Talk:Abby Martin

Good article reassessment

Abby Martin

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: There is no consensus to delist the article. One editor supports delisting, one editor opposes delisting, and one editor is neutral. There is no consensus that the article does not meet the good article criteria, so this defaults to the article's retaining good article status. Closing per request at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 09:20, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

There have been recent edit controversies surrounding this article. There is information without sources. I have also been finding fabricated information in the article not supported by sources. I think this warrants a review of the article overall.----ZiaLater (talk) 09:06, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

• The edit controversies you refer to in the above began with you and another user edit warring and destabilizing the article due to your own POV pushing. Additionally, the content you describe as “fabricated information in the article not supported by sources” is, in fact, real, accurate, and verifiable and supported by the original sources found in the GA reviewed version that you appear to have discarded. So, not only are both of your claims false, you yourself appear to be responsible for the current state of the article, which makes your attempt at reassessing it both duplicitous and in bad faith. The solution, therefore, is not to reassess the article, but to revert and rollback all your changes and to restore the last good version. However, because I am no longer active here, I will not be participating in any changes moving forward. I just wanted to comment on your poor edits and bad justification for this reassessment and to observe that you should not be allowed to edit this page. Viriditas (talk) 22:30, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

• @Viriditas: Thank you for your reply and using your good faith to accuse me of having information "discarded". This is not the case. Looking at the article when it originally was granted GA status, there were some different sources used, for example RT's discovery of Martin and the information that was not originally only sourced by a college research paper. I did not remove such sources and much of this happened before my edits. I am only bringing this article to be reassessed because of genuine concerns regarding edits between the original GA article and what is currently posted. Since I can now see the original sources presented, I may be able to add them back and fix some issues.----ZiaLater (talk) 15:31, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

• I stand by my comments, more so based on your reply to my concerns. How could you possibly request a GA reassessment without doing the bare due diligence, namely, checking the originally reviewed version? You are clearly biased against Martin based on your previous edits, and your claim to be interested in this reassessment is just an attempt to remove its quality rating. I therefore have zero interest in discussing anything further with you, and it’s this kind of extreme incompetence and blatant POV pushing that has led me to lose all interest in Wikipedia. Don’t ping me again. Viriditas (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

• I will not ping you, but I admit that this is my first time requesting a GA reassessment. It was only done purely because I noticed multiple issues (mainly missing sources and WP:OR) and thought that there may be more fundamental issues with the article. Just replying to your response and thanks for sharing your concerns.----ZiaLater (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

• @ZiaLater: I made some edits to the article. There is still a tag asking for a better source, and I agree the source is not great. The statement does not seem very controversial though. AIRcorn (talk) 10:19, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
• A lot has been reverted or removed. I tried. I feel the lead is too short, but YMMV. All in all Neutral on its good article listing. AIRcorn (talk) 09:47, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

@Cunard: @Aircorn: please let us know what is going on with this reassessment. As of today 17 June 2019, the template at the top of the article says "The good article status of this article is being reassessed by the community to determine whether the article meets the good article criteria. Please add comments to the reassessment page. Date: 09:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)" That links here. MPS1992 (talk) 22:47, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I closed the reassessment as "no consensus to delist" after a request for closure at WP:ANRFC. Would you or someone else be able to help with the technical work of closing a good article reassessment? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 23:56, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Is Algemeiner an unreliable source?

Re this edit, removing this content: On RT in February 2013, she commented that Israel uses "Hitler's methods" to sustain a "Jewish majority".. Its premise is that the Algemeiner Journal is not a reliable source for BLPs, per WP:BLPRS. However, the only discussion on RSP considers it to be RS: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_302#Algemeiner_Journal_&_The_Jewish_News_Syndicate BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:44, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

That is how I interpret WP:BLPRS. Specifically The material should not be added to an article when the only sourcing is tabloid journalism. When material is both verifiable and noteworthy, it will have appeared in more reliable sources. Algemeiner is tabloid journalism and has a well-known ideological bent when it comes to Israel. Even so, I don't see how the quote is relevant to Martin's career at RT. ImTheIP (talk) 18:11, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Algemeiner is a legitimate source per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_302#Algemeiner_Journal_&_The_Jewish_News_Syndicate. It should remain in the article. BuzzFeed and the Daily Telegraph certainly fall within the category of tabloid journalism, but are still sourced in the article. For consistency, the quote will be added back. The quote is relevant to Martin's career at RT since it illuminates a pattern of disturbing behavior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Workwammba (talk • contribs) 02:15, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

The DT is a 'tabloid'? Oh, dear. I suppose the definition of 'tabloid' is anything you disagree with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.21.141 (talk) 17:52, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

It is a matter of weight. Unless something receives widespread media attention it's not noteworthy. For example, if Joe Biden orders takeout crab cakes in Wilmington, Delaware, it might make the back pages of the local weekly newspaper but not be significant to his overall biography. TFD (talk) 05:00, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Weight argument is stronger than RS argument. Alegemeiner is not a tabloid source and is considered reliable by RSP. However, the Wilmington analogy is not a good one: Algemeiner is one of the largest US Jewish-focused news outlets, and local interest to Jews is not comporable to local interest to a Delaware town. At any rate, it looks like other sources mentioned this and/or cited Algemeiner, showing weight. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC) Other sources: The Tablet, The Student Life, HuffPo. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Those sources are much better, imo. I paraphrased it and added it to a new section about Martin's views, Abby Martin#Views. Because the quote is more about her views than about her stint at RT's Breaking the Set. ImTheIP (talk) 14:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

References

More sourcing questions

I have restored a large amount of text - some critical, some complimentary - removed for being from blogs or otherwise badly sourced. I'm not clear which sources are seen as problematic. Can we discuss case by case rather than delete en block? BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:13, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. @Apeholder: can you please explain the POV-tag? ImTheIP (talk) 03:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

You shouldn't restore material removed because it violates biographies of living persons policy because you don't know whether the sources are acceptable. The default should be to remove and discuss. The major issue was weight. We don't use niche publications for stories that have been ignored in major mainstream media. While they may be of interest to their readers, they are not of interest to the general public. It is not the role of articles to correct the failure of reliable sources to amplify information that Wikipedia editors consider to be important. TFD (talk) 22:37, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

To be clearer, it seemed to me the sources were reliable, so the material did not appear to violate BLP policy. Which of the sources do you consider too niche for the material to have due weight? BobFromBrockley (talk) 02:15, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Are you referring to these sources: a Spotify episode, Tablet Magazine, HuffPuff, The Student Life, a blog from Robert Mackey at the NYTimes, The Daily Banter, and Issuu? Burrobert (talk) 03:23, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

The Spotify version of the Martin on the Joe Rogan show is a primary source. The other citations were: Tablet, HuffPost, TSL, NYT and USA Today, which are all, I believe, RSs. Daily Banter I'm not familiar with; that looks like the weakest, but it is attributed and takes up very little room here. Issuu is actually a magazine called ColdType, and I have no idea of the reliability but as it's a banal compliment it's hard to see how it violates the BLP policy. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:11, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• Are we accepting the Joe Rogan reference? There are all sorts of quotes from the Joe Rogan show that I would like to start adding to Wikipedia if allowed.
• I don't know anything about The Student Life. I looks reasonably respectable, if small, from its Wikipedia page. It claims to have a staff of 120 yet "operates out of Room 101 in Walker Hall on the northern portion of Pomona College's campus". Quite cramped I imagine. What statement are we using TSL for?
• There is a question mark over using HuffPuff for politics. Not sure whether our usage here fits into that category. The article does not appear to be from a "contributor" or "editorial partner". Any thoughts?
• The NYTimes reference is to Robert Mackey's blog. wp:newsblog says "if a news organization publishes an opinion piece in a blog, attribute the statement to the writer", which we have almost but not quite done.
• 1. Our statement "Martin has been criticized for her past support of the 9/11 truth movement" is sourced to this blog and The Daily Banter. Probably should be removed unless there are other appropriate sources.
• 2. We say "In 2014 New York Times columnist Robert Mackey contrasted Martin's critical remarks on the Russian occupation of Crimea with her conviction "that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were part of a government conspiracy." I would rewrite this to make it clearer that that it is Mackey's opinion that the two connected and contradictory.
• I know nothing about the Daily Banter. It doesn't even seem to have a Wikipedia page!! It has been used 59 times on Wikipedia but, as far as I can see, its reliability has not been discussed.

Burrobert (talk) 17:53, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Rogan (Text: Martin believes that Israel is a setter-colonial state; that its goal is, and has always been, to kill or expel the indigenous population, the Palestinians, so that Jewish colonizers can have an ethno-supremacist state. According to her, for non-Jews, Israel is an apartheid state: I think I flagged this as a primary source, presumably reliable for her views (though I did not verify it) but not in itself evidence of noteworthiness. It has since been deleted, to which I have no objection.

TSL: This was one of three sources for the statement She believes that, in order to maintain a Jewish majority, Israel persecutes Palestinians similar to how Nazi Germany persecuted Jews. This has now been deleted, although I don't understand why. Her actual quote is "Israel is the only country in the world that was paved for a specific group of people that experienced such horrific discrimination and genocide, and for that same group of people to now use Hitler's methods against another minority to maintain a Jewish majority, is insane." This has been reported by a number of sources, e.g. Jerusalem Post, so I would strongly argue that it it noteworthy.

HuffPo: Was used as another source for the Nazi analogy, currently only used as citation for her 2008 involvement in 9/11 truth. (Relevant quote: Martin herself is a 9/11 Truther, calling the government's version of the events "propaganda", and has accused Israel of using "Hitler's methods". It is from HP UK, which I believe is considered more reliable than its US sibling. I'd support inclusion.

Mackey in the NYT is not an opinion piece and is completely a reliable source, giving a in-depth background to what's in the news. The Crimea sentence in our article is pretty opaque, and could be clarified or removed; the article could be used more robustly in relation to her 9/11 views, showing they extended past 2008.

Daily Banter: Probably not reliable and incident it mentions probably not noteworthy as no other coverage. Support removal. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Mackey's bio at The Intercept says, "he was a reporter and columnist for the New York Times, where he anchored the newspaper’s breaking news blog, The Lede, for five years, and wrote a news analysis column, Open Source." The article comes under "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces," which are not rs for articles. TFD (talk) 23:26, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

This from The Lede not Open Source. Surely it's covered by WP:NEWSBLOG, Some newspapers, magazines, and other news organizations host online columns they call blogs. These may be acceptable sources if the writers are professionals, but use them with caution because blogs may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process.[8] If a news organization publishes an opinion piece in a blog, attribute the statement to the writer, e.g. "Jane Smith wrote ..." BobFromBrockley (talk) 01:41, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

The text read, "In 2014 New York Times columnist Robert Mackey contrasted Martin's critical remarks on the Russian occupation of Crimea with her conviction "that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were part of a government conspiracy." That's clearly analysis rather than reporting. He's comparing what she is saying now with what she said over a decade ago in order to analyze her. TFD (talk) 01:56, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

As I said above, how the text currently reads is opaque and unhelpful; we should clarify or delete. But I don't see why we shouldn't include analysis. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:34, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Because News organizations, which is part of Wikipedia:Reliable sources, says that analyses in newspapers "is rarely reliable for statements of fact." The reasoning is probably that reporters are good sources for what happened today, but are not historians. I think that in cases where sourcing is poor that it is better to omit information. It's a trade off between providing as much information as possible and being as neutral as possible. Articles shouldn't shape readers' opinions about subjects but should reflect how they are widely portrayed. TFD (talk) 09:51, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

But this is in the "Reception" section. The NYT is by far the most mainstream source currently cited, so if we are looking for how they are widely portrayed it seems more pertinent than Millenial Magazine or ColdType? BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:18, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Reception (frequent undos, when adding context for the critics)

I tried to add background information on the reception section, from Abby Martin - which knowingly has been target by smear campaign from Jewish organizations, think-tanks and the Jewish american lobby. And it was promptly reverted by "Steven Homan" (Personal attack removed).

Since, all negative receptions in this page were done either by American Jews, or columnists to famously pro-Israelli occupation of Palestine, like the Tablet - self titled a "Jewish magazine about the world". Therefore, my edit was in order to highly where the information was coming from (from who, and what is their background), in relation to Abby Martin. Which is extremely relevant.

Let's imagine, a random viewer of this page would look at "Reception" and see a ratio of 5 blatant personal insults to 1 praise of her work. At face value, there is only reception. But, if added their nationality and where they work, the viewer can arrive at his own conclusion if the pattern of all these insults coming from Jewish personnel or Jewish Journal's employees is or is not relevant when accessing the validity of the reception.

In pages like Wikileaks Reception, we can see division by nationality. Since, it was a globally important journalist work, with ramifications for different countries. And, it is considered a relevant piece of information - where it's coming from. The same way, can be said, from comments coming from pro-Israelli, mostly zionist, journalists; since Abby's work on Palestine, which clearly upset people like James Kirchick an American Jewish journalist working for the Haaretz, which openly thinks any journalist covering this issue should be classified as a "polemicistst". Clearly, he thinks there is nothing to see there.

So, I'm not trying to blatantly call a smear campaign in this section for what it is: a smear campaign. I only put out these edits:

- "[[James Kirchick]], an American Jewish journalist and contributor to ''[[Haaretz]]'', commented";

- "Journalist [[Michael C. Moynihan]], a contributor to ''[[Tablet Magazine]]'', which describes him as an "obsessive-compulsive observer of Jewish affairs" in his column titled ''The Righteous Gentile''";

- "Author and media consultant [[Chez Pazienza]], writing for ''The Daily Banter'', an outlet founded by [[Ben Cohen (journalist)|Ben Cohen]], a British Jewish based in Washington, D.C.";

- "American Jewish journalist and author [[John Stossel]] states (...)";

In the same spirit, it is already a part of the page that "David Cromwell, British media campaigner of and co-editor of Media Lens (...)" says so and so. Suddenly, when it's a praise to her work, it's important to note this is a British media campaigner for the Media Lens. But, not that James Kirchick is a columnist to the Haaretz; is a American Jew; and has dismissed any work on the occupation of Palestine as "polemicism". Or the "Righteous Gentile, the obsessive-compulsive observer of Jewish affairs" (not my words).

Something is very fishy here.

BuddhiLW (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Pointing out these commentators' Jewish identity is improper synthesis insofar as it implies something nefarious about Jews. In any case, I removed most of these opinion pieces as WP:UNDUE since they are all primary sources for the authors' opinions. Per WP:BLP#BALANCE, criticism and praise should be included when they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, not just random talking heads. Furthermore, serious allegations need multiple reliable third-party sources per WP:PUBLICFIGURE. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation.

I agree that Reception content should avoid undue weight and rely primarily on reliable secondary sources that summarize critical response, per WP:UNDUE and WP:BLP#BALANCE. If the current section is largely composed of individual opinion columns, I’m fine with trimming or restructuring it accordingly.

My intent in adding descriptors was to provide source context (publication/affiliation), similar to how other Reception sections sometimes identify the outlet and the writer’s role. I accept that emphasizing personal identity characteristics is not appropriate and can be read as implying motive (WP:SYNTH/BLP concerns).

If we keep any of these critiques, I propose we attribute them neutrally by outlet and role only (e.g., “Kirchick, writing in Haaretz...”) and focus on secondary sources that evaluate reception in aggregate. If you have suggestions for stronger secondary sources on Martin’s work and its critical reception, I'm happy to help incorporate them. ~2026-12760-15 (talk) 01:56, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

update image

the image has to be updated because the current one is from 2012, 13 years ago for a still living and quite active person. few weeks ago i put one but got deleted. wont bother again but whoever knows about wikimedia more than i should try to do this MerluchWK (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Only way to do it is to contact the subject and ask her to donate a photo for free use. Viriditas (talk) 03:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)