Talk:The Canary (website)

Rename?

I think the article should be renamed as it calls itself a "new media outlet", and googling shows little description of The Canary as a blog other than copies of WP text. I suggest renaming as "The Canary (new media)", though "The Canary (website)" is an option. Could even go for simple The Canary as that is merely a redirect to Canary (a dab page) which has little merit. In summary the case for it not being a blog is:

• calls itself a "new media outlet" [1], BBC calls it "left-wing online news site"[2]
• too large and commercial for a blog: "a team of 20 freelance writers and editors" (2017)[3]
• they say they do journalism and are regulated by IMPRESS
• are a Limited company[4] and say significant funds come from advertising

Views? Rwendland (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree blog is the wrong description, though I think Canary (website) would be more neutral. G-13114 (talk) 22:29, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree with change to The Canary (website). I think The Canary would be fine too. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:43, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Category

@Djm-leighpark: Regarding this revert, the article is already in Category:British political websites and in Category:Left-wing politics in the United Kingdom which are both perfectly fine, so I can't imagine where else it should be placed. It definitely does not belong in organizations, a website is not an organization. There is no political motive. Marcocapelle (talk) 15:17, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Marcocapelle The Canary is backed by Canary Media Limited which is an organisation. I'm more familiar with The London Economic (TLE). I'd be happy if they were in a linking category such as Digital Newspaper or New media outlet (Others may say these are not suitable). Simply having they categorized as Political may .. I use the word may .. mean their categorization has become unbalanced. So I disagree categories British political websites and Left-wing politics in the United Kingdom are sufficient.Djm-leighpark (talk) 15:54, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

• The article is about The Canary (website), not about Canary Media Limited. Feel free to write an article about the company if you wish and it can be categorized as an organisation. Marcocapelle (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

• Total waste of effort. Should I write such an article, even if the organisation judged to be notable, the policies would be to merge it to this article. Adding a company infobox to this article is an option of course. I note re-checking both websites I got the impression The Canary seems to have more political content than The London Economic (TLE) which also had a good sprinkling of other content in my opinion. I did a fair bit of work on the TLE article a while back but journalism isn't my particular area though I've perhaps done significant work on maybe about three or so journalism related articles usually as a spin off when researching references or a cite for something else (as was the case with TLE). I also looked at Category:Digital newspapers published in Europe but having no print version these are out of scope for that category. I am essentially happy to compromise on an alternative suitable category.Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:18, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

• I believe the Category:British news websites might be mutually acceptable.Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:21, 24 November 2018 (UTC) I have added these articles to that category and provided that is accepted I will not strongly object to a removal from alternative media organizations.Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality tag?

In the Responses and Notable articles section, I count four positive entries and 19 negative ones, a 1:5 ratio, despite positive reports from regulators. This might be related to the Stop Funding Fake News campaign, reported in Jewish News and promoted by Rachel Riley, which is attempting to shut The Canary down by stopping its advertising revenues. Is adding a lack of neutrality tag appropriate? Jontel (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Is there evidence that this ratio is out of proportion to coverage in reliable sources? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 16:18, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Given that most of the edits since SFFN was launched are by you, Jontel, it seems unlikely that there is any connection to the Jewish News reporting and the state of this article. What reliable sources do you think we are missing? What aspect of the article is not neutral? BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:51, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I note some of the negative material has now been out, e.g. According to the 2017/18 annual report from press regulator IMPRESS, The Canary received more complaints about their news reporting than any other IMPRESS-regulated publication. and [Owen] Jones and David Aaronovitch also criticised Kerry-Anne Mendoza for comparing Zionism to Nazism on BBC Radio 4 as part of her critiques of alleged Israeli war crimes. These sentiments would be echoed in a Sunday Times investigation into Labour Party antisemitism, which criticised The Canary for an article entitled "The inconvenient truths that prove it is not anti-semitic to compare Israel to Nazi Germany", which juxtaposed an image of Nazi Germany to that of Jerusalem in 2014. "It's the perfect journal for Corbynism in that it has no connection to reality", Nick Cohen wrote for The Observer. Carl Miller of Demos told Alex Spence of the Politico website that while the "digital world" has been "democratizing", he has mixed feelings. and The coverage The Canary gave to a junior doctor committing suicide was criticised by Private Eye for flouting Samaritans' guidelines on the coverage of such stories. I am not totally sure what is wrong with any of these. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:57, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I have restored the suicide story, with additional refs, and am happy for you to restore the others. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 10:41, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

References

Boycott the Guardian?

Should The Canary's participation in boycotting the Guardian be included in the article, as it got a fair bit of secondary coverage? [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:39, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Media Bias/Fact Check

Re recent edit and revert by ReconditeRodent and G-13114 respectively, can we have the reasoning pro and contra? Is Media Bias/Fact Check considered an RS? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah, just checked the perennial sources listing, seems it's not: "There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable. Editors question the methodology of the site's ratings." I think therefore we should almost certainly remove this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support removal While I would have supported the restoration given lack of explanation on removal given the reasoning given by Bobfrombrockley I will support the removal.Djm-leighpark (talk) 12:25, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Sorry, I was taking out Media Bias/Fact Check references on various pages and somehow forgot to explain myself on this one. Support removal, even though, in this case, the statement is attributed, since it's hardly encyclopedic to include the opinion of a source with no notability which we ourselves don't treat as reliable. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 13:12, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Have now removed. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:04, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

No criticism in lead?

It seems odd not to include the fact that this website has been criticised by people across the political spectrum as fake news or clickbait. I can understand not wanting to include specific campaigns in the lead (although I personally think that it is significant enough), but surely some mention of criticism in the lead is warranted given how much of this article focuses on criticism, legitimate or otherwise. --Bangalamania (talk) 20:35, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

The criticism comes almost entirely from right wing publications or campaigns with an obvious agenda. There is no valid content in the criticisms: the regulation and accuracy section shows that 'fake news' is untrue, and all publications tweak their content to attract readers. Critics just accuse the publication of having a political viewpoint, whereas the critics of course freely express their own right wing views. The traditional media also do not like the competition from such sites, which is another motive for their hostility. Also, it is not usual to include criticism of publications in the lead, looking at other publication's pages on Wikipedia. Jontel (talk) 20:52, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

The criticism has come from across the political spectrum, with left-wing critics including the Guardian, New Statesman. The content in the lede was a reasonable summary of the rest of the article and should be included. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 21:22, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

The Guardian and New Statesman are arguably more liberal/centrist in their outlook than left wing, they are also hardly going to welcome competition, so Jontel's point stands. G-13114 (talk) 23:27, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

It's more than just a criticism over "competition". Those that are quite clearly left-wing have criticised the clickbaity nature of the site; Owen Jones' criticism is in the article and Novara Media have also arguably criticised the Canary for being "alt-left, simple, partisan, loud and lefty", to give two examples. --Bangalamania (talk) 16:22, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Let's break this criticism down. 1. While it does not have a formal political position, it is left leaning, as most commentators observe, and that is already mentioned in the lead. On the political position, we could take out the 'left-wing' from the lead and replace it with e.g. 'Various critics have described it as assertively left-wing'.

2. If it has a sensational/ lively style, that is true of most of the media, and is not remarkable.

3. Only a couple of critics actually accuse it of being inaccurate, but they do not provide serious evidence or even examples. Against that, we have the relatively positive picture in the Regulation and accuracy section. On its accuracy, then, in the absence of compelling evidence, I do not think we can include such a criticism in the lead. Jontel (talk) 16:54, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Pretty much every news publication has critics, especially ones which take a strong stance one way or the other, unless those criticisms are proven to be well founded like the Hillsborough controversy around The Sun or the rampant inaccuracy of the Daily Mail, then really I can't see the basis for its inclusion in the lead. G-13114 (talk) 17:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

SFFN details

Can we get a consensus on these two related questions? 1) re this diff, is it noteworthy that an MP defended The Canary? 2) re this diff, is it noteworthy that Riley was targeted for harassment after challenging The Canary? I think they both are. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:08, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Carl David Goette Luciak controversy

Just noticed this discussion on the Mendoza article talk page one year ago, where the outcome seemed to be that this should be mentioned in this article and not that one: Booklung: Any thoughts from anybody on whether this page should have a section on the Carl David Goette Luciak controversy. Lots of stuff on Buzzfeed, the Guardian, etc JezGrove: That source doesn't mention Mendoza? This one does. And here's a sample of Goette-Luciak's reporting. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:00, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

References

Chris Williamson

Have removed this sentence from the K-A Mendoza article as related to Canary not its editor, but is supported only by primary source at present. Is it noteworthy here? The Canary published Chris Williamson's full speeches for which he had been accused of antisemitism, arguing that the focus was a defence of Labour's history of anti-racism and several events were in defence of left-wing Jews. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:30, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Opinions of RT and Sputnik surely aren't noteworthy

Djm-leighpark restored a paragraph sourced solely to deprecated sites RT and Sputnik. Given these are the only sources, surely the opinions aren't noteworthy; at most, if considered self-sourced, they're if Keiser or Galloway put them in a personal blog. Absent the opinions being noted in an actual RS, this seems to fail the "so what" test - what's the evidence anyone cares what Keiser or Galloway think of the Canary? Without an RS, this para should be removed. Djm-leighpark, do you have a source that meets the requirements of WP:BURDEN, for the editor restoring material to supply an RS? We can move the para to talk while you look for one - David Gerard (talk) 19:02, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• @David Gerard, My particular concern on this one was the edit summary focusing on the source and not directly commenting on the content removal. The content has been previously long standing and not apparently disputed. I had a very quick glance around for content once or twice but found nothing likelly to support the removed content or similar replacement content. I have better things to do than spend time on this and note no-one else has joined the conversation, and on this basis I have reverted by reversion. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 11:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

A few possibly minor points about the "Allegations of antisemitism" section

• I tagged the report by Daniel Allington and Tanvi Joshi as a primary source. One of the issues with using primary sources is determining what parts of the source to quote. Selective quoting from primary sources by an editor is not recommended. The report is 82 pages long. How did the editor select their quotes?

• Why are we dragging the report’s findings about the The Skwawkbox into this section?

Burrobert (talk) 03:19, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Re primary, G-13114 edit summary says the way this source is being used seems to be in line with WP:PRIMARY as it doesn't contain any analysis or interpretation etc. The source is primary about itself, but secondary about the subject of our article, The Canary. I think it might have been me that included the text, and the bits I chose were based on the bits that Impress considered important, and are substantially quoted via their section 3.2 "The concerns levelled against Publisher 1 and Publisher 2 and set out in the report can be summarised as follows:" So, IMPRESS is a secondary source for Allington (while a primary source for its own response, for which the Press Gazette is in turn a secondary source). So the easiest way to address this is to add the IMPRESS footnote after the Allington quote as well. One reason for secondary sources is to check that it is due. I think we can see that it is due from responses to it in the Jewish Chronicle,[11] Spectator,[12] and Jewish Voice for Labour,[13] but for obvious reasons I don't think we should be citing them.

Re Skawkbox, as I think this edit by Davide King makes it clear: the report looks at both IMPRESS-regulated publications and the IMPRESS investigation looked at both, and the number of articles they report looking at aggregates the two so it'd be impossible for us to separate them. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:54, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

• There is only one phrase which entangles Skwawk with The Canary. If we omit the phrase "reviewing 41 articles and one tweet" then we don't need to mention Skwawk. Just say "In response, the press regulator IMPRESS began a preliminary investigation into The Canary to determine whether it was in breach of the IMPRESS Standards Code Clause on discrimination".
• The policy section on primary sources gives some examples of primary sources in footnote c. One example is "investigative reports". The use of the report here is fine though. Burrobert (talk) 04:55, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Hyperpartisan

Noting the removal of the long-standing description "hyper-partisan", clearly supported by three RSs. It seems due and well sourced to me. Any views? BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:36, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Your claim that it is "supported by three RSs" does not reflect reality. The New Statesman is the only source which comes close to explicitly stating this. The Steve Hill book compares it to Breitbart; it does not call it "hyper-partisan". The JC article also does not call it hyper-partisan; it merely refers to a campaign and embeds a tweet by a TV celebrity who does so. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:48, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Reviewing the three, that seems to be correct. But "left-leaning and is frequently sceptical of the mainstream British press" is a very anodyne summary of this literature. The relevant quotes are If there was a British equivalent of Breitbart it would be The Canary (thecanary.co). The left-leaning news site was a cheerleader for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. ... It is a simplification to say hyperpartisan news is automatically fake news., The website, which has been accused of promoting "fake news" in supporting Mr Corbyn and attacking allegations of Labour antisemitism, recently announced it was downsizing because of pressure from "political Zionists". This was the result of campaign by Stop Funding Fake News, which urges brands not to advertise on hyper-partisan websites that try to pass themselves off as reputable news sources., and during the election we saw just how well a crop of hyper-partisan left-wing news sites are using social media to gain the kind of influence once restricted to the tabloid press. Writers for sites such as the Canary or Evolve Politics see themselves as activists as much as journalists. Also: The regulator said: “It is not the case that robust, controversial, or offensive publication on such political matters, as a function of the partisan reporting of the publisher, amounts to a breach of the Impress Code."[14] There is something intriguing about the possibility of hyper-partisan left-wing sites such as Evolve Media or the Canary gaining access to the closed shop of the Westminster Lobby.[15] Ed Miliband today lashed out at hyper-partisan site the Canary and demanded it delete an article attacking BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.[16] The website has also been accused of being “hyper-partisan” in its unflinching support for Corbyn and in 2017, journalist Owen Jones accused it of “promoting conspiracy theories”.[17] left-wing news website like the Canary. Founded in 2015 to ‘diversify the media’ the hyper-partisan outfit rode the wave of Corbynism to its height just after Theresa May’s snap election.[18] The website, which writes charged, partisan articles attacking critics of Mr Corbyn's Labour - including those highlight anti-Jewish racism within Labour... [SFFN] has targeted many partisan websites, including The Canary, on both the left and the right, by urging advertisers to ditch them.[19] a more inclusive conceptualisation of alternative media has been resisted because of the particular characteristics of new left-wing and right-wing alternative media— including sites such as The Canary and Breitbart—that champion a highly partisan agenda and vehemently oppose mainstream media (Rae 2020).[20] See also this, this and this. Haven't evaluated all of these sources but it seems straightforward that it's widely described as hyper-partisan. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:14, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Those seem to be characterisations by sources opposed to Canary's politics, so maybe they need qualification. G-13114 (talk) 17:39, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree, in the main. "Hard-right outlet the Spectator disparages left-wing news website which frequently criticises them" is not encyclopaedic content. But. There is no reason to believe that two sources, Journalism Practice and Journalism Studies, and the authors and reviewers of the articles, are opposed to Canary. They don't seem to explicitly say "hyper" about Canary consistently (and this is not a particularly useful neologism for our purposes. Bob, let's drop the "is considered" and just say "its coverage of UK politics is partisan towards... the left? Corbyn?" and cite the scholarship alone. Cambial — foliar❧ 05:19, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Some of those sources are opposed to its politics; others not. I am not attached to the sentence that we had for a long time about it being considered hyper-partisan. I don't think we should be citing the Spectator, but just included it to show that "partisan" or "hyper-partisan" are routinely used to describe it. Jewish Chronicle coverage relates to the SFFN campaign, which is adequately covered in our article already so wouldn't expand. I think the Impress use of "partisan" (quoted by Press Gazette) should be added to the two paragraphs about these cases, to make it NPOV. I think Miliband's views (quoted by PoliticsHome) are noteworthy and might be added to the reception. Jones is noteworthy and already included; we could add the HuffPost secondary source ref to show it's due. I think the scholarly analysis should be summarised and added to reception. Finally, I think the lead needs to have something in it summarising the reception and showing that it's not just a "left-leaning" news site but has a particular flavour; if "hyper-partisan" is unacceptable we need some wording that captures this differently. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:10, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Archives

Recent postings on social media are all "from the archives." Has the Canary ceased operating as a news outlet? This is surely relevant to any overview. 92.15.18.106 (talk) 10:40, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It is still going strong as always. Here is a story about how the upcoming Voice to Parliament referendum is bringing out the worst of Australian racism. [21] Burrobert (talk) 12:15, 1 October 2023 (UTC)