User talk:Steven Harkins

The Times

Hi Steven

So glad you're taking on The Times and Murdoch in this great article.

Just a couple of points:

I seem to recall that opposition to Murdoch taking over The Times centered on some law that prevents monopolies emerging in the media? or does this law only apply in the US? Here, an MP tried to get the Competition Commission involved in the question. Would there have been a law involved, or was it something softer like some kind of precedent situation on ownership of the media?

Good starting points on this are articles at http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1 and http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/may/25/rupertmurdoch.bskyb

It's fine to quote articles like this to make the point for us. I think it's worth putting in a bit about this controversy.

Also, I know it is obvious to us Spin people why media monopolies are bad, but I think it should be spelled out in a sentence or two for the public who may not be so familiar with the argument. One of the articles above makes the point, with people thinking rubbish things about the war on terror etc because they heard it on one of Murdoch's channels.

Another point--please do give complete refs rather than just urls, as they tend to go out of date quickly and then the reader has no way of finding our sources. Have a look at

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/SpinProfiles:A_Guide_to_Referencing

Section: How to format referencing

and do them like this. Can you redo the refs already in this article according to this format? If anything isn't clear in these "Help" pages pls let me know, as I want to make it easy to follow.

Many thanks! --Claire Robinson 11:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Times

Hi Steven

just wanted to say well done on The Times and Murdoch. This is real public education and I think it's what SpinP should excel at (as well as providing material to journos of course).

--Claire Robinson 15:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Press pages

Steven

great stuff on the Times/Sunday Times and now the Mail. Are you planning to do all the papers?

Some tips: Can you try and make sure that the journalists you list are done alphabetically - I have tried to move the list in that dierction on the page on The Sunday Times. also, it would be good to use the format that is now on the S times page so that the list runs across the page?

It would also be useful if and when you have that data to add in after their names, their role at the paper and dates they were there... as this may become important later.

And - I wonder if you can ensure that you put in redirects so that all references to Daily Mail redirect to The Daily Mail etc?

And lastly I would love to see a stub p[age on the companies associated with the Mail: ie how is Associated Newspapers related to the Daily Mail and General Trust just so that people can check at a glance.

Keep up the good work. --David 09:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

PS on Sunday Times

PS Steve, a small point of style: we embolden the first instance of the name of the subject of the article (here The Sunday Times) but thereafter it is just in plain text. makes it easier to read. Your writing is a model of clarity! thanks --Claire Robinson 11:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The press

Steven,

great work on the Mail etc. Fantastic!

On your queries:

1. Yes include the Daily and Sunday sport - though I would say a lower priority until we get the rest sorted 2. Yes include the magazines like the New Statesman and The Economist and The Spectator - perhaps also Fortune, Time, Newsweek etc. I am particularly keen on the Economist as it plays a key role on corporate lobby groups and is an elite magazine 3. Also v important to do work on the Financial Times for similar reasons. 4. I would very much like to see material on each of the company pages (ie the owners of the papers where appropriate) of their links with corproate lobby groups, particularly the global ones: eg World Economic Forum, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group (the Economist provided the secretariat in 2008), LOTIS Committee etc. I see also that Rothermere is involved with BritishAmerican Business, Inc. as are lots of other corporate leaders.

Let me know what you will work on,...

Keep up the good work.

--David 11:36, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

points of style

HI Steven

some more points of style (seemingly they are endless but one eventually gets the hang of them)...

no need to make a header to begin article, eg if your page/article is called Joe Smith, then no need also to begin article

==Joe Smith==

--just plunge into your body text and embolden Joe Smith's name the first time you use it.

Also in refs can u give full refs to source, including publication name and article date, so in case of newspaper articles etc that would be <ref>Jim Bloggs, "[http://www.blahblah.org No end in sight for points of style]", The Guardian, 20 September 2006, accessed January 2009.</ref>

thank you and keep up the great work --Claire Robinson 14:10, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

PS

HI Steve, don't forget to add notes and category/ies to bottom of pages for your most recent journos

so you will have

==Notes== <references/> [[Category:Journalism]][[Category:Media]]

etc

thanks! --Claire Robinson 12:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Media pages

Lots of good work on the press.

Do you think you could add the following to the bottom of each page that you do?

[[Category:Media Industry]]

Perhaps we could also create a category for newspapers? what do you think?

so: [[category:Newspapers]] ?

--David 09:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

categories

Hi,

to create a category just add it to the page: and then save and click on it and add a few lines defining the category. To make it a subcategory also add another category to the category page. ie add to the Newspaper category page.

To merge you will need to edit at the 'media' categorised pages and change the category that way.

Great work again!

--David 15:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Pipes Sr

HI Steve

On Richard Pipes we have:

Because of his ideological extemism, Pipes was chosen to head Team B during the Ford administration in order to provide an alternative analysis of the existing National Intelligence Estimates, which conservatives argued had underestimated the Soviet military threat to the United States[2].

can we define what we mean by his ideological extremism?

also did his alternative analysis come up with the goods? what was the upshot, ie did any effects come out of his alternative analysis? any chance of quoting a bit of the analysis?

if u get stuck on these q's let me know and I'll try to help.

thank you! --Claire Robinson 20:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Big Pipes

Hi Steve

checked Pipes sr, excellent rewrite, thanks. I have tweaked it so that the Cahn source (her article Team B: The Trillion Dollar Experiment) is clear both in the article and in the ref. when we are using a secondary source for a quote, such as Rightweb, we need to go into Rightweb and cite the primary source that is given there. this is to protect our material in case (as will often happen) Rightweb removes or changes stuff. the reader can then still look for Cahn's article elsewhere. make sense?

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Richard_Pipes

many thanks for your good work --Claire Robinson 12:58, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

neocons

HI Steve

can u fill me in on what you have done and still need to do on the neocons pages that emerged from the great clean-up? once you have done all you need to, then I can go in and check.

thanks! --Claire Robinson 13:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

pages

HI Steve

thanks for the list of pages. now I need to know: what have you done on these pages, so that I know where to take up on them? were you cleaning them up in line with Andy R's points? anything else? checking refs and other potentially dodgy statements?

thank you! --Claire Robinson 08:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Remaining Neocon Transfers

1. Douglas Feith Neocon - references need sorting and pasting back on SP once sorted - so suspend now until sorted. - Added stuff. Steven to finish --David 08:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
2. Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Neocon - sorted the Refs to Herman and O'Sullivan. Need two refs converted to correct formatting and also all the excerpts from the JINSA website sorted. --David 08:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
3. Paul Wolfowitz Neocon

Expand this page http://www.neoconeurope.eu/index.php/Policy_Forum_on_International_Security_Issues

AEI

HI Steve

just a note about the American Enterprise Institute -- this is (among other categories) one of the GM pages and it has gone... I see it's now at Neocon Europe, but is there a reason that I don't know about why we can't keep it on Spin also? you may want to keep an eye out for the GM category at the foot of articles as this means they are also part of GMWatch and we don't want to lose our material.

thank you! --Claire Robinson 13:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

question

HI Steve

BTW what is the mass move of material over to Neocon Europe about? I haven't been told.

many thnx --Claire Robinson 13:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

restored

Hi Steve, I restored the AEI into Spin, hope this doesn't create probs for you --Claire Robinson 13:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

OK

HI Steve

OK, I think AEI is the only page on neocon hitlist that's also in GMWatch so should be no other probs. are the neocons not going to be part of Spin any more? --Claire Robinson 16:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Fukuyama

HI Steven

Good stuff on Fukuyama. It's probably a work in prog but can u include the following as you finish it up:

Can u define Wilsonianism, the first time you use it

Re:

a Straussian perspective in his defence of the classical doctrine of natural right.

can u define Straussian perspective (even tho you say Strauss was a neocon, readers will not be sure in what way Fukuyama's perspective is Straussian) and also what is the classical doctrine of natural right?

can u lay out the argument of "Our Posthuman Future" a bit more? only couple more sentences on that needed.

Between you and me I worry that people like Fukuyama are treated like gods/authorities when they fail to see until years after the event facts that are perfectly obvious at the time to people like you and me and millions of others, like the fact that the Iraq war was a disaster. And then he commands several pages of space in top circulation broadsheets admitting that he was wrong. Strange times.

--Claire Robinson 11:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Fukuyama2

HI Steve

yes understand about Fukuyama not being one of yours. anything that you can do to define those mystery terms will be a bonus but let me know when you run out of steam and I'll have a bash at him.

BW --Claire Robinson 10:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

vanishing group?

HI Steve

I know this isn't a page of your origin but this group

Israeli Coalition for the Refugees of Darfur and Sudan

seems to have disappeared and all that's on their homepage is an ad for viagra...

if they don't exist any more then we should say so? can u look into this? also the 2nd para of the quote is not understandable -- I don't know what it means, are these affiliated groups or member orgs or what? It's lifted from Sourcewatch but I am hoping you know something I don't...

thanks!-- --Claire Robinson 15:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

thanks

thanks for tidying up that Israeli group page Steve--think they have indeed gone west --Claire Robinson 20:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

SMF

Hi Steve

are you going to have time to do the Social Market Foundation? if not, let me know and I will go over it.

thanks v much --Claire Robinson 09:56, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

SMF

Thanks for SMF Steve, as usual a model of clarity. Minor things: I closed up double spaces between paras--one only needed. Also I try to avoid words like "currently" because of course as soon as they are written they are redundant. So I have edited one sentence to read as follows, substituting "As of June 2000" for "currently":

As of June 2009 SMF was advertising for sponsors for its 2009 fringe events.

Thing is, I can't believe this is so -- surely they will look for sponsors years in advance? you will know what is the case -- can you just go in and put in when they were looking for sponsors or rewrite so it isn't an issue?

many thanks --Claire Robinson 08:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

q's on The Telegraph

HI Steve

great article on the Telegraph.

couple of q's:

I assume there is a good reason for calling the page The Telegraph rather than The Daily Telegraph? Is the paper favouring The Telegraph because it's more web based now? If you want to rename, then just "move" the page to one with the right title.

Section "Selling the Iraq War"

The sentence starting "The Policy Forum claimed success..." was joined onto the previous quote from Policy Forum/ I assume this was a mistake and separated it. as it stands, it is you talking, paraphrasing Lobe. Is this right? if not, please clarify that it's a quote from Lobe.

We say "around $80,000" but the source article seems to specify $79,000? if it was $79,000, would be good to give that figure.

But great stuff.

best wishes

--Claire Robinson 16:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Dubious

Hi Steve

Re this bit in The Telegraph article:

Coughlin also printed a story linking Saddam Hussein with Al-Qaeda and he routinely publishes articles on Iran using dubious sources[11][12].

Can you word this more carefully? who has said they are dubious -- name names, quote from those people if poss -- and ensure that the "routinely" is justified by supporting it with quotes or instances. If this not clear, pls get back to me -- am writing a bit in shorthand.

thanks!

--Claire Robinson 16:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

David Lovibond

HI Steve

could you go into David Lovibond

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/David_Lovibond

and add the dates of publication to the first two refs?

eg

David Lovibond, The Real Racists, The Spectator, 15 June 2003, accessed 19 June 2009

(I have just put in this date as an example -- it won't be the right one)

also to this ref yo can add the url

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/cartoons/12110/the-real-racists.thtml

thank you!

--Claire Robinson 09:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)