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Former good article nomineeBernie Sanders was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 26, 2015Good article nomineeNot listed
August 28, 2015Good article nomineeNot listed
Current status: Former good article nominee

RfC: "news coverage" section

This interesting request for comment concerns the proposed addition of text to Wikipedia's article about polarizing US politician Bernie Sanders. As this is a high-profile article on a controversial topic, it is likely that this close may be read by people who are less familiar with Wikipedian practices, so I will try to explain the outcome in a way that's intelligible to the general public.

It may be surprising to some people that I, a non-American, appear to be deciding this matter. This is a red herring. As a discussion closer, my role is not to decide, but to determine what the community has decided in the discussion below. I determine this in the way set out at Wikipedia:Closing discussions, and my role is to evaluate what we call the "consensus", which on Wikipedia is not unanimity but "rough consensus". In this case, a simple majority of editors are in favour of the proposed addition. A majority is not a consensus.

This matter is complex, involving as it does concerns about Wikipedia's core policies. We are supposed to maintain a neutral point of view, prefer the most reliable sources wherever possible, and be especially careful where the article concerns the biography of a living person. Where there is tension between these policies, our rules on closing discussions say that if the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it.

After some thought, I conclude that the rough consensus is to include the disputed paragraphs, and I will implement this with my next edit. Questions, comments and complaints should be directed to my talk page in the first instance. I hope this helps.—S Marshall T/C 16:43, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

Should the text in bold be added to the section "Polls and news coverage"?: Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some supporters raised concerns that publications such as The New York Times minimized coverage of the Sanders campaign in favor of other candidates, especially Trump and Clinton. The Timess ombudsman reviewed her paper's coverage of the Sanders campaign and found that as of September 2015 the Times "hasn't always taken it very seriously. The tone of some stories is regrettably dismissive, even mocking at times. Some of that is focused on the candidate's age, appearance and style, rather than what he has to say." She also found that the Times's coverage of Sanders's campaign was much scanter than its coverage of Trump's, though Trump's was also initially considered a long shot at that time, with 63 articles covering the Trump campaign and 14 covering Sanders's.[1][2] A December 2015 report found that the three major networks—CBS, NBC, and ABC—had spent 234 minutes reporting on Trump and 10 minutes on Sanders, despite their similar polling results. The report noted that ABC World News Tonight had spent 81 minutes on Trump and less than one minute on Sanders during 2015.[3]

A study of media coverage in the 2016 election concluded that while Sanders received less coverage than his rival Hillary Clinton, the amount of coverage of Sanders during the election was largely consistent with his polling performance, except during 2015 when Sanders received coverage that far exceeded his standing in the polls.[4] Studies concluded that the tone of media coverage of Sanders was more favorable than that of any other candidate, whereas his main opponent in the democratic primary, Hillary Clinton, received the most negative coverage of any candidate.[5][4] All 2016 candidates received vastly less media coverage than Donald Trump, and the Democratic primary received substantially less coverage than the Republican primary.[4][5][6]

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! noted that on March 15, Super Tuesday III, the speeches of Trump, Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz were broadcast in full. Sanders was in Phoenix, Arizona, on that date, speaking to a rally larger than any of the others, yet his speech was not mentioned, let alone broadcast.[7] However, political scientist Rachel Bitecofer wrote in her 2018 book about the 2016 election that the Democratic primary was effectively over in terms of delegate count by mid-March 2016, but that the media promoted the narrative that the contest between Sanders and Clinton was "heating up" at that time.[6]

References

  1. ^ Sullivan, Margaret (September 9, 2015). "Public Editor's Journal: Has The Times Dismissed Bernie Sanders?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015.
  2. ^ Debenedetti, Gabriel; Gass, Nick (September 10, 2015). "Bernie Sanders overtakes Hillary Clinton in Iowa". Politico. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  3. ^ "Report: Top News Shows Give Trump 234 Minutes, Sanders 10 Minutes". Democracy Now. December 15, 2015. 6:06. Archived from the original on December 16, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  4. ^ a b c John Sides; Michael Tesler; Lynn Vavreck (2018). Identity Crisis. Princeton University Press. pp. 8, 99, 104–107. ISBN 978-0-691-17419-8. Archived from the original on November 14, 2019. Retrieved December 8, 2019. Sanders's media coverage and polling numbers were strongly correlated... At this point in time [2015], Sanders's share of news coverage far exceeded his share in national polls.
  5. ^ a b Thomas E. Patterson, Pre-Primary News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Race: Trump's Rise, Sanders' Emergence, Clinton's Struggle, archived from the original on November 27, 2019, retrieved December 1, 2019
  6. ^ a b Bitecofer, Rachel (2018). "The Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Election". Palgrave: 36–38, 48. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-61976-7. ((cite journal)): Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ^ Goodman, Amy (November 29, 2016). "Bernie Sanders: "I Was Stunned" by Corporate Media Blackout During Democratic Primary". Democracy Now. Retrieved December 18, 2019.

Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

  • ^This editor has voted twice. The editor is claiming that peer-reviewed research is wrong for no other reason than dislike for the findings, and the closer should judge (i.e. completely dismiss) this editor's two votes accordingly. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 05:50, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • oops, sorry for my confusion in entry ... thanks, I will shift that down to form one bullet. Otherwise I would discourage imputing motives as that doesn’t address the edit or change the material being a poor addition and just looks bad. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:38, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seraphimblade, Princeton University Press books are absolutely peer-reviewed, so you should strike part of your comment. It's also the second-most esteemed publishing press in political science.[2] If peer-reviewed research in the best outlets is not going to be allowed in the article, do you hold the opinion that the vastly inferior content sourced to the "Tyndall Report", and commentary by the NYT ombudsperson and Democracy Now belongs? How is that in any way defensible? That's why it's such an egregious NPOV violation. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:19, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, why should the text talk about how Sanders received more favorable coverage in a section about purported media bias? Getting the best coverage of any candidate is clearly irrelevant to the subject, whereas random commentary by Democracy Now is perfectly pertinent /s Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:19, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The proposed edit is talking about Hillary’s coverage being the worst, which yes seems irrelevant when the article is supposed to be about Bernie and the thread was amount of coverage. It’s also not very understandable what was measured nor is it credible compared to Trumps coverage which other studies had at 80 to 90 percent negative yet the Shorenstein cite says Trump got far more “good press” than “bad press”. The comparing of Trump to the entire Democratic field is also not about Bernie and this section thread about whether Hillary got more coverage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:02, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • This^ editor knows better (and has cited nothing in support of anything he's said) than peer-reviewed and academic assessments on the topic, and thus the peer-reviewed research can't be included, because the editor's preconceived notions are contrary to the findings of actual research. Egregious NPOV violations should be left to stand because editors agree that one POV published in the lowest quality sources is correct and that a POV published in peer-reviewed research is incorrect. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 04:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you only oppose mentioning that Bernie's main opponent got the worst coverage, and that the Democratic primary got substantially less coverage than the Republican primary (which are all things that obviously relate to questions of media bias for Sanders), then you should argue that, and argue for the inclusion of content which explicitly mentions Sanders. Instead the argument is that anything that diverges from a particular POV ("the media was against Sanders") should be scrubbed, even though that POV is obviously disputed in RS. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 04:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Section re: debate on electability

The entire section I added has been removed with the reason given "remove debate about electability. hard to understand why a sentence devoted to peer-reviewed research is being removed for being undue while several paragraphs are added which are devoted to low-quality content about a 24-hr old dispute over a candidate's electability." In the first place, this editor is apparently referring to a disagreement we had some time ago and is seemingly getting back at me for that. I must again say that until this editor became active in this article we all got along and worked as a team--and it was a joy to be here working together. One did not see this sort of childish, spiteful editing. Now, as for "24-hr old dispute" I have no idea what that might mean. This talk about "anybody but Bernie" has been going on for weeks and needs to be addressed in the article. I will return my edit after 24 hours unless other editors also feel that it was out of place. Gandydancer (talk) 01:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Either the page suffers from size constraints or it doesn't. This is about as low-quality and recentist as content can get... it's a temporary debate about electability with some weak arguments thrown in both directions. It doesn't deserve several paragraphs. It might deserve one sentence that goes something along the lines of "During the primary, critics of Sanders's candidacy raised doubts about his electability", but even that seems undue. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:01, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Gandydancer that such a wholesale removal of material should be preceded by respectful discussion, followed by consensus. My feeling about the content in question is that it more properly belongs in Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign than in his biography. Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 02:04, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That was good removal I think. Yes, this could be included to another page Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, but even there I would rather not as a quickly changing opinion/debate that is probably already in the past. My very best wishes (talk) 16:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC) Still seems to be widely debated in sources. My very best wishes (talk) 03:57, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks HopsonRoad. I still see this as worth including. It was discussed on both Face the Nation and Meet the Press this weekend besides a lengthy discussion on PBS News Hour this evening. But with three editors in disagreement and nobody in agreement I will step aside. Gandydancer (talk) 04:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would oppose removal given the attention it's received in reliable sources. Recentism is not a prohibition on information about current events. The lead currently includes information from the last several weeks. There's ample evidence in sources that this is a not just a "changing" or fleeting discussion. It's also not really our job to qualitatively evaluate whether the arguments on either side are "weak" or not. Certainly there is no "right" answer and our subjective opinions, for or against, should not serve as a screen to public discussions/debates that have been covered in reliable sources. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 14:34, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. At any rate, it is constantly discussed by the media. Watching commentators last night during the election returns they noted that every time Sanders was given air time it was discussed that he may (or more often may not) be electable by the pundits. Not so with the others (Biden and Trump). Even the stock market jump today was ascribed to Biden's big wins. Be assured that there is a good plenty of political maneuvering going on... Gandydancer (talk) 20:23, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikieditor19920, the recent reversion of your "Electability" section suggests that there's not a consensus on inclusion of that material, here. I continue to suggest that material is more suited for Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, since it's not really biographical. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 13:15, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions over electability re: presidential general election were noted in 2016 and 2020. It is not exclusive to either campaign, it is an aspect of the subject's career (i.e. biography). The assertion that it "isn't biographical" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The material is well-sourced, relevant, and there is support for it's inclusion on its page. The arguments for removal are specious, and it seems improper for entire sections of sourced material to be purged from a page absent a compelling explanation. Specific concerns can be raised and addressed but it is absurd to simply delete entire sections. We are required to present the public views of the subject in its entirety. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 19:10, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I also am not convinced we need this information, especially in its present form, in an article this size. If the campaign is over, Joe Biden or Donald Trump wins over Bernie Sanders, and the reason is generally cited as electability concerns, than I would be willing to agree. That's not the case now; instead we have speculation on one side that Bernie's socialism is unelectable against Trump and on the other that according to multiple polls Bernie polls better than Biden against Trump, so I see no reason to devote an entire subsection of the article to discussing these views at this specific moment in the campaign. We have dedicated articles for the Bernie Sanders 2016 and 2020 campaigns where inclusion would be OK; putting the electability debate into what is supposed to be a summary of the subject's life bloats the article. Unfortunately this happens not just here - for example this tendency to overwhelm the reader with too much is even worse in the Joe Biden article, where the reader is bombarded with minute details, such as the score of the World Cup soccer game Joe attended as Vice President - yet much information on his legislation during three decades in Congress is never mentioned. We do have to make editorial decisions as to what we keep and what we don't, and since this content can simply be moved to a dedicated subarticle, that's where it should go. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 01:04, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please remove "formidable" from the lead? This is not a WWE magazine

Thanks! Replace it with "recognized" or something.

SarumanTheBlack (talk) 19:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I replaced it with "strong." -- MelanieN (talk) 21:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Melanie. You rock.SarumanTheBlack (talk) 06:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Remove all the superlatives entirely and keep this neutral. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 05:38, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hitler quote should be removed

Block evasion by User:HarveyCarter, using IPs from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Hitler lost both elections in 1932 and the rigged election in 1933. The Nazis were never elected. The quote by Sanders is 100% false and misleading so it should be removed. (86.160.101.213 (talk) 20:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC))[reply]

"In the federal election of July 1932, the Nazis won 37.3% of the popular vote (13,745,000 votes), an upswing by 19 percent, becoming the largest party in the Reichstag, with 230 out of 608 seats." – Muboshgu (talk) 20:19, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This has been discussed extensively in Talk:Bernie Sanders/Archive 10#Sanders' Hitler remark and Talk:Bernie Sanders/Archive 14#Hitler did not win an election. The upshot of these discussions is that the quote stays, despite its debatable historical merits. This is an article about Sanders and what he said and did, not an article on the history of Germany. HopsonRoad (talk) 20:28, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hitler lost the election in July 1932, and he lost again by a greater margin in November 1932. Sanders' quote is factually incorrect. (86.160.101.241 (talk) 08:04, 9 March 2020 (UTC))[reply]
As is explained in a footnote to that remark in the text. HopsonRoad (talk) 12:30, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have added, "He said (incorrectly)", to clarify the footnote to that remark and hopefully avoid recurrences of this same conversation. HopsonRoad (talk) 12:35, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Most people would say that someone who won a plurality of seats and formed a government was elected. Otherwise we would say that David Cameron and Elizabeth May lost the elections of 2010 and 2017. Or maybe we could say that anyone who received less than 50% of the vote lost - so no one has won an election in the UK since 1931. TFD (talk) 14:42, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Primary loss and endorsement of Hillary Clinton section - Add short sentence on Sanders supporters supporting Clinton.

Hi - I couldn't add this. It refutes the myth that Sander's supporters didn't vote for Clinton and cost her the election, a prevalent myth. It balances the sentence about the booing. "In the end, Sanders was more effective in getting his supporters to vote for Clinton than Clinton was in getting her supporters to vote for Obama.[1]" WebMaven2000 (talk) 13:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Sides, John (August 24, 2017). "Did enough Bernie Sanders supporters vote for Trump to cost Clinton the election?". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
I agree it belongs, although we could discuss the phrasing and the actual figures should be presented in a footnote. It might be better to compare Sanders supporters to candidate supporters in general, rather than just Hillary. TFD (talk) 16:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is a common partisan argument usually made by supporters of Senator Sanders. I do not believe it is appropriate for an encyclopedia. Msalt (talk) 21:24, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cuba

If we are going to mention this at all, we need to provide context. Sanders was repeating what Obama said and there was a reaction from older Cuban Americans in Florida, who had fled Castro. The phrasing seemed to have been worded as if we were in the middle of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. TFD (talk) 03:36, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Context is everything. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 04:17, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree on the need for context, though I'm not sure what TFD means by "Cuban Missile Crisis" or "repeating what Obama said." (Maybe referring to an earlier version of the section than Zloyvolsheb's recent deletion? That's all I saw.) It's important to include a discussion of the controversy over Sen. Sanders' comments on Cuba, I believe, since the controversy over the comment was a significant turning point in the current campaign. Perhaps it should be included in the 2020 campaign narrative? Msalt (talk) 21:33, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind discussing that in the article in proper context. However, I don't think the Cuba comment in response to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes actually was a significant turning point in the race at all. The turning point was when Biden decisively won the primary in South Carolina and multiple candidates (Buttigieg, Klobuchar, O'Rourke in Texas) endorsed him one day ahead of Super Tuesday. As far as Sanders' Cuba comments, his comments on Cuba's literacy were exactly what Barack Obama had said on several occasions (example: YouTube video of Obama's remarks on Cuba). I don't think anyone took those comments out of context. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:51, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Obama said, "The United States recognizes progress that Cuba has made as a nation, its enormous achievements in education and in health care."[3] Sanders was criticized for saying that the Cuban Literacy Campaign had increased literacy from 77% to almost 100%. The Cuban Missile Crisis refers to a 1962 confrontation between the U.S. and USSR initiated by the U.S. discovery of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba. A number of elderly people are still in a Cold War mind set that Canadian style health insurance will lead to Cuban style regimentation. I don't think it was a turning point in the campaign. Cuban supporters of the Batista dictatorship were mostly Republicans and represent a small section of the U.S. population, mostly living in Florida, while Democrats over 70 mostly supported Biden anyway. It's more relevant to the campaign article, where Sanders share of the popular vote fell from 33% to 23% in the Florida primary. TFD (talk) 22:58, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly agree, however we still cannot say that Sanders' share of the popular vote in Florida falling from 33% to 23% was in any way due to his remarks on Cuba. I am interpreting 33% as the percentage of the Florida vote that went to Sanders in 2016, however his percentage also changed in multiple states in the 2020 primary relative to 2016. We would need something like a poll showing Sanders at 33% in 2020 before his remark the CNN interview and at 23% almost right after to argue there was a real effect on the race. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 23:05, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This edit [4] again restores the material about Cuba in grammatically incorrect format. Further changes the lede to remove mention of Sanders' frontrunner status with no explanation provided. Reverting due to poor phrasing as previously noted by The Four Deuces. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:16, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sanders expressed views on Cuba and Castro that were criticized severely for supposedly being insensitive to the plight of Cubans. This came at at time when he had emerged from a string of primary victories and his views were being more closely scrutinized. Nearly all of the major national news publications picked up on this story and evaluated it. This controversy is appropriately categorized under foreign policy views. Zloyvolsheb has repeatedly tried to remove any mention of it entirely based on nitpicking/unspecific criticisms over "grammar." This is ridiculous. WP:PRESERVE. IF there is a concern over presentation, I welcome and encourage tailoring of the language or a proposal here on how it can better be expressed. At the moment, the sentence plainly explains that Sanders was asked a question, and his quote is provided in full, along with the fact that these remarks were criticized. This couldn't be a more straightforward description of what happened. Efforts to whitewash this out of the article entirely reek of whitewashing. Do not remove this material wholesale again. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 20:25, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Early Life

Sander's Mother's parents came from both Poland and Russia. Someone change this. There are links for this. Guardian10 (talk) 09:57, 09 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessary; let's avoid confusion. The current content doesn't mention background only takes into consideration "modern-day borders" concept. The rest is clutter. Oliszydlowski (talk) 17:45, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What is the point of this line? Seems completely unnecessary and unencyclopedic.

A lot of renowned musicians uttered sad and thankful comments about the end of his presidential campaign.[284]

63.69.65.83 (talk) 19:22, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I agree and just deleted it per WP:NOTNEWS. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:30, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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