Talk:The Grayzone

critical vs. negative

In the first sentence of the second paragraph, which begins with "It is known for its critical coverage of American foreign policy", I changed "critical" to "negative" in Special:Diff/1212676885. The term critical is ambiguous because it can refer to both positive and negative commentary (i.e. critical reception), while the term negative unambiguously refers to negative commentary. As the article body makes clear, The Grayzone is "centred around an opposition to the foreign policy of the United States and a desire for a multipolar world"; this indicates negative coverage of American foreign policy.

In Special:Diff/1213195132, Philomathes2357 (talk · contribs · count) changed negative back to critical, with an edit summary claiming that "Critical is a more neutral, less emotional description than 'negative'". That reasoning is incorrect, because critical is not a more "neutral" term than negative, and negative is not an "emotional" term. Using critical misleads readers with its ambiguity; it should be replaced with the more precise term negative to better reflect The Grayzone's content. — Newslinger talk 21:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm also open to replacing critical coverage with criticism, which would eliminate the ambiguity while retaining a variant of the word critical. — Newslinger talk 21:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Support critical coverage Softlem (talk) 02:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I would avoid "negative". We use the verb "to criticise" frequently in the rest of the article so should not depart from that standard. I also think we should replace the unnecessary phrase "It is known for ..." - known by whom? Remove the ambiguity by saying "It has criticised American foreign policy". It is simpler. Burrobert (talk) 12:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I support this, but it requires some reworking of the whole sentence. It could be: "The Grayzone has criticized American foreign policy, sympathetically covered authoritarian regimes, and published misleading reporting." Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:19, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I support "The Grayzone has criticized American foreign policy, sympathetically covered authoritarian regimes, and published misleading reporting", which addresses the ambiguity. It also eliminates the repetition of the word coverage and flows better grammatically. — Newslinger talk 00:43, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't support that. The sentence is a mess as-is, and would be even more of a mess if we made that change.

Every media outlet in existence has "published misleading reporting". That would not be worth mentioning in an encyclopedic context, any more than it would be worth saying "The New York Times has published misleading reporting" in the lede of its article.

As far as I can tell, the only encyclopedic justification for describing The Grayzone in such disparaging terms in Wikivoice is this: they haven't merely published misleading reporting, they are "known for" publishing misleading reporting. Known by whom?

The cited source is an anthology of political opinions called "How To Abolish the Hong Kong Police". The text reads "The Grayzone, a publication known for misleading reporting in the service of authoritarian states..."

That still doesn't answer the question of "known by whom?" the two anti-police activists in Hong Kong who wrote the story? Are these two individuals, in the context of an opinion piece, authoritative enough to be quoted verbatim in Wikivoice? I have a feeling that would not fly on other articles.

Either we keep the clumsy "known for" language, and we come to a consensus that "How to Abolish the Hong Kong Police" should be quoted in Wikivoice, or we remove the "known for" piece, in which case there is no longer a justification for using Wikivoice for claims like "sympathetic to authoritarian regimes" and "misleading reporting".

My solution: these quotes should be in the body, in the "reception" section, and attributed to their authors, not used in the lede in Wikivoice. Philomathes2357 (talk) 05:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

You may have missed my reply when you pushed for the same changes in October 2023 at Talk:The Grayzone/Archive 2 § New potential sources. For your convenience, here it is again:

The book chapter's description of The Grayzone as "a publication known for misleading reporting in the service of authoritarian states" was written in the authors' voice as a factual claim, and the authors cited an example of an article from The Grayzone that was representative of its misleading pro-authoritarian content. That description is not "the opinions of Hong Kong protesters and activists"; in fact, the book chapter does not cover Hong Kong protesters' views about The Grayzone as a publication at all. There is also no evidence that the authors of Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism are biased in relation to The Grayzone or to Hong Kong protestors. The verifiability policy allows articles to reflect what reliable sources say, which is why this article reflects the book chapter's description of The Grayzone.

There are two academic sources cited immediately after the misleading reporting descriptor, and in addition to that, many reliable sources in the History section provide ample evidence that The Grayzone has published false information and conspiracy theories, which are both subsets of misleading reporting. The article's lead section accurately summarizes the article body. — Newslinger talk 05:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

“Critical” is better than “negative” but re-working the sentence to use “criticism” would be even better.

“Known for” is clunky, and “authoritarian states” should be replaced by the specific states referred to JArthur1984 (talk) 13:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

"Known for" is indeed clunky, and the sources cited are not nearly sufficient for putting such a strong statement in Wikivoice. I also agree that "authoritarian states" should be replaced by the specific states. Philomathes2357 (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I've partially reverted Philomathes2357's recent changes in Special:Diff/1221740502, per WP:BRD.

Specifically, I reverted the change from "misleading reporting" to "allegations of misleading reporting", since the cited reliable sources focus on The Grayzone's own misleading reporting instead of its allegations of other sources' misleading reporting.

Also, I oppose the removal of the phrase "authoritarian regimes" from the phrase "sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes", because it describes a key pattern in The Grayzone's reporting that would otherwise be overlooked. Per Dimaggio (2023), "With the Grayzone and MintPress News, their rhetorical efforts to target the mainstream media for fake news are undermined by both venues’ uncritical reliance on official propaganda from authoritarian states that deny charges of their own human rights atrocities." I've re-added that phrase alongside the listing of individual countries, i.e. "sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes, including those of Syria, Russia, and China". — Newslinger talk 18:29, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Being lackeys for authoritarian regimes is their shtick. Of course it should remain in the article. Weird anyone would remove it. 207.212.33.88 (talk) 03:44, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I think you make a good point, Newslinger. "Allegations of misleading reporting" could be interpreted as referencing The Grayzone's coverage of other outlets' misleading reporting, rather than other outlets claims about The Grayzone's misleading reporting. Good catch.

I still wonder about the phrase "authoritarian regimes". It implies that the writers at The Grayzone are somehow reflexively supportive of authoritarianism, which is, of course, silly. However, as long as we preserve the wording "most contemporary media analysis has focused on", rather than the previous "known for", I don't have a major objection to the status quo.

I see that my wording, "commentary", was changed to "analysis". I understand why that was done, but since many sources only make a passing mention of The Grayzone, and don't engage in anything approaching an "analysis" of their reporting, I think a more appropriate word would be "coverage". I think this is a happy medium that should be acceptable to everyone. I would be curious what JArthur1984 thinks of this, since he was involved in this discussion a short while ago. Philomathes2357 (talk) 20:48, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Unless you're being sarcastic, you seem to be confused when you write:

"I think you make a good point, Newslinger. "Allegations of misleading reporting" could be interpreted as referencing The Grayzone's coverage of other outlets' misleading reporting, rather than other outlets claims about The Grayzone's misleading reporting. Good catch."

That is not User:Newslinger's point. In fact, the current content is correct. It is The Grayzone's own misleading reporting that is the object of criticism by mainstream sources. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:43, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I think all of us are in agreement that the current wording correctly reflects that The Grayzone's own misleading reporting is what has been criticized.

I changed "contemporary media commentary" (i.e. commentary in contemporary media) to "contemporary media analysis" (i.e. analysis of contemporary media) because the cited sources include academic sources (not just media outlets) that have analyzed The Grayzone's content. The recent change back to "contemporary media coverage" again portrays the coverage as coming from other media outlets (i.e. coverage in contemporary media) rather than a mixture of media outlets and academic sources. Due to this, I support a change back to "contemporary media analysis" or similar phrasing that describes contemporary media as the target, and not solely the source, of the analysis. — Newslinger talk 23:22, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

@Valjean I was neither sarcastic nor confused. I was simply acknowledging (and agreeing with) @Newslinger's observation that "the cited reliable sources focus on The Grayzone's own misleading reporting instead of its allegations of other sources' misleading reporting."

I assume that by "academic sources", you are referring to the book "How to Abolish the Hong Kong Police", the article from The Journal of International Criminal Justice, and the book "Fake News in America: Contested Meanings in the Post-Truth Era".

First, it would be good to come to a consensus that these are, indeed, reliable academic sources. Surely, we can all agree without further discussion that an article published in a scholarly journal like The Journal of International Criminal Justice is a reliable, academic source. My understanding (informed by Newslinger's previous comments about "How to Abolish the Hong Kong Police) is that if a book is published by an academic publisher like Palgrave Macmillan, it is, by definition, a reliable scholarly source.

Valjean, based on our conversation here, seems to have a different interpretation of what constitutes a reliable scholarly source. I, frankly, agree with Newslinger, and I find Valjean's arguments at the "Russian interference" article to be unsupported by current Wikipedia policy. I think WP:RS is very clear: " Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.". Note that WP:RS does not make a distinction between academic sources from the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities - academic sources are academic sources, period, and they are inherently reliable and of the highest quality. If you think we're still at an impasse on that topic, Valjean, this would be a good place to sort out that confusion.

If we all agree that the three aforementioned sources are reliable, and academic, that brings us to the question of wording: "analysis", vs "commentary", vs "coverage". The reason I found the word "coverage" to be preferable to "analysis" is that the book "How to Abolish the Hong Kong Police" makes only a passing mention of The Grayzone. It does not engage in anything resembling "analysis", it merely makes a rather flippant remark about what The Grayzone is "known for". That is why I found the word "coverage" to be more precise and all-encompassing, because only two of the three academic sources engage in analysis of the topic, whereas "coverage" characterizes all three of the sources.

Perhaps the problem is referring to all of the sources as "media". Maybe a better formulation would be something like this:

"Most contemporary news coverage and academic references to The Grayzone have focused on..."

Thoughts? Philomathes2357 (talk) 01:06, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

An academic source in the "soft sciences" is a RS for the author's opinion, not necessarily for facts (as is the case with "hard sciences"). In the social sciences and political science, we're dealing with "soft science" and not clear evidence, lab research, and double-blind studies. My background is in the medical field, with two health care degrees, IOW "hard sciences".

In political science academic literature, we're dealing with authors who get their information largely the same way we do, from the news and such sources. They are subject to the same foibles we are, IOW, GIGO. Fringe authors who publish their opinions and books at academic presses will choose to ignore contrary evidence from mainstream sources while including their misguided views gleaned from fringe sources we consider unreliable. That's just the way it is. Compare books from academic sources by mainstream authors and fringe authors and the differences are plain as day. Fringe authors include conspiracy theories and debunked ideas and ignore facts they don't like. Therefore, what they write is a RS for their own opinions. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:34, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I cannot tell if you are referring to Wikipedia policy, or proposing your opinion for what WP:RS "should" say.

If it's the former, could you provide a link to the relevant policy, please? Philomathes2357 (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC) Philomathes2357 (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm talking about policy and common sense. Policy informs us to not treat opinions as facts or facts as opinions, something you often cite. Common sense informs us that much of the soft sciences, including political science, is about opinions, often opinions about facts. Mainstream and fringe soft science authors, when they write in academic literature and have their books published by academic presses, will express their opinions about various facts, often drawing from different sources of information, mainstream versus fringe. Mainstream authors will tend to rely on a broad base of reliable sources, whereas fringe academic authors will tend to use a narrow selection of sources (read what Pew Research says about that), tend to ignore many mainstream sources and facts they don't like and use unreliable sources, debunked ideas, and conspiracy theories in their writings. That's the nature of the very existence of the concepts of "mainstream" and "fringe", two categories I'm sure you know exist, even if you might quibble about which author belongs to which category. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:23, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I understand the "common sense" part. I've made the same point, right here on this page, so I'm somewhat sympathetic to your appeal to "common sense", but the idea that scholarly literature in the social sciences & humanities should be assessed differently than literature in the physical sciences has been consistently rejected by everyone I've talked to.

@Newslinger stated that scholarly literature should only be regarded as opinion when it is explicitly presented as such, not when the author's voice is used to state something in a factual, declarative way. I don't think that's the best way to delineate between facts and opinions, but, since that appears to be the current status quo, we should not apply it selectively.

Where, exactly, in current policy can your proposed distinction between physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities be found? If there is no such distinction in policy, there should be. Philomathes2357 (talk) 22:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

As you point out, you "made the same point ("The problem here may be that the same approach is being applied to overall political attitudes as to scientific claims.") We don't need a policy for using common sense, and most of our policies assume we apply them using common sense.

We should just use attribution for the opinions of those authors, especially when their opinions differ from mainstream sources. For example, their opinions are not necessarily "better" than what has been written in articles by experienced journalists who specialize in these topics and may know more than the author of a book published by an academic press. We know that fringe authors are sometimes professors and thus have access to academic presses, simply because they are professors, not because they are correct. It gives them an elevated platform from which to broadcast their nonsense, and, in that sense, we should not give that type of RS more deference just because it's that type of source. Some of your authors are known fringe sources of bad information, so that's part of why I'm pushing back. They are untruthful and inaccurate.

You have written elsewhere that "Wikipedia policy both tell us that scholarly sources are preferable to "pop news" sources, and the article is currently based exclusively on pop news. Most political scholars that I know regard outlets like Buzzfeed and the Rachel Maddow Show to be entertainment for the masses, not serious sources of information." You seem to be denigrating all news sources by pointing to a couple sources some might consider weak, but how often do you see us citing Rachel (who happens to be amazingly accurate most of the time because of her deep research and team approach) or BuzzFeed news which was a mix of all kinds of stuff? They are a drop in the ocean here. Why are you ignoring the many excellent and renowned journalists who publish in what you disdainfully describe as "pop news", which actually are "serious sources of information"?

You keep pushing a view that implies we, without any thought or reflection, should automatically give academic sources more deference, just because RS policy mentions that academic sources are valued when they exist. Of course we value them, but they aren't always more accurate than good news sources. They also suffer the fate and disadvantage of all books, as compared to journalism. They are static, out-of-date before the ink is dry, and can't be updated the next day with a new article based on newer facts, which is the advantage of news articles by journalists who keep up to date. Books are great for meta topics, but terrible for documentation of fast moving events.

We should also recognize that "reliable" in RS doesn't necessarily mean "accurate" or "truthful". It means fact-checked, from an established and stable source, not a fly-by-night blog, discussion forum, or chat group. Books published by academic presses are obviously RS in that sense, but in the soft-sciences, they aren't necessarily fact-checked or peer-reviewed. The author is automatically considered the authority and is just published. Period. The book is edited and proof-read, but that is also done with news stories. A different scholar with the opposite POV will then publish their book, also from an academic press, and the number of books on that shelf of mine just got longer! And then I have to, once again, double-check those books with the news articles and recognize that the news articles are up-to-date and more accurate sources. The books were only accurate for a month or so. The next congressional investigation shows the book's author got it wrong, because the book was written based on the same news sources we always use, but the process, for that book, stopped the moment it was published. It was right when written, but became wrong as soon as newer information came along. Academic authors describing controversial political events use news from journalists as sources, so you can't claim they are automatically better than journalists. (This obviously would vary according to the topic. News isn't the source for all topics.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:44, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

This is a recurring issue, and there does not appear to be consensus on fact/opinion distinctions, physical/social science distinctions, or scholarly/pop source distinctions. This lack of consensus and clarity is a breeding ground for civil POV pushing and other problems.

This all merits deeper discussion, but this talk page is probably not the best place for it. When time allows, later this week, I'll open a discussion at a more appropriate place, and I'll ping you.

Here, at this talk page, it might be more relevant to talk about the academic sources cited in this specific article. The one that has generated the most controversy is How to Abolish the Hong Kong Police. What is your assessment of this source?

I previously suggested that it should, per common sense, be regarded as a "collection of political opinions", but Newslinger and others felt that, since it was published by academic publisher Palgrave MacMillan, and it is not explicitly labeled as an opinion piece, it should be regarded as a source of factual scholarly information. What do you think? Philomathes2357 (talk) 02:08, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

An example would be pushing the false narrative that Ukraine was responsible for the bombing of the Mariupol theatre. BeŻet (talk) 14:54, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding @Valjean I was neither sarcastic nor confused. I was simply acknowledging (and agreeing with) @Newslinger's observation that "the cited reliable sources focus on The Grayzone's own misleading reporting instead of its allegations of other sources' misleading reporting."

What you wrote directly contradicted Newslinger, hence my concern that there was some confusion or sarcasm at play with your "could be interpreted", which was the opposite of what Newslinger wrote. Newslinger replied to you and clarified his meaning. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:42, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Newslinger's point about the problem with the current/new wording "contemporary media coverage" is not about whether the academic sources cited here are RS or not (where the discussion has gone) but about the fact that language is a misleading way of representing sources that are academic and therefore not "media coverage". Further, "contemporary" is unnecessary; it's a newish outlet so it's not like there's going to be historical coverage to contrast to the contemporary coverage. I'm simplifying it to "coverage". BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:24, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Philomathes2357 (talk) 02:19, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Payments from Iranian and Russian Sources

New reporting shows that the Washington editor was being paid by Russia and Iran for coverage in the past; https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/02/grayzone-russia-iran-support/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:6502:A97:2AF0:2472:F565:FC7B:AF70 (talk • contribs)

Not surprised. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:07, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

For the record: WaPo had to issue a correction. The gist of it is that one of the Grayzone's editors received payment from an Iranian media network for work rendered before he ever worked at the Grazyone. No one else at the Grayzone has been proven to have received funds from Iran or Russia, and the editor in question hasn't received any further payments since he joined the Grayzone. Professor Penguino (talk) 08:32, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I just quickly looked at the article—so I can definitely be wrong about this—but it states: The files appear to show that the Iranian broadcaster paid Reed for occasional contributions to its programming in 2020 and 2021 while he was working as a correspondent for Russia’s Sputnik news outlet. Reed had nine bylines in Grayzone in 2019 and 2020, followed by a gap of 2½ years. He has had 24 more Grayzone bylines since mid-2023, when he was identified as managing editor.. Are you saying Reed was receiving payments prior to becoming managing editor but while he was an active Grayzone contributor? Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 02:32, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I believe that is right. The main reason the article received some backlash was implying that Blumenthal and Maté might have taken payments as well, which neither of the two did. Professor Penguino (talk) 02:37, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok, that makes sense. The content does not seem very lead-worthy so I think I’m going to move it down the article and copy-edit it a bit. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 06:27, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Claim in second paragraph of lede

As of this writing, the second paragraph of the lede reads:

"Coverage of The Grayzone has focused on its criticism of American foreign policy, its misleading reporting, and its sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes, including those of Syria, Russia, and China." Right now I want to focus on the "misleading reporting" claim. The two sources for it (here and here) are both behind paywalls. There are quotes from both of these sources, which read as follows:

Number 1: "These grassroots communities are particularly evident on Twitter, where they coalesce around individual personalities like right-wing activist Andy Ngo, and around platforms with uncritical pro-Kremlin and pro-Assad editorial lines, like The Grayzone and MintPress News. These personalities and associated outlets act as both producers of counterfactual theories, as well as hubs around which individuals with similar beliefs rally. The damage that these ecosystems and the theories that they spawn can inflict on digital evidence is not based on the quality of the dis/misinformation that they produce but rather on the quantity."

Number 2: "The Grayzone, a publication known for misleading reporting in the service of authoritarian states..."

Do we actually have any examples of such misleading reporting? Do the two sources elaborate at all on this? Are there any freely available articles that can attest to this and give specific examples? Professor Penguino (talk) 08:43, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

The examples are described throughout this article in the "History" and "Reception" sections. — Newslinger talk 23:09, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Where, exactly? I've read through the whole article. The closest thing I saw to something that could be called "misleading reporting" was some of their claims about the Russia-Ukraine war. EDIT: To clarify, I can't find anything on a lot of their reports, which seem pretty well done and verifiable. Specifically, their Marioupal theatre bombing article was criticized, but whether their human shields story was really "debunked" is questionable. Professor Penguino (talk) 00:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I've been bothered by this for years, @Professor Penguino. The three things that are usually brought up are:

1) misleading reporting about the Syrian chemical attacks. Aaron Mate has spent more time than any other journalist in the world on the topic, and he dissents from the mainstream narrative (that Assad ordered his military to gas his own people). Sources will describe Mate's reporting as "misleading", but they do not bother to explain why it is misleading, or to address any of the concerns Mate has raised.

2) misleading reporting about the war in Ukraine. One example from the article is the "debunked" claim that Ukraine used human shields. It was "debunked" by a Ukrainian open-source intelligence company with ties to the government of Ukraine. Not a source that should be taken at face value - I'm sure Hamas has "debunked" the claims that they use human shields, too, but only pro-Hamas or anti-Israel POV-pusher would put that in Wikivoice.

3) misleading reporting about the Uyghurs in China. They have "downplayed the genocide" or some variant of that. Again, this is generally asserted without evidence. Even if we accept the hypothetical that the Grayzone has "downplayed" the "genocide" against the Uyghurs...many mainstream outlets have arguably "downplayed" the "genocide" of the Palestinians, but we don't use Wikivoice to call those outlets "misleading".

Overall, I have not seen evidence that the Grayzone has a higher rate of "misleading" or factually incorrect statements than any mainstream newspaper. Sure, they're not perfect, but every RS makes mistakes, too (like when the NYT repeated CIA propaganda that said Iraq had WMDs, oops).

But, because they rock the boat by making sustained, systemic critiques of US foreign policy, other, more pro-establishment outlets frequently attempt to manufacture consent by simply asserting that the Grayzone is "misleading", without bothering with the details. Pro-establishment outlets have a vested interest in making sure the Grayzone is regarded as "fringe" and "misleading", so they regularly recruit know-nothings to write sloppy hit pieces about the outlet, like the recent Washington Post piece that had to be corrected. Such hit pieces should be understood in the context of Manufacturing Consent and the business model of corporate media, IMO, they should not be taken at face value and regurgitated without context, any more than we should take an RT article about the war in Ukraine at face value.

Some editors feel very strongly about making sure this article bludgeons the reader over the head with negative insinuations, so I don't think you'll have much success in your current line of inquiry, @Professor Penguino, but I commend you for looking into it. An entire essay about systemic bias on Wikipedia could be written, just about this one article. Philomathes2357 (talk) 00:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Very, very well put. Thank you. Professor Penguino (talk) 01:43, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Wong (2022) cited an example of misleading reporting: a Grayzone article claiming that Hong Kong protestors are aligned with the US far-right. Your comment overlooked The Grayzone using false AI-generated information to criticize the Navalny documentary and publishing a false confession by student protester Valeska Sandoval. Philomathes2357 mentioned several other topic areas in which The Grayzone' has published misleading reporting.

Although you and Philomathes2357 may disagree with how reliable sources describe The Grayzone's misleading reporting on a range of topics, disagreeing with reliable sources is not a policy-supported reason to remove them from this article. Also, if you disagree with how Wikipedia covers other publications and events, that is irrelevant to this article; feel free to add your perspective to the talk pages of the relevant articles and be sure to cite reliable sources that support your position.

Your opinion of The Grayzone's reliability differs from community consensus. A 2020 RfC found consensus to deprecate The Grayzone because it publishes "false or fabricated information". — Newslinger talk 05:18, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

1) I am aware of the 2020 RfC.

2) Honest question: what was supposedly misleading about the Hong Kong article?

3) Although using AI isn't something I support, it seems weird to then say the Grayzone is primarily known for "misleading reporting" based just on that. I believe the Grayzone removed it from their website, too.

3) From the Business Insider article on the false confession, which I have already heard about: "Although the campaign revealed Monday was largely aimed at a domestic, Nicaraguan audience, it had an international reach. The student protester's false confession, for example, was circulated by a British supporter of the government, John Perry, who adopted a fake identity to publish commentary on the episode at The Grayzone, a US-based fringe website that has promoted the Ortega government's line on social unrest in the Central American country." This is certainly a notable incident, but I still don't think you could say the Grayzone is known specifically for "misleading reporting" just from this. It also seems that The Grayzone removed it from their website after learning the confession was fake.

4) I did not propose removing the sources, but I would very much prefer if there were better evidence to back them up. Professor Penguino (talk) 06:28, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

The Grayzone article accused protestors in Hong Kong, including politician Joshua Wong, of supporting their "far-right sponsors in Washington" and also claimed that Donald Trump was a "sponsor", with no evidence of such sponsorship.

According to SimilarWeb, The Grayzone is the 60,643rdth most popular site in the US and the 141,678th most popular site in the world. As a fringe site with relatively little traffic, The Grayzone isn't covered by other publications in detail very often. The available reliable source coverage, which is cited in this Wikipedia article, explicitly states that The Grayzone publishes misleading reporting. Per the policy against original research, it is not our role on this article talk page to independently assess whether The Grayzone's coverage is misleading for the purpose of including our assessment in the article, since such an assessment cannot be cited in Wikipedia unless it is covered by reliable sources (as the 2020 noticeboard RfC was). — Newslinger talk 09:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I second the comments and concerns of @Newslinger:. Not only is it a violation of original research, it is also forbidden advocacy of fringe POV to now defend The Grayzone in the face of RS criticisms. If a RS defends them, we might be able to use that RS as a counter POV, but what editors must not do is push their own defense of a fringe source. Don't independently assess The Grayzone. Simply document what RS, and only RS, say about it. It's worrying that you don't see the many flaws in their coverage of political events and POV and then come here and question the views of the RS used in the article.

It's best to drop the stick, and if you still feel a need to defend fringe sources like this one, then do it elsewhere, because Wikipedia is not to be misused for advocacy and defense of fringe POV. If you don't feel at home here (that seems pretty obvious), then stick to other topics and do some constructive wikignoming. No one will fault you for that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:54, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia sides with RS. To side with unreliable sources is to oppose WP:RS and WP:V. Never do that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that @Professor Penguino and @Philomathes2357 understand just fine the importance of an encyclopedia based on reliable sources. Their complaint here seems to be that dubious, unsubstantiated, non-notable or otherwise unsuitable claims by typically reliable sources are included in this article. I agree with their concern. This page is not at all what I expect from a Wikipedia article about a news source, even a fringe one. It reads primarily as a laundry list of grievances about specific controversies that have received coverage in RS, with a lot of insinuations and loaded language smuggled into wikivoice from the source. In some cases, where the content is well developed and presented neutrally, the criticisms of The Grayzone from RS are informative. However, it seems to me that this article suffers from the assumption that nearly anything published by a typically reliable source is suitable for inclusion. In reality, we know that even reliable sources routinely make mistakes and are vulnerable to systemic bias. As editors we can assess the suitability of material from reliable sources.

The article also hurts its credibility by parroting the bias-laden framing of its sources, for example through the use of language like "conspiracy theories" and "authoritarian regimes" which is intended to disqualify its subject from legitimate debate. It comes off as patronizing and insecure. If the case against The Grayzone has merit, wouldn't it be better to just list the governments, or describe the theories, and let the reader decide for themself how to categorize those things?

Let's compare two parts of the article to illustrate my point:

The Grayzone promoted the Nicaraguan government's narrative on the 2018–2022 Nicaraguan protests and the November 2021 Nicaraguan general election. The platform also conducted an "unquestioning interview", according to The Guardian, with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Blumenthal and Norton expressed their support to the regime dancing to "El Comandante se queda" (English: The Comandante Stays) a cumbia song composed in support of Ortega during the 2018 protests.

This is a great section. It explains The Grayzone's relationship with the Nicaraguan government in neutral terms and substantiates claims about that relationship. Nothing is insinuated and no pejorative language is used. Despite the fact that the coverage is critical, a reader who supports the Nicaraguan government might still find this section informative.

The website also downplayed the scope of China's Xinjiang internment camps and other widely reported abuses by the Chinese government

This section, like the source it draws from, treats the strongest allegations about a hotly contested, complex geopolitical and human rights issue as if they're indisputable historical fact. Although it has been "widely reported" as the article says by RS, the scope being "downplayed" here is not widely accepted outside of the West. The contentious nature of the topics covered here should already make the language of downplay or denial unsuitable for this article in the absence of a stronger substantiation of what exactly is being downplayed, what claims have been made, etc. This article, already a source for the section, actually does go into considerable detail about The Grayzone's POV on the issue, as do a number of the other sources in this article that push back on their claims. It may indeed be the case that Grayzone is downplaying China's true actions in Xinjiang, but treating that statement as if it's already certain in the absence of any further evidence is just bias, which our sources are allowed to have but Wikipedia shouldn't, even if the sources do.

I think there is plenty of room to improve the article through a more judicious presentation of the information in reliable sources. Let's trim the use of loaded language, substantiate the claims made in RS that have merit and remove sources that make unsubstantiated claims (such as ones that simply say something like "the grayzone publishes conspiracy theories" without any evidence). Finally, I think that some inclusion of The Grayzone's POV, without laundering the website's reputation, would help make the article more informative and credible. Unbandito (talk) 05:27, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources are not biased or mistaken just because they consistently assess The Grayzone's content unfavorably; such an argument presupposes that The Grayzone should be assessed more favorably than reliable sources do, which is a personal opinion, i.e. original research. The contents of this article are in line with articles about other publications that have been identified as questionable by both reliable sources and the Wikipedia community, e.g. Breitbart News (RSP entry) and InfoWars (RSP entry). The article mentions The Grayzone's favorable coverage of authoritarian regimes because The Grayzone is a political website, and one of the most defining characteristics of a political website is its political orientation. Likewise, it is common for news websites known for disseminating conspiracy theories to be described as such in their Wikipedia articles. The Grayzone's political orientation and history of publishing conspiracy theories are both elements of "The Grayzone's POV". — Newslinger talk 07:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Venezuela

WP:OR says that Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists.

I don't think the policy prohibits editors from assessing the credibility of information from sources that are typically considered reliable, and using discretion in determining what content from RS is suitable for inclusion.

Let's take the case of Venezuela here. Here's what the article and its sources claim about Venezuela:

1. Grayzone publishes conspiracy theories about Venezuela.

2. Grayzone covered the 2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela and claimed that US Government reports of a fire started by pro-government forces were unfounded. This claim turned out to be likely true, and is now supported by reporting from the New York Times and other RS.

3. A source used in the article (the article does not reproduce this claim, it just borrows the conspiracy theory label from it) says that Grayzone cited GlobalResearch writer William Engdahl’s conspiracy theories about the “oily hands” of George Soros pertaining to Serbian pro-democracy group Otpor, in this article. However, the article itself doesn't say anything about oily hands or Soros; Engdahl's work is quietly hyperlinked in the following sentence: CANVAS is a spinoff of Otpor, a Serbian protest group founded by Srdja Popovic in 1998 at the University of Belgrade. Otpor, which means “resistance” in Serbian, was the student group that gained international fame — and Hollywood-level promotion — by mobilizing the protests that eventually toppled Slobodan Milosevic. The article as a whole is an analysis of Juan Guaido's connections to Western governments and NGOs. If it contains other factual inaccuracies, not to mention conspiracy theories, the cited RS doesn't meaningfully critique them.

So I think we have a case here where, though the RS is saying something, it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I think the best way to fix this would be to move away from vague, accusatory terms like "conspiracy theory" in favor of specificity about the claims being made by Grayzone and why and to what extent they're rejected by RS. This is also what I meant in my previous comment by including some of Grayzone's POV without laundering their reputation. For another example, take a look at this passage from another cited article about Grayzone:

US online outlet The Grayzone published a lengthy hit piece, calling CIJA “the Commission for Imperialist Justice and al-Qaeda”, claiming we were collaborating directly with Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra affiliates. It was reproduced in other alternative media outlets and among social media enthusiasts. But, more worryingly, calls from the people who work in the field of international criminal justice and Syria started coming in. These are not the types who would normally believe in conspiracy theories, and the majority of them are apolitical. However, the more the hit piece circulated, the fewer people focused on its source – a Kremlin-connected online outlet that pushes pro-Russian conspiracy theories and genocide denial – and focused instead on what was being said about the people in their field who are so rarely in the media.

Here we have two ways to present the information from this source. We can say:

1. The Grayzone pushes pro-Russian conspiracy theories and genocide denial

2. The Grayzone claimed CIJA was working with ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra affiliates, a claim which has been rejected by XYZ reliable sources for ABC reasons

I would say the second option looks far more encyclopedic, credible and informative than the first. Unbandito (talk) 13:40, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

We can do both at the same time: The Grayzone pushes pro-Russian conspiracy theories and genocide denial when it claimed CIJA was working with ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra affiliates, a claim which has been rejected by XYZ reliable sources for ABC reasons." -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. When reliable sources state both A and B, it is a false dilemma to ask Wikipedia editors to choose between covering either A or B, but not both. — Newslinger talk 08:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The text by F. William Engdahl (a blogpost on his personal site) which Blumenthal and Cohen cite contains these words: "Many in Hungary smell the oily hand of Hungarian-born regime-change financier George Soros behind the Popović appearance now in Budapest." Blumenthal and Cohen link to Engdahl on this topic a bunch of times from GZ (as well as from Twitter, as the footnote in the cited journal article notes).

But that's irrelevant, as we're citing a reliable source which gives significant coverage to the topic of our article, and we ourselves don't quote the "oily hands" line. What matters is that this RS is one of the many, many RSs which tells us that GZ "published conspiracy theories about Venezuela, Xinjiang, Syria, and other regions".

The fact is that this is the language that RSs consistently use, and no RS contests or contradicts it. The closest there is to an RS doing so is Greenwald in The Intercept, which we also cite even though it's an outlier among RSs. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:11, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I've restored "Venezuela" to the phrase "published conspiracy theories about Venezuela" in Special:Diff/1229125533, as the claim is supported by the citation. — Newslinger talk 01:08, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Let's take a closer look.

The source says that The Grayzone has "cited William Engdahl's conspiracy theories about the 'oily hands' of George Soros pertaining to Serbian pro-democracy group Otpor". But The Grayzone's article does not mention George Soros (or hands, oily or otherwise) and, as @Unbandito pointed out, Engdahl is not invoked, the Engdahl work is only briefly hyperlinked in passing, and Engdahl's work is not cited to make any claims about Venezuela.

So, while "Alexander Reid Ross" has asserted that The Grayzone spreads conspiracy theory narratives about Venezuela, none of those narratives are mentioned - the allegations made in citation 134 are not about Venezuela. So we have one source, with an author of questionable integrity (see below), making an accusation without evidence. That might be worth a mention in the body, in the form of an in-text attribution. But it's definitely not sufficient for Wikivoice in the lead.

Alexander Reid Ross has a history of...excessive excitement, shall we say, when it comes to slapping labels on people. From our own Wikipedia article: "In 2018, Ross published an article titled "The Multipolar Spin: how fascists operationalize left-wing resentment" in the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) blog Hatewatch. After receiving complaints, the article was taken down and an apology was extended to "those who believe they have been falsely described" as "white supremacists, fascists, and/or anti-Semites". I'd hesitate to use any contentious or loaded label that Ross applies, unless other, more reliable sources corroborate his claims with evidence.

I think Unbandito already laid out the solution: " I think the best way to fix this would be to move away from vague, accusatory terms like "conspiracy theory" in favor of specificity about the claims being made by Grayzone and why and to what extent they're rejected by RS." Philomathes2357 (talk) 02:28, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I feel that my edit here was justified. I tried to sum up the claims made about Grayzone's publishing on Venezuela in my comment above. There is the claim about the aid truck fire, and the claim about hyperlink to William Engdahl on Serbia in an article about Venezuela.

Which of those claims supports the phrase published conspiracy theories about Venezuela? Did you find something in the source that I didn't?

On the other hand, I find @Valjean's take on Grayzone's claims about Syria more agreeable. The other sentence from the source, US online outlet The Grayzone published a lengthy hit piece, calling CIJA “the Commission for Imperialist Justice and al-Qaeda”, claiming we were collaborating directly with Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra affiliates. seems to portray straightforwardly conspiratorial rhetoric from The Grayzone. I intend to investigate the source of this claim a bit further, as it seems possible to me that “the Commission for Imperialist Justice and al-Qaeda” is more of a rhetorical flourish than a literal claim, but if the source is being honest in its portrayal of the Grayzone hit piece, then I'd agree that we can include both the longer exposition of their claims and the conspiracy theory label. Unbandito (talk) 13:23, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

The source (an academic, however excitable, in peer reviewed webjournal, b2o, says that GZ "cited William Engdahl's conspiracy theories about the 'oily hands' of George Soros pertaining to Serbian pro-democracy group Otpor". True, original research reveals that the Grayzone's article does not mention George Soros by name or his hands, but it does cite Engdahl, an insane piece in which he uses that exact phrase, and as the same footnote points out, it was not only in that one article that the authors drew on this conspiracy theory. It's very solid.

WP editors' views on the quality of the author's level of excitement aren't relevant to that. The SPLC piece, by the way, contained not a single factual inaccuracy; SPLC bowed to pressure when threatened with expensive lawfare after already having been targeted by conspiracy theorist Maajid Nawaz over an article by a different author.[1][2][3][4][5][6] BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:58, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: very well said. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:46, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: not only Reid Ross says this. Results of very quick google:

Coda Story: “While the number of left-wing voices denying China’s ongoing repression of the Uyghur people is few, those that do exist are vociferous and well-organized. Of these, The Grayzone is by far the most influential. In recent years, it has taken a variety of contrarian stances on world affairs, from supporting the Assad regime in Syria to backing Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro.”[7]

The Insider: “The Grayzone, founded by American journalist Max Blumenthal in 2018, presents itself as an investigative media organization. However, the outlet has been accused of denying the existence of human rights abuses against Uighurs, propagating unfounded conspiracy theories about regions like Venezuela, Xinjiang, and Syria, and actively promoting pro-Russian propaganda during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”[8]

Pulse: “Are purveyors of fake news endangering the lives of real journalists? … Univision journalist Jorge Ramos and his crew were detained by Venezuelan authorities... It took little time for Maduro’s American supporters to initiate a smear campaign against the journalist. At the vanguard of all this is Grayzone Project editor Max Blumenthal, a blogger with a history of ethically questionable behavior.”[9]

Efecto Cocuyo, via ProBox Digital Observatory: “In June 2020 an investigation published by IPYS Venezuela already told how The Grayzone, which defines itself in Spanish as “independent media dedicated to investigative journalism and analysis on politics and empire”, coordinates with RT, Sputnik, Telesur and Misión Verdad to disseminate political disinformation in favor of the Maduro regime. … GrayZone’s editor-in-chief, Max Blumenthal,… is a well-known Chavista propagandist in the United States who interviewed Nicolás Maduro as Red Radio Ve broadcast.”

[10]

University of Texas at Austin – Global Disinformation Lab: “The Grayzone News… frequently runs articles sympathetic to China and other authoritarian regimes such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.”[11] Note: no allegation of dis information, but highlights significance of Venezuela

See also:

IPYS Venezuela-Provea: [12][13][14]

Efecto Cocuyo fact check [15]

Devin Beaulieu Medium (possibly SME SPS) [16]

Joshua Collins Medium (possibly SME SPS) [17] BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Excellent finds. They should be added to the article. I knew The Grayzone was a bit "off", but the more I learn, the more dangerously misleading it appears. No wonder it's deprecated here. It's a goldmine for learning what are lies. It pushes them. In that regard, it's like Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). These groups of propagandists have a distorted worldview. That's what happens when one recycles Russian/Trump propaganda. Nothing but lies. With VIPS, it's sad, because their beginnings were good. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

This was a quick google using the word "disinformation". I realise the disputed text is published conspiracy theories about Venezuela, Xinjiang, Syria, and other regions. I note only one of the sources I cite actually uses the term “conspiracy theory/theories”. So I had another quick google and didn’t come up with any more with that do. I therefore wonder about reinstating Venezuela (as there is no consensus to remove it, and it’s long standing content) but changing to “conspiracy theories and misleading reporting”. (I’m bolding the terms used in the sources: fake news, disinformation, contrarian positions, propaganda, slander.)

See also:

• Institute for Strategic Dialogue: "There are various far-left alternative media outlets, such as The Grayzone... [whose] content and campaigns push pro-authoritarian positions towards mainstream audiences and undermine the credibility of human rights and democracy activists. The far-left media outlet The Grayzone is one of the key examples of this trend. Founded by journalist Max Blumenthal a month after a visit to Moscow, The Grayzone consistently takes a supposedly anti-imperialist position, regularly defending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin and Venezuela’s Maduro for their alleged resistance to U.S. hegemony86 and denying the Uyghur genocide87 as well as chemical gas attacks in Syria.88 Blumenthal has also spoken at anti-lockdown and antivaxxer rallies."[18] (footnote 86 cites the Pulse Media text above]
• New Lines: "Also ubiquitous [in providing pro-state spin about elections in Nicaragua] was the U.S. journalist Ben Norton, affiliated with the website The Grayzone, which has made something of a cottage industry of defending dictators and their crimes."[19] This doesn't support the claim of conspiracy theories about Venezuela but perhaps does about "other regions"; the article also talks about other disinfo campaigns in Venezuela which is why it came up in my search. But it's another indicator that the second sentence claim in lead is due per opinion in RSs.
• Dan La Botz in New Politics: (For context only, not a usable source.) Also not about Venezuela but includes mention of their support for its government, but makes strong allegations of slander in relation to Nicaragua.[20]
• DiMaggio, Anthony R. Fake news in America: Contested meanings in the post-truth era. Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009067362.009 Has a lot of content about Grayzone but I can’t access it.

BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, @Unbandito. Bullseye. Probably the most careful and sober comment that's appeared on this talk page this year.

I think the article falls prey to the fallacy that "we must be non-neutral if the sources are non-neutral". That is true, to a point. We can and should use biased sources, when they are the best sources available, and when an overwhelming majority of sources holds similar biases, we should make that dominant view clear to the reader.

But we should not, and cannot per WP:NPOV, mindlessly parrot those biases by smuggling loaded language from those sources into Wikivoice. If this article has any hope of becoming a B or A-class article one day, it will be because of carefully thought-through advice like Unbandito's. I think the specific examples you cite are illustrative of what is meant by "Wikipedia should describe disputes, but not engage in them". I think a culture has developed in recent years on Wikipedia that gets a little too excited about using Wikivoice to engage in disputes. For instance, under no circumstances should Wikipedia ever accuse a group of living people of "genocide denial" in Wikivoice. @Unbandito, I don't have the time to work on this article right now, but I applaud and encourage your efforts. Philomathes2357 (talk) 00:34, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

You write: "we must be non-neutral if the sources are non-neutral". That's not only a misunderstanding of NPOV, it's a misleading caricature of those you don't agree with. We must be neutral in the way we document how non-neutral sources (IOW most sources) describe things. That means we do not interfere with, especially by neutering, what a source says. We present it, warts, biases, and all. Describing and documenting what RS say is not "mindlessly parrot those biases". It reveals editors have not interfered by using their own POV to tweak content. Our opinions of what is a "neutral" position is not reliable. It is much safer to examine the POV of a RS and then try to accurately convey that POV into the article. If the opinion is a widely-held factual opinion, then we can do it in wikivoice.

When opinions are clearly factual, and the opposing views are fringe ones pushed mostly by unreliable sources, we state the facts and ignore the fringe by giving the fringe the type of weight it deserves, which, in some cases, means no mention at all. Framing factual opinions as mere "opinions" poisons the well and serves to undermine the factual nature of the content. Such improper framing is a false balance that implies that facts are mere opinions that can be ignored at will (when they should be accepted as facts), and it frames debunked conspiracy theories as factual and worthy of consideration. It opens the door to BS. Wikipedia should not be used to "un-brainwash the masses". Instead, we inform the masses about attempts to brainwash them, and we use RS to do that.

In the East-West political conflicts, that means the sources in Western democracies, where there is an uncensored free press, have more due weight, and can be trusted much more (but not blindly), than censored sources under the control of dictatorial states like Russia, Turkey, and Syria, where state censorship and killing of journalists is the norm. Anti-American, pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine apologists and propagandists are unreliable sources. Their narratives and POV are false propaganda that we constantly expose here, and editors need to get their own POV into line with the facts documented by RS and stop defending unreliable sources like The Grayzone and those associated with Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Useful Idiots (podcast). -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:28, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

List-defined references used without any discussion?

I notice that list-defined references (LDR) are used, but I don't find any discussion in the archives. That was not the style used by the creator of the article, and we are supposed to respect their choice. That is one of the courtesies we extend to article creators, in exchange for them no longer owning the article.

The change from regular to LDR started on April 20, 2023. @Mathglot: can you explain what happened? Was there a discussion I haven't found? Is there an effort to maintain them? (I notice there are lots of regular refs throughout the article.)

I'm very familiar with how they work, like using them, and have created articles with that style. Unfortunately, most editors are pretty clueless with them and don't make any effort to use the style. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:25, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, but I actually only created the initial redirect. The article creator was Red-tailed hawk (initial edit). — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:40, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:48, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm personally not a fan of list-defined references, as they don't quite mesh with the visual editor, and I intentionally write my drafts without them. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I understand that. Most editors don't like them, so I generally feel it's best to use normal ref formatting systems. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:03, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I didn't remember and had to look at it, but your link provides the clue. There can be a tension in a given article between WP:REFCLUTTER (which tends to make it more difficult to edit an article) and WP:CITEVAR (which attempts to retain a desirable consistency in citation style within a given article) and I believe that is the case here. Normally, when the two are in conflict, WP:CITEVAR, which is a guideline, trumps WP:REFCLUTTER, which is an essay on verifiability.

However, neither is policy, and imho both must yield to more important considerations in this case, including the requirements of WP:Verifiability (policy), and Pillar 3 (fundamental principle) which militate against leaving the lead in a near-uneditable state. In my judgment, the article in the version immediately prior to the linked edit was in such an egregiously bad state due to massive reference clutter in the lead, as to effectively freeze the lead or at least make it very difficult to edit for all but the most patient and minutiae-oriented (at least for wikicode editors; VE users may have a different experience), thus violating Pillar 3 ("anyone can edit").

By way of comparison: in revision 1149782419 of 11:40, 14 April 2023, the lead paragraph on the rendered page (i.e., what the reader sees) had a very reasonable 107 words and 616 characters; in the Preview pane (wikicode), however, it was 1,675 words and 10,008 characters, which is a huge, 16 to 1 ratio over the rendered page. Following ten decluttering edits, the lead in rev. 1150793979 of 05:47, 20 April 2023 had 106 words and 618 characters rendered, and 297 words and 1,917 wikicode characters, for about a 3–1 ratio afterward. After decluttering, the lead once again became readable and editable in Preview mode, and has mostly remained so (although there are now seven full citations in the lead which would be better off as LDRs, and if consensus agrees, I'm happy to convert them).

This leads us to two possible issues: first, internal inconsistency, in that LDRs are used mostly for lead cites, whereas the body has mostly full citations (and 62 named refs); and second, the advice in the first sentence at WP:CITEVAR:

Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style, merely on the grounds of personal preference or to make it match other articles, without first seeking consensus for the change.

I don't see a problem for either one, because the change to LDR was certainly not due to my personal preference, but rather because of a desire to fix a problem (near-uneditability of the lead) and attempting to fix it with available tools (LDR) within the bounds of existing policy, as noted. That involved a judgment call that meant that in this case, we should favor other factors over the WP:CITEVAR guideline, and for the reasons given, I think this was a justifiable call. Others may disagree, and though I would argue against going back to the previous style of consistent inline ref usage in body and lead and no LDRs, I would not oppose a consensus to do so. However, I think doing so would hurt the article and be a disservice to our readers in the end, because imho it would tend to make the lead once again near-uneditable in whatever state it will be when the LDRs are removed. Unless someone wants to convert the whole thing to LDR style, I think that having a hybrid style of LDR in the lead, and full refs in the body is okay: WP:Verifiability is served, and so is editability (P3). I think that trumps guideline issues which might argue otherwise.

Hope this explains that series of edits in 2023. How do you see it? Mathglot (talk) 00:49, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

How do I see it? I absolutely love your great reply. Kudos to you for a great explanation! I think, under the circumstances, you improved the situation for that lead. Indeed, a nightmare. I don't think it would be good to go back to the previous situation. If anything, it would be better to go full LDR for the whole article, but consistency isn't an absolute. It would be nice to place a hidden note at the top of the lead and the top of the References section that explains that LDR are used for all references in the lead, and only in the lead.

There is another way to declutter a lead. It involves the "primacy" of the body over the lead. A lead should not contain any content or reference that does not already appear in the body, ergo all those refs will have a short "named" format that can be used in the lead, and then use the full long ref in the body. There should not be any long, full refs in the lead. That itself declutters a lead, making it much easier to edit. Another pet peeve of mine is the practice of adding archive links to a "LIVE"!! source. That adds lots of bytes and makes it harder to edit. I've seen an article more than double in size with one edit of this type. The practice is forbidden by local consensus at Donald Trump and Steele dossier. It makes an already long article a nightmare to download on a cellphone.

If there are multiple refs for one piece of information (and this applies to the whole article, not just the lead), it's good to bundle them in a note using this format: In this case, I used the short, named refs, but one can also pack full refs in there.

Notes

References

Anyway, thanks for all your diligent work. Carry on. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:40, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree with you about archived live urls. Also, you make a really good point with your alternative approach, which would probably be even better than LDRs (at least, for those editors who are confused by them). You could keep named refs in the lead, as you said. Further shortening is possible in the case of multiple refs using template {{R}}, thus your five-source named-ref example becomes {{R|Sollenberger-2017|Chait-2018|Comey-2018|Hartmann-2021|Nemtsova-2017}} (dropping the mm/dd to save a few more bytes at the same time). Mathglot (talk) 09:21, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot: does that require the short name be shortened even more? I wouldn't want to do that, as I prefer the Harvard style ref ("ref name" includes author(s) and date of publication) that is so unique it usually doesn't need to be altered. (An exception occurs when a (usually) journalist writes more than one article on the same day. Then I just add a number.) Is there a citation page here for that type of grouping? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

No requirement; it's just the value of the name field as defined in a <ref> tag elsewhere, having any valid ref name value. I merely shortened the examples here as an illustration of how to save a few more characters, but your examples would work equally well. This is documented at Template:R, which even allows sub-references with automatic numbering, which is another way of dealing with certain types of ref clutter issues. (I am subscribed; no ping necessary.) Mathglot (talk) 17:12, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Cool! I'm learning a lot from you. Thanks. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:20, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Updated to mention shift from far-left to far-right

It now says "The Grayzone is an American fringe news website and blog that was far-left but has become a far-right influencer." This is backed by RS and simple observation (OR backed by RS ) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused here. The community consensus on MMFA and WP:DAILYDOT are that they are sources that ought not generally be used without attribution, and we're relying on them to label the group as "far-right" in wikivoice? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

The cited MMFA source states: Far-left conspiracy theory outlets The Grayzone and MintPress News also adapted the global nature of Soros conspiracy theories—so I’m not sure why it was used to support that content to begin with. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk: then let's attribute it, since they are right.

What do you mean by "Leave LDR alone"? I have just used the established style here, with LDR used for the lead. That's all. Doing that makes the lead much easier to edit. There's a section about this above. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:42, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

The "leave LDR alone" meant that I didn't touch the LDR citations taht were converted.

If we're going to attribute it in the lead, then as WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY suggests, we shouldn't just have it there. We'd need something in the body on a change in editorial tone. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Of course. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d: my bad. I noticed the title and assumed it was also about The Grayzone. The MMFA source is from 2021. When did they start shifting toward defending right-wing dictator states and pushing far-right propaganda from Russia? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

That’s okay, WP:HEADLINES can be duping sometimes. Well, they’ve always been pro-Russia, but I’m assuming the main propaganda push began during the invasion of Ukraine. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. If one goes back to the USSR, they were left-wing, but Russia is now a far-right kleptocracy. Supporters of Putin are generally considered right-wing, and The Grayzone clearly gets its info from Russian sources, so there's that. They are known by whom they support, and they support several far-right countries. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:10, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I think it’s less to do with supporting far right nations/individuals and more so to do with supporting the values or policies of said nations/people (namely hard-lined authoritarianism and general anti-Americanism/anti-Westernism). Such sentiments can exist at either ends of the political spectrum. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

That is very true. The horseshoe description of the political spectrum works fine here. It may well be their anti-Americanism that is the dominating factor, with an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach, and there are nations and peoples on both ends who hold that position toward America. In fact, I lived in Europe long enough to learn how much anti-Americanism there is among NATO and other American-allied countries. Many consider America a third-world, uncivilized, nation. They just fear Russia more, while feeling that America does a piss poor job of taking care of its own. I have to agree. The Trumpian "supporting the values or policies of said nations/people (namely hard-lined authoritarianism and general anti-Americanism/anti-Westernism)" means they would be allied with MAGA and Putin, the types who vote for Trump. I'm old enough to appreciate how bizarre that is. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

This is a good opportunity to discuss whether and how we should document the shift from left to right. We'd have to have several RS that document this, and one of the two I had has been knocked down. Are there others? Just for our discussion, Ben Norton, who formerly worked at The Grayzone, has some interesting things to say about this, and he should know:

"[Blumenthal] took a hard right-wing turn, intentionally appealing to Trump's "MAGA" followers. He condemned the left as a "cult"."[21]

"Before the 2022 US midterm elections, The Grayzone promoted far-right "MAGA" candidates..."[22]

You people know more about this than I do, so please share your thoughts. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

At this point, the far-left descriptor is still better supported by sources. The following sources, written by authors representing a variety of political viewpoints, explain that The Grayzone espouses campism, an ideology within left-wing politics (including far-left politics) that involves supporting an entire "camp" of associated nations despite ideological differences:

Sources describing The Grayzone as campist

Although The GrayZone would characterize itself as an “anti-imperialist” news source, the opaquely financed publication is highly selective in the empires it chooses to scrutinize; it is difficult to find criticism of Russia or China—or any other American adversary—on its site. A more accurate descriptor of its ideological outlook is “campist,” denoting a segment of the sectarian far left that sees the world as divided into two camps: the imperialist West and the anti-imperialist rest. Kirchick, James (29 September 2022). "How the Anti-war Camp Went Intellectually Bankrupt". The Atlantic. There are some on the left who focus on the geopolitical side of things and see the countries of the world in terms of a US-led camp and an anti-imperialist camp. The problem with this “campist” outlook is that it takes a rather forgiving view of oppressive regimes provided they are at odds with Washington. Even worse, working class struggles in such countries are seen as decidedly inconvenient and entirely suspect. No matter how serious the grievances involved or how significant the base of support mobilizing behind them, those taking to the streets will be presented as dupes of the West. The Grayzone is a less than subtle representative of this approach. A million people can fill the streets to demand democratic rights but this website will gleefully point to some small group waving the Stars and Stripes as supposed proof that it’s all the work of the National Endowment for Democracy. Clarke, John (19 March 2021). "The class struggle and geopolitics". Canadian Dimension. What Norton and Blumenthal, and their co-thinkers in what they call the “anti-imperialist left,” exhibit is essentially a revival of Cold War thinking, with a distinctly neo-Stalinist flavor: the world is divided into two camps, one dominated by the United States, and the other consisting of its enemies. The left must solidarize itself with the anti-Washington camp, no matter how brutal, corrupt and dictatorial its leaders, no matter how many of its citizens languish in prison cells, suffer in torture chambers, or lie dead in the streets. We at New Politics unreservedly reject this morally bankrupt politics. We have always stood for vigorous, consistent opposition to both U.S. imperialism and to the tyrannies that pose as socialist or anti-imperialist. "In Defense of Socialist Internationalism: Answering the Propaganda of the Authoritarian "Left"". New Politics. 14 July 2019.

The Grayzone has also been described as a tankie-aligned publication. In contemporary usage, tankie is a pejorative term for supporters of authoritarian communism (including Marxism-Leninism) or authoritarian states with a socialist legacy, and is generally used to label far-left political views. For example:

Source describing The Grayzone as tankie-aligned

Wrażenie wszechobecnej narracji na rzecz Rosji wzmacniają anglojęzyczni dziennikarze pracujący dla RT, CGTN czy mediów powiązanych z rosyjską i chińską propagandą w sposób mniej oczywisty, tak jak „antyimperialistyczne” Mango Press (których aktywność na Twitterze od początku rosyjskiej inwazji składa się wyłącznie z pochwał dla dzielnych rosyjskich wojaków oraz donieckich i ługańskich separatystów) czy The Grayzone. Przekaz takich osób, jak Anya Parampil (68,5 tys. obserwujących), George Galloway (325 tys.), Aaron Mate (195 tys.), Afshin Rattansi (25 tys.), Caitlin Johnstone (106 tys.), Benjamin Norton (186 tys.) jest bardzo spójny, prawie zunifikowany, bardzo bliski anonimowym czy mniej popularnym tankies. Krąży wokół takich narracji: od 2014 r. Ukrainą rządzą neonaziści i krwawe marionetki Stanów Zjednoczonych, w Donbasie popełniają zbrodnie ludobójstwa, Euromajdan to sponsorowany przez Amerykanów przewrót, a ostatecznym celem tej wojny są Chiny. The impression of a pervasive narrative in favor of Russia is reinforced by English-language journalists working for RT, CGTN or media outlets linked to Russian and Chinese propaganda in less obvious ways, such as the "anti-imperialist" Mango Press (whose Twitter activity since the beginning of the Russian invasion has consisted solely of praise for brave Russian fighters and Donetsk and Luhansk separatists) or The Grayzone. Contributions from people such as Anya Parampil (68.5k followers), George Galloway (325k), Aaron Mate (195k), Afshin Rattansi (25k), Caitlin Johnstone (106k), Benjamin Norton (186k) is very consistent, almost unified, very close to anonymous or less popular tankies. It revolves around such narratives: since 2014, Ukraine has been ruled by neo-Nazis and bloody puppets of the United States, genocide is being committed in Donbas, Euromaidan is an American-sponsored coup, and the ultimate goal of this war is China. — Wieczorek, Michał (1 March 2022). "Zachód objaśnia nam świat. Oto jak lewica dała się omamić rosyjskiej propagandzie" [The West explains the world to us. This is how the left was deceived by Russian propaganda]. Spider's Web (in Polish).

I don't think The Grayzone's support of some far-right politicians is sufficient to establish that The Grayzone is a right-wing or far-right publication. A publication on one end of the left–right political spectrum can support politicians on the other end of the spectrum for any number of reasons, e.g. being in the same "camp", aligning with another political issue, promoting some form of accelerationism, etc. I also don't think The Grayzone's support of the Russian government makes it far-right due to these same reasons, and also because the ruling United Russia party's position on the left–right political spectrum is unclear (according to the Wikipedia article). — Newslinger talk 10:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)