Comments:Shimon Peres discusses the future of Israel

Excellent interview, David. Right now, I don't think this could be topped unless you got an exclusive with Bush, but this, IMO, makes Wikinews a credible organization. --TUFKAAP 00:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow!
An amazing piece of work. Excellent questions, David. Bravo! --Jcart1534 01:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I definitely concur. I love reading your interviews! ~Planoneck~ 01:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

First?
I believe, as FellowWikiNews pointed out in IRC, we are the first ever citizen journalism site to interview a world leader...but correct me if I am wrong. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A sitting head of state? I would be surprised to see another having interviewed a sitting head of state.  --David Shankbone 02:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This is awesome. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Picture
On a frivolous note, David, why are you being photographed looking like your feet hurt? TheCustomOfLife 20:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * He was silly enough to buy new shoes for the trip. ;-) --Brian McNeil / talk 17:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, David Saranga took the photos (as my agent - that's a legal term). My camera is a little more complicated than a point-and-shoot, and I assumed--incorrectly--that he would know how to focus and shoot from some previous photos he took with the camera.  He did not.  So out of the four photos of me with Peres, this is the one where we both look the best, but I happen to be asking, "Are you sure you do not need help with that camera?"  Peres was running super late (because of me) so we had no time to do solo photos.  He had to rush out right after.   You can tell the focus is all messed up.  The people are out of focus, but the books you can read the titles.  --David Shankbone 17:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

A Palestinian leader
It'd be interesting for wikipedia to interview a Palestinian leader, to present a more balanced view. Perhaps wikipedia should take that into consideration.142.150.49.111 21:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This isn't Wikipedia, it is Wikinews. Someone pays my costs to go to the occupied territories? I'll interview the entire Hamas and PLO leadership. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Objectivity
Interesting to see an interview of an extremist like Peres. Lets see one with a Palestinian minister or leader.

Les —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.94.223.250 (talk) 12:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sure there will be lots of Wikinewsies willing to do that if the Palestinian Minister is willing to pay for the travel expenses. Anonymous101 (talk) 13:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Terrible
I'm shocked to read that people find this "an amazing piece of work". In fact, it's terrible. First of all, interviewing an Israeli leader on the Israeli-Palestine conflict without also consulting Palestinian sources introduces bias. The argument about travel expenses comes down to laziness. Only interviewing people that pay your expenses destroys your independence, which is one the main principles of journalism. This is why professional journalists are still needed for serious journalism, and even they often do a bad job when it comes to complicated conflicts as Israel-Palestine (which, fortunately, they occasionally admit).

Secondly, in one of the questions, the interviewer states that "the Palestinians, in the end, don’t want Israel to exist". No sources mentioned for this rather extreme position. This is political bias at its worst. Is it true? Is it is, why do "the Palestinians" (a gross simplification at best) want this? First ask yourself these questions, then confront the people you're interviewing with the reasons you come up with.

Thirdly, there has apparently been no serious editing on this article. Consider the answer to the question I cited:


 * [T]hey have two problems. First of all, can they exist on tradition? They cannot. Sooner or later they will have to enter the new age. All the talks about nationalities, etcetera, well, the new age has very little patience for history. History is becoming more and more irrelevant.

Where is the second problem? Did anyone read this before it was published? In any case, nobody bothered to delete the remark about the "two problems".

The main concern of journalism, in my humble opinion as an amateur journalist, is to check on power figures. This is not checking up on them. This is giving power yet another voice, on a platform for citizen journalism. Yuck. Biasleff (talk) 23:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You want advocacy; Wikinews doesn't do that. And you propose a deadly sin of journalism; editing a quote of a source such that it might say what you'd like instead of their choice of words. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:22, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Not at all "Terrible"
An interview with a head of state is just that. It is not WP's opinion piece. It is what it is. It is always easy to repeat the party line against this kind of content in terms of "real journalism". WP is different by definition which is why it is interesting. If you want traditional journalism, read whatever "Times" you choose. As with all other WP content, those motivated to interview other heads of state should do so rather than seek to trash someone who has done just that. Just seeing this might get Hamas or Fatah to cough up plane fare for David. We should rather encourage others to follow his lead. Furthermore, editing such a piece would spoil its authenticity and make it into an opinion piece. Raw is good in this case, even if not AP Style Guide perfect. Congratulations, there is certainly a lot to learn and evolve, but I think this is an amazing thing.

Peres is the bigest Terroist on the face of the earth
Shemon Peres is a mentaly unstable terrorist and a nazi and the palestinians whom he calls terrorist will take back their land that israel ethnically cleansed to drive them out from thier homes..they did not even demolish the homes, they gave it with its furnature to immigrant jewish families and blamed it on the arabs as if they haven't provoked it through conspiracies in the the first place by terrorism in public palestinain market, bombing of hotels and ethnic cleansing planned as to look as a retailation from the arabs before even the 48 broke...the future of israel is shit because it is a state based on lies and tyranny...israel will destory israel if such zionist idiots remain in power..israel needs to appologize, and compensate instead of following Hitler and his era actions and what they learned from him in europe is becoming old and their lies are obvious to anyone with brains,,,,that man has to know that fact...all israelis should know that zionism will bring their state to an end.

"Finally, the world will have to decide if we live in a world with nuclear devices that can fall in the hands of terrorists"

Too late. The world's most pervasive terrorists already have nukes.

Great interview!
I really liked this interview report. It was very informative. I'd like to read more of these journalistic reports on Wikipedia. Thank you!65.94.100.29 (talk)DIXON


 * Thanks! Glad you liked it.
 * Note, this is Wikinews, not Wikipedia. Wikinews and Wikipedia are sister projects, with some big differences (because news production is very different from encyclopedic production).
 * :-) --Pi zero (talk) 12:48, 23 June 2012 (UTC)