Merger proposal: merge Illinois Watchdog into Watchdog.org

I propose that Illinois Watchdog be merged into Watchdog.org. It doesn't appear to me that Illinois Watchdog has free-standing notability. It seems to be a service or product of Watchdog.org, and I believe it would be more appropriate to have a section titled "Illinois Watchdog" on the Watchdog.org page, than for Illinois Watchdog to continue to have its own page. Thanks. Safehaven86 (talk) 00:06, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would maybe go a step further and merge this article into the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity article. Granted, I just started looking, but I'm having trouble finding meaningful, substantive discussion of Watchdog.org in reliable sources. Champaign Supernova (talk) 22:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this article should be merged into the article for that group, which is now named Franklin News Foundation. Llll5032 (talk) 06:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Summarization of multiple third party assessments of ideology

Disputed content in the Outside analysis section in bold:

The Project for Excellence in Journalism of the Pew Research Center surveyed and analyzed nonprofit news organizations active on the state or national level in 2011 and again in 2013. The studies found that the most consistently ideological of the news outlets were those that were organized in networks, specifically the conservative Watchdog network and the liberal American Independent News Network. The 2011 study found that Watchdog articles were nearly four times more likely to support a conservative theme as liberal.

  1. Holcomb, Jesse; Rosenstiel, Tom; Mitchell, Amy; Caldwell, Kevin; Sartor, Tricia; Vogt, Nancy (July 18, 2011). "Assessing a New Landscape in Journalism". Project for Excellence in Journalism. Pew Research Center. p. 3. Retrieved October 23, 2015. At the Watchdog.org sites, 41% were crafted in such a way as to support a conservative theme, while 11% reflected pro-liberal themes-a ratio of nearly 4-to-1.
  2. Wilson, Reid (July 10, 2014). "The precipitous decline of state political coverage". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 23, 2015. Another Pew study found Franklin Center Web sites were four times more likely to present stories with a conservative theme than a liberal theme.

Hugh (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's not WP:Balance, PEW is comparing the two far extremes, here is the relevant section [on page 3]:

Stories with clear partisan themes were most prevalent in the two families of sites.

At the Watchdog.org sites, 41% were crafted in such a way as to support a conservative theme, while 11% reflected pro-liberal themes-a ratio of nearly 4-to-1. (At the same time, 49% reflected a mix of views, or reflected ideas that had no particular ideological theme.)

The overall numbers at the American Independent News Network sites were similar, nearly 4-to-1 liberal to conservative: 37% of the stories carried a pro-liberal theme, either attacking conservative figures, praising liberal ones, or espousing a liberal idea on an issue; 11% heavily reflected conservative ideas; 53% were mixed or non-partisan.

It is unremarkable, common knowledge and already stated -- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 23:02, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
BTW: Why keep using these ridiculously long and subjective section-headings and edit-summaries? They reek of POV and infer that you are trying to hide something about your source. -- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 23:07, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Continued: I have to scroll beyond the end of the edit summary box, just to provide my summary. -- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 23:10, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is not common knowledge that in 2011 Pew found that Watchdog articles were 4 times more likely to be conservative as liberal. Hugh (talk) 01:18, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is common knowledge that conservative websites write about conservative topics and against liberal initiatives. Nobody cares about this micro-minutia contained in some obscure study. Again, write an article about the PEW studies, let us know how many reads it gets. Bye! -- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 05:09, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"micro-minutia...obscure study" The Washington Post citation is WP:USEBYOTHERS. The weight of the proposed content is clearly due. Hugh (talk) 20:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to propose the edit on Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity the WAPO article does not specifically mention Watchdog.org in context, so it leans toward WP:OR. Additionally, the author is not independent of the topic, Reid Wilson is a journalist lamenting fate of his profession in the cited article. Finally, though the virtually identical 4 to 1 ideological bias is also available to Wilson concerning the American Independent News Network, working for a left-leaning publication, he is allowed to overlook that fact. Under WP:BALANCE we are not. I'm sorry, but inspecting Talk:American Independent News Network, I don't see where you are attempting to introduce the 4 to 1 factoid. Why is it "highly relevant" here and not there?-- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 21:28, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The proposed addition is a reasonable paraphrase across multiple reliable sources. It is not WP:OR. Hugh (talk) 00:21, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'll ask again, Why is it "highly relevant" and "reasonable" in Watchdog.org and not in American Independent News Network?-- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 06:32, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully remind this is the article talk page for Watchdog.org. Please discuss the content of other articles on the appropriate talk page. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 16:44, 7 December 2015 (UTC) While many Wikipedia articles characterize their subjects as ideological (conservative/liberal), here we are fortunate that multiple high-quality, neutral, independent, third-party, extraordinarily reliable sources have further quantified just how ideological the subject of this particular article is; why would we hide this from our readers? Saying "x is conservative" is a biased, incomplete, inaccurate, non-neutral summarization of multiple, high quality, independent, third-party reliable sources that clearly state "x articles support a conservative ideology 4x more often than liberal." Hugh (talk) 17:00, 7 December 2015 (UTC) WP:3O requested. Hugh (talk) 17:13, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is an inappropriate use of WP:3O. Third opinion requests are for disputes between a maximum of two editors. In this case, me, User:009o9, and User:Champaign Supernova have all disagreed with your proposed changes. Safehaven86 (talk) 18:04, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I just realized that the "highly reliable" source cited here has a problem with simple addition. On the Watchdog paragraph, 41% + 11% + 49% = 101%. In the American Independent News Networkparagraph, 37% + 11% + 53% = 101%. Not giving me a warm fuzzy feeling about the reliability of the PEJ for making specific proclamations. If they can't do simple addition, perhaps the entire section should be removed? -- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 18:05, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Are we pretending we don't know how rounding works? You may consider challenging the reliability of the Pew Research Center at WP:RSN. Hugh (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There are currently at least three threads on this talk page discussing this proposed content addition. In none of those cases did a consensus emerge to include the disputed content. Rather, three editors agreed on an alternate version, currently in the article. Opening up more threads on the same topic and asking for a WP:3O (in contravention of the third opinion guidelines, which state a dispute must only be between two editors) is not likely to change the consensus here. Safehaven86 (talk) 18:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting The initiating editor changed this section heading, from "Summarization of multiple highly reliable independent third party assessments of ideology:"Diff to the current "Summarization of multiple third party assessments of ideology",Diff just minutes before posting on WP:30 Diff. Refusing to answer my twice posed question as to why his paraphrasing of the content should be used here, and not the liberal article with the exact same circumstance is not WP:DGF. I've requested administrative closure for all three sections on this worn-out topic. [1] -- Paid Editor, but not on this subject -- User:009o9Talk 19:17, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Third Opinion

A third opinion has been requested. However, Safehaven86 is correct. It appears that, while this controversy is primarily between 009o9 and HughD, two other editors have commented. As a result, I am removing the third opinion request. Any editor may request moderated dispute resolution at the dispute resolution noticeboard or may file a neutrally worded Request for Comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Marquardtika. Yes, this article could use an update, but not about any connection to a group with a similar name. - - Prairieplant (talk) 02:53, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment: summarization of multiple third party assessments of degree of ideological orientation

This RfC is void because it violates the nominator's topic ban, as noted here. There was rough consensus against inclusion in any case. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the following content, shown in bold, be added to the "outside analysis/independent evaluation" section/paragraph:

The Project for Excellence in Journalism of the Pew Research Center surveyed and analyzed nonprofit news organizations active on the state or national level in 2011 and again in 2013. The studies found that the most consistently ideological of the news outlets were those that were organized in networks, specifically the conservative Watchdog network and the liberal American Independent News Network. The 2011 Pew study found that Watchdog articles supported a conservative theme nearly four times more often than liberal.

  1. Holcomb, Jesse; Rosenstiel, Tom; Mitchell, Amy; Caldwell, Kevin; Sartor, Tricia; Vogt, Nancy (July 18, 2011). "Assessing a New Landscape in Journalism". Project for Excellence in Journalism. Pew Research Center. p. 3. Retrieved October 23, 2015. At the Watchdog.org sites, 41% were crafted in such a way as to support a conservative theme, while 11% reflected pro-liberal themes-a ratio of nearly 4-to-1.
  2. Wilson, Reid (July 10, 2014). "The precipitous decline of state political coverage". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 23, 2015. Another Pew study found Franklin Center Web sites were four times more likely to present stories with a conservative theme than a liberal theme.

Hugh (talk) 15:27, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The first of the two sources is already in use in the section; the second source, The Washington Post is added by this proposal.

Summary of previous expressed positions

Support Inclusion:

  • Highly relevant; degree of political ideology is one of the most notable aspects of the subject of the article
  • Sources are very highly reliable, neutral, independent third-party
  • Multiple reliable sources; use by others WP:USEBYOTHERS; due weight

Oppose Inclusion:

  • Proposed content is redundant with the lede which already states the subject of this article "...reports...from a conservative perspective."
  • Proposed content is obvious, uninteresting or trivial
  • Proposed content is a point-of-view push
  • Proposed content is original research WP:OR

Hugh (talk) 20:36, 8 December 2015 (UTC) [reply]

No it doesn't. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:10, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Survey

Please use this subsection to indicate support or opposition to the above question and a brief statement. Please use the "Threaded discussion" subsection below for threaded comments; please do not included threaded comments in this subsection. Please feel free to adjust your position here as discussion progresses. Please maintain civility; discussion participants are respectfully reminded this article is under discretionary sanctions. Formal administrator close is respectfully requested as this article is under active discretionary sanctions. Thank you.

  • Support inclusion because...rationale citing policy or guideline...signed
  • Oppose inclusion since...rationale citing policy or guideline...signed
  • Support inclusion The ideological orientation of the subject of this article is one of, if not the, most notable aspects of the subject of this article, so a quantitative estimate of the magnitude of the ideological orientation is highly relevant. A quantitative characterization is not redundant to a qualitative characterization; the current article admits to a range of possible readings, from "leans conservative" to "exclusively conservative" WP:READERSFIRST. The sources, the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post are unimpeachably reliable. The Washington Post source is an instance of use by others WP:USEBYOTHERS and demonstrates due weight. Exclusion of the above proposed content violates our neutrality pillar. The article is well short of long article guidelines. Hugh (talk) 16:05, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am still an oppose vote, due to the balance of the suggested commentary, but I would support something that is a more faithful paraphrase of the cited source. Page 3
"...The studies found that the most consistently ideological of the news outlets were those that were organized in networks, specifically the conservative Watchdog network and the liberal American Independent News Network, Both organization's coverage was roughly 50% politically themed, and of those articles, each organization displayed a 4 to 1 ratio of partisan ideological subject matter.The 2011 Pew study found that Watchdog articles supported a conservative theme nearly four times more often than liberal"
I believe that this version is more informative. Cheers! 009o9 (talk) 23:39, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this one is better. ViperFace (talk) 23:21, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
With that stated above, the passage in the WAPO is problematic, it does not mention that 50% of the coverage is apolitical, skewing the 4 to 1 verbiage by omission. Moreover, cherry picking from the WAPO paragraph will leave the reader to believe that conservative organizations are overrepresented, which is not the case. I suggest ignoring the article because it is largely off-topic (primarily about Statehouse reporting) and the article does not specifically mention Watchdog.org. Alternately, the entire paragraph could be block-quoted (to maintain balance) and attributed specifically to the author's interpretation and not the PEW study -- as a journalist, the WAPO author is not entirely independent of the topic. WAPO Source article 009o9 (talk) 02:32, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose inclusion The Watchdog's ideology bias is adequately and prominently stated in the current version, stating that the Watchdog is among the most ideological of those in the study.Diff The conservative perspective is also stated in the first sentence of the lede. The interested editors here have graciously included the PEW/PEJ WP:PRIMARY sourcing, even though the PEW is not completely independent and funds one of these types of websites, "[4] Included in the 172 is Stateline, a site funded largely by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which also funds the Pew Research Center."[2] Technically the WAPO third-party reporting does not directly mention the Watchdog, but I'm sure that a neutral paraphrase of that content would be welcome here.(However, the WAPO article is a journalist lamenting the fate of his vocation, independence also in question.[3]) We don't have a problem with the sourcing or content, we (the consensus) oppose the COI and POV editorializing by the campaigning editor, who in in my opinion is violating his WP:TBAN. -- Paid Editor, but no connection to this topic paid or otherwise -- User:009o9Talk 19:02, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Additional by opposing editor:
  • Nominator has not disclosed that he is currently on a topic block for this topic,Diff yet continues to edit in the article space.Diff Diff
  • Proposed content has already failed consensus and (the current ver.) was condensed from a poorly written and overly verbose version.Diff Prior content resembles WP:Attack.
  • This is the fourth talk page section initiated on this topic by proposing editor. WP:DISRUPTSIGNS & WP:WALLOFTEXT
  • Content is WP:ORIGINALSYN, both websites discussed in source have a 4 to 1 ideology bias (WP:CHERRY & WP:BALANCE) editor has declined to discuss why this fact and source context should be omitted, fails WP:DGF.
-- Paid Editor, but no connection to this topic, paid or otherwise -- User:009o9Talk 18:31, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't seem to be relevant to the RfC. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:35, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Oppose: In the words of this RFC's author, "failed, blatant, pathetic hail mary attempt to salvage a failing pointed, game-ridden, sad, pathetic, harassing" effort to introduce the Koch brothers to this article without mentioning them due to a topic ban. Existing content is a perfectly adequate summary of available sourcing; proposed content is WP:UNDUE. Plus, you can't really talk about the ideological orientation of the site without mentioning its biggest donors (hint: those darn Kochs!) Safehaven86 (talk) 05:58, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support inclusion. Really, there's no good reason not to that I have seen so far. Eman235/talk 02:02, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as written. Aside the proposer being possibly subject to a TBAN, making the RfC void, the sentence as written doesn't note that only 15% of the material constituted "exposes", and about half was "partisan", under Pew's definition. Adding the clarification would be too much detail. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion

Please restrict threaded discussion to this subsection. Please sign your comments. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 15:56, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not relevant to the actual RFC. Please discuss the content here not the editors. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:40, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to validate this ill-formed RFC with a !vote. Obviously, if an editor is topic-banned from articles about the (ideological and partisan!) Koch brothers, and an article says it represents "the largest media investment" made by the Koch brothers, and said topic-banned editor attempts to make edits to the article regarding the article subject's level of ideology and partisanship, then, Bueller, we have a problem. This is truly beyond the pale. Champaign Supernova (talk) 20:57, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
These incidents are being discussed at...
Thanks for your comment. -- Paid Editor -- User:009o9Talk 22:10, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Champaign Supernova, Some administrators are claiming that the TBAN, was not specific enough to include Watchdog. However; HughD has a one year TBAN from Tea Party and extended topics and then experienced a one week block for directly editing Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity on October 29.Diff At that time, Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity was clearly included in this article's Lede and he continued to edit after his block. Diff Since you have commented and are an interested here, perhaps you would consider reading the ANI at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Distruptive_editing_by_editor_already_under_WP:TBAN. 009o9 (talk)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dot org vs dot net

There is a group sending e-mails that encourage action based on data or reports they found that is called Watchdog.net. Is it simply a mailing address for Watchdog.org, or a wholly different entity? I found one blog post from 2008 saying that Watchdog.net gathered free public data and let people with the know-how use the data for their own activism or interests, suggesting that Watchdog.bet was new or relatively new that year. The blogger was interested in the data, and said no more than that. Is there a source to say if they are the same? I have not logged in to Watchdog.net, which seems the only way to see substantive information at that web site. Curious. - - Prairieplant (talk) 20:58, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Prairieplant: They appear to be different entities. Watchdog.net says it is "a project of Demand Progress, a progressive organization whose one million activists work to guard the interests of ordinary Americans — and fight back against corporations and wealthy interests that seek undue control over our government, economy and society." Interestingly, when I go to watchdog.org, it redirects to thecentersquare.com. It looks like watchdog.org has been rebranded, so this page title should probably be moved. On that site's about page, it says "the Center Square is a project of the 501(c)(3) Franklin News Foundation." Marquardtika (talk) 02:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act section

I rewrote the section about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act based on the third-party reliable sources (per WP:BESTSOURCES and WP:INDY), removed some WP:SYNTH from sources that did not mention Watchdog.org or Franklin, and also removed the longstanding neutrality template. Llll5032 (talk) 16:24, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Watchdog.org
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