Talk:Three Ohio men indicted for terrorist plot against U.S. military in Iraq

npov
We can not rely on information solely from one party which has a vested interest in getting out a one-sided story. MrM., in a different disputestated that "This article heavily relies on items from ________, which could imply this article is in endorsement of their activities" and I agree with that concept; i.e. a story is biased when it relies too heavily (in this case entirely) on information from one side (in this case the prosecution). If we can not get quotes from the accused or their lawyers, then at the very least we need to mention the times the U.S. government accusations have been wrong. Neutralizer 19:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * And I have no problem with that. But it is news and it is filed in US District Court and there was a live press conference on it today.  It is news and we are reporting on what was alleged.  -Drew 20:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * There was some implication in the tagged version of this article that the accused were guilty. I believe this has been dealt with and reporting on legal action within the United States should not be viewed with the same sort of scepticism as news from a strictly controlled dictatorship. I have removed the tag, but put the article back to develop.  Please be constructive and avoid tagging if possible.--Brian McNeil / talk 20:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutralizer...once again, your objections you stated are not actionable. You need to state your reasons clearly. This is not an actionable objection. Do not delay articles because of your POV of the US government or any government. Jason Safoutin 21:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * In the subject of terrorism, war in Iraq and similar it is obvious that U.S goverment and some to them friendly newschannels should be viewed with scepticism. Not as North Corea but as a active part of a the mediawar. It is somtimes unappreciated to be a wikinewsie and journalists. International 21:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Herein lies the problem; A; the accusations could be wrong. B; the accusations,especially coming at a time when the US Congress is investigating the NSA spying on Americans issue, could be just another one of the administrations' ruses to support their activities; these men could just be CIA ops and the charges will be dropped in 3 months.C; In the USA we are innocent until proven guilty so there is no way the article should run without a response from the defense team and D; If some arm of the Iranian government was indicting 3 unknown men for a "terrorist plot" would that make it here as a news item? This story is very,very helpful right now to the US Government and if it is news at all, it should at least include responses from the defense team and/or mention past bullshit accusations of "terrorism" by the various arms of the US government, at least that's my opinion. Please address these issues before removing the flag.Neutralizer 22:07, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It's very disturbing to see this type of wording on Wikinews "said to have". We can not be a party to the "conviction by accusation" methodology which this story,as currently written, portrays, in my view...and even leaves the impression by the same administration spokesman who condoned torture (Gonzales) that maybe the illegal wiretaps helped capture these "terrorists". This article is not NPOV ! PERIOD! Neutralizer 22:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutralizer: the phrasing is awkward, but you can clearly tell the intent is to say "alleged" or "are reported to have" or similar. Poor english usage does not give NPOV bias; in fact it shows the authors are working to ascribe opinions and statements which are not necessarily factual. I am researching the factual statements in this article and am not seeing any specific bias thus far. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 22:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Can we use a suitable "wikipediabox" about US-psyops or references to spinn in the beginning of the article?International 22:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Amgine, I am really suspicious about the timing of these domestic terrorism allegations/charges (including the Pennsylvania story) coming out during the NSA congressional hearings into domestic surveilance. I believe these 2 stories are the first involving domestic terrorism charges in many months and for both to be put out on the wire at this time seems very suspicious to me. I think we, as part of the media, are just being used to present scary accusations which justify domestic wiretapping. If these no-name defendents are found innocent in 3 years, nobody will care...the impact of the accusations is working right now. In addition, don't you think we need to hear something from the defense lawyers? Neutralizer 23:08, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I like International's suggestion. Perhaps an infobox showing all the accusations later found to be false or exagerated? Neutralizer 23:10, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipediapar boxes are source material, not article content, and should be in the sources section. If it is relevant to the article's fact checking (which it was not when I fact checked earlier) it should be included. Otherwise it is a POV insertion.


 * I can only speculate, Neutralizer, but I would see a different motivation for these indictments; there are several cases regarding people held in violation of the US Constitution which are working their way into the courtrooms. But speculation does not belong in a Wikinews article. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 00:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Title typo: "againt" should be "against"
Grammar, folks!! I'm sorry, however, that I do not know how to edit a pre-existing story title, except maybe to forward links from this page to a copy of the page with the correct title. That won't fix a typo on the FRONT PAGE of wikinews, though. Please fix this!


 * fixed; thanks for the heads up. Neutralizer 02:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Relevant discussion points
From;
 * "NPOV says it all; alerting us all that when articles are written from an anglo/american centric point of view we are breaching NPOV. I agree with what Amgine just said "To write here you have to accept the guidelines, and goals, the community has set for itself" as well as what Elliot has said "Wikinews is not opinion and commentary on the news"; I just think that many of our articles,without the contributors even realizing it, are unbalanced in favour of the Anglo American centric point of view and those articles are then a soapbox for Anglo American political and government officials. Karen said at one point that this article's quotes had come to a point where they were evenly balanced; I think she is very correct in identifying that as something we should aim for; equalization of quotes. I think that NPOV is saying that is the objective to go for; when there is more than one position in the world on an issue, we should try to present both sides. Going back to Edward Murrow; when he presented his blistering reports about Sen. McCarthy, he gave McCarthy the opprtunity for rebuttal; but with our article Three Ohio men indicted for terrorist plot against U.S. military in Iraq I was not allowed a factual rebuttal on the article page; and that article ended up being completely a one-sided opinion piece..that opinion being the opinion of the prosecuting arm of the US Gov. and only their statements "quotes" are in the article. We all want NPOV in accordance with our guidelines; but those guidelines insist that The policy says that "an article should fairly represent all, and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct." Right now this article (Australian troops) is really just fine in terms of NPOV; but this one Three Ohio men indicted for terrorist plot against U.S. military in Iraq certainly isn't. At the very least we should have inserted references to the times the US Gov's allegations have been 100% wrong and have included fabricated evidence;e.g.Brandon Mayfield; so I feel that I am the most aggressive supporter of ourNPOV guidelines, especially in confronting what our NPOV policy identifies as the "ongoing problem" of;anglo/american centric point of view. In my opinion, if you want to identify people who are writing opinion pieces, then I suggest you look at the many opinion pieces that are being published here which express only the opinion of anglo/american government officials....those are the articles which often get through here completely empty of any NPOV.."