Talk:Ralph Nader calls out Democrats for financial bailout

Original Reporting Notes

These are my reporting notes:

• Image:Ralph Nader in Waterbury notes 1, October 4, 2008.jpg
• Image:Ralph Nader in Waterbury notes 2, October 4, 2008.jpg
• Image:Ralph Nader in Waterbury notes 3, October 4, 2008.jpg

--ragesoss (talk) 23:37, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Revision 704621 of this article has been reviewed by Poisonous (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 04:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: I'm still a bit new to reviewing but it looks fine. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Revision 704621 of this article has been reviewed by Poisonous (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 04:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: I'm still a bit new to reviewing but it looks fine. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Trillion

A note about the value of derivatives transactions: Nader did indeed say they would total $500 trillion (not billion) this year. That number is consistent with other discussion of derivatives. See, e.g., "Derivatives the new 'ticking bomb': Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen", Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch, March 10, 2008.--ragesoss (talk) 12:52, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Length

Are all pages on Wikinews this short?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Normiad (talk • contribs)

Wikinews doesn't make a habit of giving the entire world history of a subject in every article. For instance, when we write an article about one of NASA's probes, we don't feel compelled to spend 12 paragraphs discussing the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, or the destruction of Challenger, or 3 paragraphs about Neil Armstrong. The article is about a probe, not about NASA's entire history. Instead, we do this: NASA, and you can read about the background if you choose to do so. If you read an article on CNN on the other hand, they will have ONE paragraph of (non-informative, overly generalized) news, and then 3 pages of useless blathering crap. It's up to you to choose which one of those two styles you want. Gopher65_talk 18:51, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Glass-Steagall Act

{{editprotected}} {{flag}} "Nader pointed to the deregulation of the financial sector with the 1999 Glass-Steagall Act" Sorry, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act happened in 1933. From the Glass-Steagall Act Wikipedia article: "Provisions that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999, by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act".

So Nader was against the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act.

Karol qwerty (talk) 13:26, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to investigate whether Nader inadvertently named the wrong act, or whether Wikinews made an error. In the end, we need to decide whether to post a correction/retraction, or quietly edit the text. --InfantGorilla (talk) 09:21, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

In the sources section http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/10/nader_bailout_a.html link mentions that in a telephone interview he said "he opposed the 1999 financial deregulation law" - I see no mention of the name of that act. The other link in the sources is already dead.

If I'd have too guess, I think some Wikinews editor mixed up the names but maybe the other cited source is to blame - journalists make mistakes too. Or maybe Mr. Nader wasn't thinking clearly when he made that comment.

I haven't read the Wikinews' policy but I think "innocent until proven otherwise" rule means that if no one can find another source with Mr. Nader's alleged blunder we should quietly edit the error.

Karol qwerty (talk) 04:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no "innocent until proven otherwise" rule about the news we report. Only in our purely interpersonal relations within the community —which have no effect on what news we report— do we assume innocent until proven otherwise. Our assumption about the news itself is more like "wrong until proven right".

In this case, it seems to me we should rephrase to avoiding naming the act at all. --Pi zero (talk) 12:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Page 2 of the reporter's notes very clearly says "repeal" :

Deregulation/Glass-Steagal repeal/complex financial derivative/1999/2000 laws of regulation

Now there is no question in my mind: Nader did not make an error. Wikinews made a typo. I propose we fix it by adding the words "repeal of the":

... Nader pointed to the deregulation of the financial sector with the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act ...

I am happy that we do this without posting a {{correction}} notice, as in my opinion it is not material to the story.

Opinions?

--InfantGorilla (talk) 14:47, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

On more careful scrutiny (better late than never), it seems there's precedent with comparably sized corrections for using the tag, and not editing the article itself. Just looking through past articles that use {{correction}} (and not all of them, at that), I see

• Aung San Suu Kyi leaves house arrest to meet with government official (January 2, 2008), and
• Fight for consideration as hockey's hometown rages on in Canada, as a premier takes issue (February 9, 2007).

I did find one article that used the tag to indicate that an earlier version had said something incorrect, but that case doesn't seem to apply because the correction was applied while the article was still being actively worked on; I think it's superseded by later evolution of policy anyway.

If we consider those precedents still valid, then we would want something like

Correction — July 13, 2010 Nader referred to the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, not the 1999 Glass-Steagall Act. The Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933. The error occurred in the article, not in Nader's statements.

--Pi zero (talk) 17:48, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Done Correction posted, with slightly different wording. Feel free to tweak. Thanks for resolving this. I have removed the {{flag}} from this Talk page. --InfantGorilla (talk) 14:58, 2 August 2010 (UTC)