Talk:Australian video journalist denies bodies burned in disrespect

You need to add credible sources before publishing this, the political blog will hardly siffice.

Also, you need to find the source where Dupont claimed that "the bodies were burned in a disrespectable fashion". (As far as I know he never did claim this, but other media outlets reported this incorrectly. He did however claim that PsyOps were claiming in their broadcast to the Afghan people that the bodies were burned facing west [Mecca].

In its current stage the article is not pbulishable, putting it back to develop. --vonbergm 03:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I never sent it to publish. And I disagree with the "credible sources" item - the blog is very well documented and well sourced, and puts together the items from the original Australian broadcast to the journalists' claims on another show.  While yes, it may be biased - that doesn't matter.  As long as a source can cite itself properly on the items it portrays, then it is a "credible" source in my book.  --MrMiscellanious (talk) (contribs) 16:53, 5 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Again, as others have said, this story needs credible sources. We do not use blogs as sources here. Back to develop. Neutralizer 18:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It is well sourced. If you have issues with the sources, be specific.  There is no difference in me posting the one link or stealing the sources from that article.  Choose which one you'd rather have.  --MrMiscellanious (talk) (contribs) 19:31, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Almost missed it; Biased, one sided POV here. Please include the other side of this story. Neutralizer 18:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think the other side of the story is greatly presented in both this article and the previous one. Specifics were not provided in your claim.  Remember, no "tagging and dashing" - you haven't defined the "other side", nor provided areas where the article is POV, nor have you showed any reason to discredit the blog link other than it has a bias.  As long as it sources itself properly (and it does), it's a credible source.  --MrMiscellanious (talk) (contribs) 19:31, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Consensus here on talk is that it's POV. Neutralizer 20:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * YOU are not a CONSENSUS. CONSENSUS means there was a VOTE taken.  YOU are the only one who thought there was a POV issue, and you are not BACKING YOUR CLAIMS UP.  vonbergm above had issues with the sources, which I addressed, and he did not reply.  HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT NPOV IN THE ARTICLE.  NO CONSENSUS, NO EXAMPLES - why is it POV?  I really want to know.  --MrMiscellanious (talk) (contribs) 20:05, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Isn't the story here that the journalist denied the bodies were burned disprectfully? What is the other side? That someone says he didn't deny that the bodies were burned disrespectfully? The sources seem to support the claim that he did say the bodes weren't burned disrespectfully. --Chiacomo (talk) 21:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

1) First sentence claims that the journalist is "withdrawing" other peoples claims. This is logically impossible, the terminology is misleading and a result of using a source with strong political bias and failing to free the article of it. The story does not state clearly that the journalist never made these claims. The article explicitly repeats this misinformation further down claiming that the journalist "retracted" information. 2) The bias in the story is in what it fails to address the reasons for the international outrage. The outrage came not from the claim that the bodies were burned in disrespect, but
 * To clarify why the story is biased:
 * a) from the fact that the bodies were burned which is against muslim religin (although possibly explainable by hygienig reasons as done in the article) and more importantly
 * b) that this incident was used by US PsyOp officers to broadcast messages to the local population claiming that the bodies were burnt in disrespect (i.e. facing west).

3) The article is (deliberatly?) vague about what claims are being investigated, suggesting that the investigation is about how the bodies were burnt. This is incorrect.

The article is correct in that the media has misrepresented the facts as given by the journalist in taking the broadcast message of the US PsyOps as fact, so in principle there is a news story underlying the article. But the article needs MAJOR cleaning and rewriting before it should be considered for publication. --vonbergm 21:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Alright, "withdrawing" is understandable - have replaced it with "denying". In the other issues, that is addressed in the other previous article, which is linked to in the article.  When addressing previous issues, you must always be vague, otherwise your history overlaps the amount of new items (and in turn, the article is nothing more than an encyclopedic item).  This is especially true when an old article is already available.  So I would disagree; this item DOESN'T require cleaning at all. Everything is addressed in the previous article, which should be viewed if users wish to read more about the issue.  Vagueness doesn't constitute NPOV.  Only when an article promotes a POV, etc. should it be noted as "NPOV".  The above issues are not POV issues.  --MrMiscellanious (talk) (contribs) 03:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Changing the word in the first sentence makes things better, but the impression still remains that Dupont is NOW saying something different from before, which is not the case. I suggest deleting the word "now" to correct this. In addition you might want to cite some news reports that have gotten the original statements wrong (since this is really the only part about the story that is "news"). The second paragraph is misleading as it does not provide the proper context. The comments of Dupont that you are quoting are in the context of the message broadcast by the PsyOps (read the original source!). Here Dupont uses the word "fact", which probably was not the best choice as a lot of news outles were mislead by it. "Fact" here referes to what the PsyOps relayed the the local population as fact, not what really happened to the bodies. There is no need to add another artile that does not get this point. (in hindsight, the previous wikinews article was too vague on this). The question of the geneva convention that this incident sparked was not just about the burnings but more importantly about the PsyOps conduct. Adding this important piece of information is not overlap but responsible reporting. Leaving it out is spin (as can be seen in the main source). The paragraph starting with "However" needs to be rewritten . Again, the word "retracted" is (at this point I assume this is deliberate) misleading if not worse. The conjunction "however" is inappropriate as there is nothing in this article that this statement contradicts. --vonbergm 05:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Ready yet?
Okay, I had to install Real to listen to that SBS interview - I feel dirty now. :-)

I've linked to w:PSYOPS, although that might need clarified outside the quote so it reads better, but the important distinction to make here is that in the SBS interview (which was the basis for the sensation), you got the information here - but the interviewer concentrated on the sensational bit. The NPR interview emphasises that there was no deliberate effort to desecrate the bodies. PSYOPS were taking advantage of the incident to bait the Taliban. Brian McNeil / talk 22:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Looks better. I have made some more changes that I saw appropriate. I think it is ok to publish now. --vonbergm 22:28, 10 November 2005 (UTC)