Talk:The Washington Times/Archive 1

Out of Date

The article is out of date regarding the paper's editorial leadership. Wes Pruden has left. See this piece from a former employee commenting on the activities of the current leadership.

Not true. As of Oct. 30, 2007, Pruden is still the editor. He has been saying for years that he intends to retire in 2008, but despite longstanding rumors of his impending outster, he remains in charge and appears set to retire as scheduled. staff directory Seanibus 00:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Owners

Moved from article, because it was the name not the paper that was purchased.

The Unification Church purchased it from its original family owners.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Washington, D.C., had only one newspaper, the left-leaning Washington Post.

Please correct me if I am wrong, as pride in my church might bias me toward inflating its achievements. Ed Poor

IIRC, there was a Washington Times, which then went bust, and your church bought it. I don't know whether they just bought the name, or the whole paper, or what they did... -- SJK

In fact, the original Washington Times had merged with another paper (presumably the Washington Herald) to form the Times-Herald, which in turn got bought by The Washington Post. The Post was published for a while as The Washington Post and Times-Herald (with "and Times-Herald" in very small type). So I wonder if The Washington Post was the owner of the name "Washington Times" from which the Unification Church purchased the rights to the name! --- BRG

In the interests of accuracy, as far as I am aware, despite the statements implying the contrary by Moon, the Times is not actually owned by the Unification Church itself (or any affliliate or successor), but rather by a group of businessmen who are members of the Church. LeoO3 03:13, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Misleading wording

the Unification Church has been willing to run the paper

This wording is misleading, as it suggests that the church dictates editorial policy. The church and the current editors say not. Some former editors say yes.

Also, it makes it sound like money comes from the church to the paper. I'd like to see some back-up for that information. The UC of America, anyway, doesn't finance the Times. Where exactly does the money come from? And who says so? --Uncle Ed 17:55 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Almost all media owners influence editorial policy; this is a widely-accepted fact. Furthermore, Moon founded the paper and the paper's foundation largely with his own money, and he continues to fund it with various activities,[1] since it can't turn a profit on it's own.[2] I worked there briefly, and witnessed financial problems and mismanagment.Zmbe 01:59, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Political voice?

run the paper at a loss to provide a political voice

A political voice for what? I'd like to know. Aside from digging out stories "spiked" by the leftist New York Times.

a political voice for sun myung moon's world domination cultist agenda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.248.94 (talk) 11:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the 2003 figure of one billion dollars is at least 10 years out of date: the loss was at least 1.2 billion dollars by the early 1990s. --Uncle Ed 20:37, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Have taken out a phrase

I've taken out the following phrase. It needs a citation or real numbers:

They also note that the Washington Times proudly funded Oliver North's Iran-Contra affair -- an unusual action for a newspaper. Fuzheado | Talk 01:06, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This Article is Too Biased

Someone needs to clean this article up, it seems to be heavily biased against the Times. I personaly don't know much about the paper, but just reading this article gives a very negative impression.

I agree. For example, what do others here think about the term "controversial" when applied to the Unification Church? While personally I think it's accurate, isn't it also at least implicitly pejorative, and therefore not NPOV? LeoO3 03:16, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

The term "controversial" is quite accurate as applied to the Unification Church and I think that it is NPOV to include it. However, the lead paragraph is not the best place for it. It should be moved down to the ownership section, where the relationship to the Unification Church is discussed. -Willmcw

I agree that there is controversy, and there has been for what, 30 years now? However, I think it is fair to leave it in the opening paragraph. I used to live in Washington DC, and in fact worked for the Washington Times briefly. It is not a generally well-regarded newspaper. Articles are routinely slanted to the right, praising the president when no one else will. If you think the Times is a balanced newspaper, you probably think the same of Fox News. Zmbe 02:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree too! Biased against conservatives, just like the rest of wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.96.98 (talk) 02:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Extensive re-write

I am working on a complete re-do of this article, making it more neutral and informative. It will retain, mostly in a dedicated section, much of the charges made by critics, as well the information they have used, but the full article itself will be much more. LeoO3 22:09, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm still working on a complete re-write of the article. The one posted now is so fatally flawed that I am starting from scratch, using the Washington Post article as a template of sorts. I have heard no objections to this project yet. This will not be a whitewash of the Times by any means, but will remove the heavy bias and negative POV of the existing article, although I will incorporate some text and information from the current article. If interested in what I have so far, drop me a line at my talk page or send me an email. Perhaps, rather than simply wiping the current contents, I'll do an alternative article first so people can see it. LeoO3 03:11, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, I've done it. I'm sure it needs work. I've drawn on the Washington Post article and used it as a template or skeleton to flesh this one out. Please note that while it may seem like I simply deleted critical links from the bottom, I actually incorporated the Daily Howler and Salon.com critical links from the old article into the body of this article. Weeks of research has not led me to solid answers on exactly who owns News World today. Help on that would be especially welcome, as well as good-faith NPOV edits. LeoO3 30 June 2005 05:08 (UTC)

Efforts to edit and add to the article in good faith are welcome. Efforts to drag it back into its past as a negative screed gleefully and myopically focusing on Moon and the UC at excessive length are not. I included or linked to most information about Moon ties. The old article was universally panned here in the Times discussion page. I gave anyone interested a full month to state their case defending it or object to a full relaunch; no one did. Shoving in long chunks of the old discredited text back in, wholesale, is not constructive. And detail and information describing Times history and operations should not be dismissed out of hand simply because they flesh out the paper as a living and more "normal" institution rather than a conveniently bizarre caricature. I welcome a response to these remarks. Failing any, I will revert most of the changes by RD232. LeoO3 30 June 2005 12:53 (UTC)

Details are fine, but they shouldn't be unencyclopedic. More details on what exactly it's won awards for would be fine, but what font it's printed in or what the editor had for breakfast last Tuesday is a waste of space. As for overemphasising UC - the revised page (since your last comment I've had time to edit my cut-and-paste) doesn't even mention that Moon is foreign, or his bizarre 1991 comment "Look at the Washington Times. No one in America helped to create that."[3]. When a daily newspaper is owned by a foreign religious nut, subsidised at vast expense, it's perfectly reasonable to discuss exactly what this entails. Add other things by all means, such as more info on the significance of the Times (eg Bush administration is pretty keen on it), and suggest redrafts of the material. But don't think you can inappropriately minimise the UC connection - which, deliberately or otherwise, is what your rewrite initially did.Rd232 30 June 2005 13:52 (UTC)

HAS it actually won any awards? And if so, awarded by whom? I can't find anything about this. I would be truly, deeply surprised if a well-regarded organization actually awarded anything to this poorly-run, slanted newspaper. Zmbe 02:05, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Christian Science Monitor

Can/ought comparison be made (at least in "See also") with the Christian Science Monitor, as another newspaper established by a religious organization/church yet not explicitly a mouthpiece of that church's beliefs? --Dpr 07:31, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

A nod

• The Washington Times[1] is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. On Sundays its masthead reads The Sunday Times, a nod to The Sunday Times of London. The paper also calls itself America's Newspaper.

Should the second sentence of this three-line summary really spend a clause on an unrelated newspaper? I'd say we should move the entire second sentence down somewhere else. The intro would be better if we included more about why the paper is notable. Conservative voice? Unification Church? Circulation? Something like that. Thoughts? -Willmcw 09:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

A note from the Washington Times

I have moved the following out of the "Notes" section of the article, and have incorporated (as best I could) the information that it contained into the appropriate sections of the article. John Broughton 05:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

EDITING:

The Washington Times did not buy the "equipment and plant" of the Washington Star. The Times purchased part of the Star's computer system, which it replaced soon afterward. The presses and plant were purchased by The Washington Post. The Washington Times employed several members of the staff of the Washington Star; nearly all of these had died or retired by 2005.

The editors-in-chief of The Washington Times have been James R. Whelan (1982-1984), Smith Hempstone (1984-86), Arnaud de Borchgrave (1986-1992), and Wesley Pruden (1992 to the present). Your description of de Borchgrave, Tony Blankley, Wes Pruden and Tony Snow as "executives and editors" is vague and misleading. Tony Blankley is the editor of the editorial page. Wesley Pruden is the editor in chief, with authority over both the news and editorial pages. The editorial independence of The Times is guaranteed by contract with the editor in chief, none of whom are, or have been, members of the Unification Church. Wesley Pruden estimates that no more than a dozen of the editorial staff of 230 are members of the Unification Church.

This is submitted on December 15, 2005, by Wesley Pruden. My telephone number at The Washington Times is 202/636-4863.

Political viewpoint

The infobox currently refers to the political viewpoint of the Times as neutral on news coverage and center-right on opinion. Having lived in DC for three years recently, I think it would be far more accurate to refer to the news coverage as center-right - the local coverage is generally politically neutral, but the political coverage is fairly openly right-wing (an above-the-fold banner headline proclaiming a study that explained the beneficial effects of pollution on fish population on an otherwise busy day is one memory) - and the opinion page is fairly strongly right-wing. I don't want to start any edit wars if I change things outright, so does anyone disagree? --DMG413 21:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

In my view that's fair. That caught my eye too (the labels, not the article). LeoO3 19:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Zmbe 02:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. And will make the change. Eleemosynary 08:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Since nowdays "right-wing" seems to cover the more conservative 50%, or more, of the American public it's fair to call the Washington Times "right-wing".Steve Dufour 04:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

wtf is that nonsense?Zmbe 06:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree and the NYT, LA Times and many other magazines are obviously Liberal and should be labeled as such. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mantion (talk • contribs) 05:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Compared to the Post

Fair enough. At least the people with dwarfism will no longer be offended.Steve Dufour 05:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Since the Times is compared to the Post in the introduction the same information does not have to be given again. Steve Dufour 05:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced criticism

I took out the following paragraph:

The Times has often portrayed itself a rival of the Post. Most established journalists [4] do not view the Times positively[5] and would not wish to work there in light of its ownership,[6] underlying religious posture (see below), and potentially negative[7] impact on a journalist's career. On the other hand, conservatives in the media have greatly welcomed the publication as an alternative to mainstream news.

Interestingly, thought the first sentence is chock-full of reference links, none of them actually seem to back up any of the statements being made. Please tell me if I'm wrong. And, of course, the second sentence is unreferenced. Korny O'Near 15:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Dave Fay

The late, former Washington Capitals beat writer for the Times probably deserves a mention as a winner of the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award making him a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Whoops! Never mind... he's listed under former, as opposed to sports. My bad!  :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.232.182.71 (talk • contribs) 10:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Editorial Independence

I took out the following line (proposed by Dpr back in 2005, above): "(Compare the Christian Science Monitor.)" (from the 'Editorial Independence' section.) While I understand the point trying to be made, it's not appropriate for an encyclopaedia to directly address the reader. If anyone thinks they can rewrite that sentence in a more appropriate tone, feel free to do so. Also - does anyone have a source for the Wesley Pruden quote in this section? Terraxos 00:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Grafitti Artists

Removed the following comment after "The Times is widely perceived as maintaining a strongly right-leaning editorial stance"

"so much so, in fact, that grafitti artists have been known to deface Times boxes with the words "Neo-Nazi Rag""

"Grafitti artists", of course, gives away the writer's point of view. Otherwise, they would be just "vandals", right? And what relevance does vandalism against its boxes have in an article about a newspaper, or the opinions of vandals, for that matter--even if they are, as may reasonably be guessed, motivated by politics rather than artistic expression?

Robert 2007 Aug 14 209.226.237.170 01:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I hate to get into cyclical revisions, but my edits were undone without comment. I have reviewed my version and believe it is better, in terms of NPOV. If anything, the sentence in question should be moved to a later section, rather than the History section.

Robert 209.226.236.20 00:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Reagan's Paper

Anyone have a source on this? That sentence needs a citation —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.142.82.17 (talk) 01:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Third-most widely quoted newspaper

• By its second year of publication, the Associated Press listed The Times as the third most widely-quoted newspaper in the nation. [8]

The Times says that AP made this assessment. So which is the source:

1. AP
2. AP, according to the Washington Times
3. The Times itself

I'm uncertain about how to source this. Is there a guideline for situations where X says that Y said Z? --Uncle Ed 21:12, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

My sense was that, absent direct sourcing to the AP, we should specify that "According to the Times, the AP listed it as the third-most-widely..." The link to the Times site that you give above is a bit peacocky - is it really a must-read for Clinton and Bush43? I'm not denying the veracity of the claim, just that it's probably best to clarify who's making it. And is it up to date? When did the AP make this determination? Anyhow, that's my 2 cents - I think the claim looks a little iffy stated as bald fact, but I'm open to other input. MastCell ^Talk 21:39, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, MC. That was my sense as well. Without a direct quote from AP, it's a "she says they say" kinda thing.

Where can we get some hard data on "who's being quoted" or who considers which newspaper an authoritative source of news? --Uncle Ed 23:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. I wasn't aware of "quotation indexes" till now. Perhaps there's something on the AP site? Ideally, there would be some third-party sources - clearly, the Washington Times is a relatively influential newspaper, but finding hard documentation to put in the article may be a bit tricky. MastCell ^Talk 05:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)