicca; if it helps, I'm not a communist, I've never played a game of D&D in my life, and I don't believe in fairies (except of the Radical kind). However, I must acknowledge that my comments regarding Cohen which I made all those years ago were hardly very civil or particularly accurate. Maybe I'd had a particularly bad day ? Maybe it was someone else using my account ? Whatever the reason, I must retract my previous comment, silly nonsense that it is. If Mr Cohen is reading this, I apologise. Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:19, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

POV/BLP issues

The article appears to have severe BLP issues and anti-Cohen bias. (See also the couple of threads above this one.) I am very tempted to simply stub the lot and start over, the content seems like a melange of random facts pieced together to give a rather inaccurate description of Mr. Cohen. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Stubbed

I noticed last year that this article was a complete mess (see above) and said how much it needed fixing. I'm sorry it took me so long to come back to it. In light of the recent WP:COI issues raised over this article, in addition to the existing BLP problems, I think the thing to do is 'nuke it and start again'. I've cut it down to the most basic, uncontroversial data, and removed all the criticism and discussion of Cohen's political views. Please don't just revert my edit; there are serious issues here. Any expansions of the article should be discussed on this talk page first. Robofish (talk) 23:37, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Excellent idea. --Dweller (talk) 09:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Press coverage 2011

Copied from Wikipedia:Press coverage 2011: July

• Cohen, Nick (9 July 2011). "Diary". The Spectator. Retrieved 9 July 2011. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Part of Cohen's ongoing spat with Johann Hari, alleging improper editing of the articles about each of them, and others.

In the Spectator article Cohen writes:

The fearsome honour code by which hacks abide insists that no journalist can sue for libel — if you give it, you must take it. I bowed to its stern injunctions while wishing that my colleagues would grant me a release just this once so that I might relieve Jimmy Wales of a part of his fortune.

Edit to this article:

• 23:34, 9 July 2011 Robofish (talk | contribs | block) (3,683 bytes) (stubbed. Drastic BLP problems demand drastic solutions.)

Well done Robofish -- PBS (talk) 22:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

FYI, Hari has now owned up to editing Wikipedia under a pseudonym including, by implication, Cohen's article. Philip Cross (talk) 09:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Stubbed again

User Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry recently reverted the article to its 'stubby' version (about 4,000 bytes instead of a 43,000-byte monstrosity). IMO the article was full of POV, BLP violations, etc, so I thank him for that. Cheers, CWC 15:11, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it needs re-writing from scratch, using good independent secondary sources that discuss Cohen and his work. Fences&Windows 23:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit requests

Of course, the resulting version has to have at least one problem, Otherwise It Would Be Too Easy.

Change the first occurence of the word "where" to "which", so that the description of Cohen's third book in the lede starts out

What's Left? (2007), which he describes as the story of ...

Thanks in advance -- CWC 15:11, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. January (talk) 17:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Iraq addition

I have removed this claim that Cohen is "noted" for advocating the Iraq invasion which was sourced to a "Personal View" piece by Cohen in the Telegraph, and a blog piece by Mehdi Hasan in the New Statesman which briefly mentions this but was mostly about on another piece Cohen wrote on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Neither of these pieces cite that Cohen was actually noted for his views on Iraq. January (talk) 20:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi "January", please respect the collaborative nature of Wikipedia. Let's say for the sake of argument that (at least) two mentions in national publications does not qualify as "noted", so your defence of repeated overridings is not pretty dodgy. Wikipedia asks users: "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, rather than trying to resolve the disagreement... Note that an editor who repeatedly restores his or her preferred version is edit warring, whether or not his or her edits were justifiable: it is no defence to say "but my edits were right, so it wasn't edit warring"." Here's the source: WP:EDITWARRING

I have censored "noted" as you have twice asked (by way of overriding my entire contribution), but see no reason to censor this citing of a recorded, publicly noted view which has been noted by you and others in national publications. Thanks, Avi. 77.101.48.35 (talk) 23:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

This is not about me wanting to keep a "preferred version", you added an inadequately sourced contentious claim which I reverted. WP:BLP encourages editors to remove such material without waiting for discussion, and the edit-warring policy allows for this.

What you were doing is inferring from two sources that Cohen is a "noted" advocate, which is wandering into WP:OR territory – neither of them actually said "Nick Cohen is noted for advocating the invasion of Iraq". All your sources actually demonstrated is that Cohen wrote a piece on the subject for The Telegraph in 2003, and that Medhi Hasan briefly mentioned on this in his New Statesman blog. I still find advocate too strong a word, the most you could cite to that is "supported".

Also, please don't make baseless accusations like this. January (talk) 15:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Date of birth

This article does not give Cohen's date of birth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.254.146.150 (talk) 14:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

He might have been born in the 1960's or 1970's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.254.146.34 (talk) 11:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

He might have been born in Manchester and then he might not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.254.146.34 (talk) 11:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Chomsky

The article says: "He details how scholars like Noam Chomsky, along with the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), denied the existence of concentration camps and the Srebrenica massacre." I don't know about the RCP, but Chomsky does not deny the massacre; when the Guardian claimed he did, they had to issue a correction: "Ms Brockes's misrepresentation of Prof Chomsky's views on Srebrenica stemmed from her misunderstanding of his support for Ms Johnstone. Neither Prof Chomsky nor Ms Johnstone have ever denied the fact of the massacre." https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/nov/17/pressandpublishing.corrections — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 18:28, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

It's not the Guardian article, it's an earlier interview/talk type piece where Chomsky gets chummy with the undisputed deniers and implies that the news coverage of Bosnia was all so much "mannufactured consent." If you're on about the Guardian article I think you'er referring to, Cohen calls it "admittedly poorly subbed". (I'm working from memory as my copy of What's Left is at home and I'm in the workplace) 62.190.148.115 (talk) 12:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I've had a look and this is what's actually in the book - Chomsky went on Serb TV in 2005 and made mention of Ed Vulliamy's photo of Fikret Alić "one famous photo - the thin man behind the barbed wire". The interviewer replied "A photo later proved to have been faked." Chomsky, pleased, reacted thus "You remember! Well that was Auschwitz and we can't have that all over again!" Cohen's point was that Chomsky didn't actually make the denial but he was happy to go along with rather than angrily challenge the denial of the TV interviewer. This, Cohen claimed, fit with a general pattern of Chomsky's praise for Holocaust denier Faurisson and Pol Pot deniers by not indulging in direct denial but "merely offering tasty morsels to whet the appetite of those who would move onto stronger meat." Cohen compared Chomsky to a boy on the edge of a gang of school bullies, able to step back and smile sweetly when the teacher storms into the playground - indeed he named the chapter on Chomsky "The Boy On The Edge Of The Gang." 62.190.148.115 (talk) 13:54, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Diana Johnstone certainly denied the scale of the genocide - see claimed that only about 199 Bosnians were killed and that the rest of the 8K approx dead were "presumed" to have made it into Bosnian territory. She also repeated the claim that the Fikret Alić photo was a fake taken inside the camp looking out (based on the evidence that the camp fence is supposedly the wrong way round.) 2.24.71.94 (talk) 07:36, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

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Allegations on Twitter

A number of allegations have been added and removed from the article sourced to twitter comments, putting this here for discussion.

I think:

1. Per Wikipedia:SUSPECT Cohen is a public figure, so such allegations, carefully worded, may be appropriate for the article if they are reported in reliable secondary sources.
2. I can't see any such reporting so think for now they definitely should remain off the article.

Anyone disagree on either point? JeffUK (talk) 07:22, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree that we need strict sourcing for these accusations - and a demonstration that they're notable by being reported in independent sources. Given that previous edits are BLP violations I'm surprised they haven't been RevDel'd, frankly. — Czello 07:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree. Lard Almighty (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, the allegations should only be on his wikipedia page if a newspaper decides to investigate and report on it. If they choose not to then it should not be on his wikipedia page 88.108.117.173 (talk) 09:17, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

@JeffUK given that the allegations were shared by a reputable lawyer and came from a couple of journalists who have foregone anonymity, is that not enough?

I believe that those above have suggested a cultural of looking the other way in the industry, and protection of senior journalists, so isn't the lack of media coverage a given? 91.125.125.157 (talk) 11:37, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia relies on reliable sources. The lack of media coverage ins't a given. If the allegations have any merit they will be picked up in reliable sources. Until then, they shouldn't be included. Lard Almighty (talk) 11:44, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the belief that if they allegations have merit then the British Press will definitely report on them is somewhat naive, but the way wikipedia works is it can only include things that have been reported by "reliable sources". So if no newspaper chooses to investigate the claims they can't appear on the wikipedia page. Not saying whether or not this is the way wikipedia should work, just that this is how wikipedia does work 88.108.117.173 (talk) 14:04, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

LOL. When have the British press ever hesitated to report on a "scandal"? But there are such a thing as libel laws, and just because someone says X did Y to me doesn't necessarily make it true. It needs much more corroboration before it can be included on Wikipedia. If there is anything to these allegations I'm sure we will hear about it. Lard Almighty (talk) 14:14, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

(It turned out that the British Press did cover this up) 81.179.67.22 (talk) 21:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Out of curiosity have you ever read an issue of Private Eye?88.108.117.173 (talk) 14:20, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Incidentally, Private Eye are now under the lens a little after the NYT article was published because, after all, he used to freelance for them, and ordinarily they'd be covering this sort of story in Street of Shame. Sceptre (talk) 23:09, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Allegations now referenced in Press Gazette: https://pressgazette.co.uk/nick-cohens-observer-column-on-pause-whilst-he-co-operates-with-investigation/ 81.96.30.241 (talk) 10:21, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

And in the New European: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/turmoil-at-the-guardian-as-top-columnist-is-investigated/ 81.96.30.241 (talk) 13:08, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Piece from Lucy Siegle repeating her allegations: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/lucy-siegle-nick-cohen-guardian-complaint/ - I think there is no longer an excuse for keeping her specific allegations out of the article Dononkey (talk) 10:22, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone else think that we should add "Sexual Harrasment" to a seperate subheading? After all this is an extremely serious allegation being made about him, putting it as a brief aside in the "Personal Life" section feels a bit cheap. DoricSpengler (talk) 01:55, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a separate section but I've tidied up/combined some of the existing sections, which has also had the effect of moving this information earlier in the article. JaggedHamster (talk) 07:29, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/world/europe/me-too-guardian-financial-times-madison-marriage.html

Seeing as the NYT has just 'outed' him. Kind of makes it ridiculous not to. The only complaints I can see will be coming from old 'friends' owing him favours. 2A02:C7C:72B3:A000:D47A:AF63:1F58:91CE (talk) 13:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Please do not mention the article about how the UK Press was aware of the scandal but chose not to report on it as that constitutes vandalism. 80.47.129.8 (talk) 18:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The NYT is a reliable source. We need to be cautious due to the gravity of the allegations but it's still reliable. Sceptre (talk) 23:09, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Huh weird, when I brought it up in this section Bbb23 kept deleting it and saying it was vandalism. 80.47.129.8 (talk) 17:43, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

"Nick Cohen/Archive 2" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Nick Cohen/Archive 2 and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 30 § Nick Cohen/Archive 2 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Regards, SONIC⁶⁷⁸ 06:26, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

"hawkish, neoconservative"

I have deleted two instances of the above phrase from the foreign policy section as they seem to have been only input in order to be kneejerk-judgemental about support for (or more to the point, criticism of opposition to) the 2003 Iraq war. These descriptors appear to have nothing to do with Cohen personally and everything to do with an editor on their soapbox wishing to classify certain views as being ipso facto right wing. The Euston Manifesto itself and two 2003 Cohen pieces are cited as the (primary) sources for these sections and in none of these sources do the authors describe themselves as hawkish or (neo)conservative - indeed all three sources present themselves as dissident left wing voices. It is a breach of WP:NPOV for articles to make unsupported judgemental remarks on what qualifies as right wing or left wing.Romomusicfan (talk) 10:20, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I've been looking through the edit history and it seems this material was added about a year ago by an IP editor who initially used even stronger language - "aggressively hawkish neconservative". I reckon this should probably have been nipped in the bud entirely by the editors who reverted the IP editor's edits.Romomusicfan (talk) 10:39, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

The IP editor in question's edit history, incidentally, is quite the eye-opener].Romomusicfan (talk) 10:45, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Foreign Policy section deleted

User Drmies, regarding your blanking of the section Opinions/Foreign Policy from the above article on the grounds that there are only primary sources (from Cohen's works) in the section indicating his views and no secondary source to indicate their "importance"
(1) Please define "importance". No such parameter exists on Wikipedia. There is only notability and this applies only to an article overall, not individual sections. See policy WP:NNC
(2) Therefore the only burden of proof required for a section detailing his views are reliable sources. In this case, examples of his views from his published works are an acceptable use of primary sources under WP: PRIMARY to simply define what his views are. Thereafter, the only outstanding issue is whether the article text accurately represents the views in the sources.
(3)Where is there any requirement to demonstrate that his views are "important" (as though a notable political columnist's political views can be "unimportant" i.e. irrelevant)? Surely it is WP:SKYBLUE that his views on foreign policy are relevant and the only issue is to ensure that their description in the article accurately reflects the sources.
(4) While I agree that the section overall is top heavy in primary sources, blanking it is not the appropriate procedure. Tagging it for excessive reliance on primary sources, as I did, is the correct procedure. Romomusicfan (talk) 02:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

• Someone's opinions aren't important just because they have them. Imagine if everyone who is notable got their opinions stuck in their article--this is why we conventionally rely on secondary sources to verify they matter, and this subject just isn't so important that all his opinions are deemed noteworthy by secondary sources. I mean, you might as well summarize every single column he ever wrote and stick that in there, right? Drmies (talk) 22:26, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
  • You still haven't defined "important" in Wikipedia terms. Notability relates only to article subjects, not conent. As far as Relevance goes, a political columnist's political opinions are of obvious relevance to their Wikipedia article, as a writer's views on the field of which they write - in this case, politics - are the basis of said writer's works. Romomusicfan (talk) 11:46, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
    • I have, but you didn't see it. I think I made it pretty clear that "important" for me, and many, many other editors here, does have a standard: verified/commented on/deemed noteworthy by secondary sources. I used "noteworthy" to refer to article content, and "notable" to refer to the subject. Drmies (talk) 14:26, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
      • If it were Nick Cohen's opinions on, say, which flavour of jam tarts are the best, this would be a reasonable argument. However, I repeat that it is WP: SKYBLUE that a political commentator's political views are noteworthy, particularly since they are the abstract of his books and other writings as an overall body of work.
        I shall, however, go look for some secondary sources for you to supplement the primary examples from his work. Romomusicfan (talk) 18:57, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
        • I have opinions on jam tarts, but I do not agree that this sky is automatically blue, because jam tarts is one thing, but this, not so much. In 2022 he wrote between three and five columns a month for the Guardian; it must be many dozens in all--which one are jam tarts? I added that link, BTW. Drmies (talk) 22:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
          • Jam tarts were a mildly facetious example of an opinion where I would agree it is not WP:SKYBLUE that it is noteworthy. If you read the SKYBLUE article, you will at least comprehend my point that a Wikinotable political columnist's political views are obviously sufficiently noteworthy that it is not necessary to prove them so (even if the same does not hold true for the columnist's views on other matters. Romomusicfan (talk) 11:23, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
            • Anyway, here [1] is a secondary source to get started on, from The Isis Magazine. The overall feature is an interview but there is a lengthy preamble by the interviewer describing in a nutshell Cohen 's political positions. Romomusicfan (talk) 11:30, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
            • And here is another, [2] a review of Cohen's What's Left in The Independent. Romomusicfan (talk) 11:34, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
            • Drmies, I see you have been on Wikipedia since my last post. If you do not respond within 24 hours of this, I shall assume you have no further objections and shall reinstate the section with the above two secondary sources incorporated. Romomusicfan (talk) 12:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
              • Romomusicfan, we don't work by way of ultimatums, so please stop doing that, and whatever you assume is really your own. Nor is this the place to be facetious: this is serious business. If some positions of his have secondary sourcing, good. Drmies (talk) 14:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
                • That wàs not intended as an "ultimatum" - I merely sought to establish whether discussion was still ongoing or we had reached a consensus. I have now created a new section using relevant quotes from the secondary sources to create an abstract of Cohen 's overall viewpoint as described in the old section. I next intend to review the old section for primary-sourced material concurring with the secondary sources and therefore acceptable under WP:PRIMARY. Romomusicfan (talk) 16:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
                  • Some things that are said not to have been intended in a particular way can sure sound that way. Drmies (talk) 23:32, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
                    • As for facetiousness, sometimes this can be the most efficient way of getting a point across in a discussion - eg the use of the example of Cohen's views on jam tarts (if he has ever expressed any) as an example of a clearly non-noteworthy viewpoint he might hold, as contrasted with the more obvious noteworthiness of his views on foreign policy. Romomusicfan (talk) 23:46, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
                  • Have done so. I would next propose to restore the content re. Libya and Syria as applied examples of the position described in the secondary sources but will allow time for feedback and suggestions before proceeding. Romomusicfan (talk) 16:37, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
                    • • Done. I finally propose to find another secondary source for the Euston Manifesto reference before restoring it. The Manifesto is Wikinotable and signed by a mixture with Wikinotable and non-Wikinotable individuals. A secondary source will establish that there was anything noteworthy about his particular signature of it.
                        I shall not be restoring the "Zionism is colonialism" citation as it was misleading with regards to the context of the source - Cohen made his statement as a fallback position from equating Zionism to Nazism, not as part of a critique of Zionism. Romomusicfan (talk) 22:58, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
                        • • I propose this feature on Cohen from The List (UK website) containing the quote "A prominent signee of 2006’s Euston Manifesto" as the secondary source. As with previous stages I shall allow time for feedback from you before implementing the restoration. This will then be my final version of the restored section. Romomusicfan (talk) 11:34, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
                            • • Have now made the final revision with added secondary source. Drmies, I take it from you lack of objections that this version is now satisfactory? Romomusicfan (talk) 08:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
                                • Well, you can assume what you want, but my "lack of objections" was simply caused by my lack of having looked at this in four days. Drmies (talk) 16:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)