Talk:US denies plans for attack on Iran amid report of hunt for evidence against Iran

Single Source Story

This article doesn't quite conform to the recommendations as stated in the Writing An Article guide in that only a single primary source is quoted. The reason for this is that this is an Observer investigation, and it hasn't been picked up by other news agencies at all. A search on Google News at the time of writing using the search terms "interrogator Iran" for the past 3 days turns up only the Observer and Press TV articles, which also merely quoted The Observer as a source. The Press TV article appears to be sourced from three mysterious agencies, "CS", "HGH" and "RE", whoever they are. Any help on who these sources are would be appreciated, as then I can indicate them appropriately. Press TV is an Iranian government funded cable TV station, so presumably these agencies are Iranian and that could be why it is difficult to find any information about them. Dox96 09:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the Press TV is basically just a shortened version of the Observer story, the picture and entire paragraphs are copied from the Observer. --SVTCobra 11:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

How unreasonable! Someone anonymous added the "cleanup" tag giving no reason whatsoever. Well I have removed it again. And I have to say if you don't want your cleanup tags simply removed, then try a little discussion. I will be complaining about this. Dox96 22:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It does need work

The single source concerns are real however, also, it needs some help in other areas, I will begin to work on it. --SVTCobra 22:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

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I have to say that I am unimpressed with the way this issue has been handled. At first you agreed with me in the way that I handled the story. Then, after I complain about an anonymous "cleanup" tag being added, suddenly you find fault with it and make major edits to it. Looking at your work so far, it appears that you have gotten around the single source problem by adding unrelated information surrounding the issue. My original article was about the fact that interrogators have complained about what they regarded as unreasonable pressure to find evidence on Iran when interrogating prisoners. This is not related to the story about the US denying that they are about to attack Iran. I feel that if you really need to add unrelated US propaganda to "balance" the story (as I saw in one of your edit notes), you can create a new article separate from this one.

I am particularly unhappy with the "cleanup" tag being on the article for 8 hours while I was asleep, effectively meaning that European visitors would have missed the article. News only lasts 24 hours before it becomes fish-and-chips wrapping. This is an important article precisely because it has not been widely publicised, despite being highly relevant to an extremely important international issue.

This is my first Wikinews article. Of course I don't expect it to be perfect and I welcome constructive discussion about how it might be improved. But my major motivation for even bothering to submit it was because, as I said earlier, I felt it was important and not publicised enough. I appreciate that the issue might be a little controversial, however I don't expect that I have to spend 24 hours being awake merely to defend my article from being simply removed, or having major edits adding unrelated US propaganda. It has taken a considerable amount of my time to do this, and guess what, I have to work and sleep just like everyone else. Wikinews hasn't exactly taken off like Wikipedia. I suspect that pissing off contributors like this ain't gunna help the cause. Dox96 00:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Alright, then, if you want me to restore your article as was, I will. If you think that US denying reports of an attack on the very same day as the Observer story is "unrelated" I am surprised. If you think that Joschka Fischer is spewing US propaghanda, I am stunned. --SVTCobra 00:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agreed with you that it was a problem that the article was single source. I saw that the article was started by an anonymous IP and thought you had raised concerns about it and inserted the stuff about not being picked up by major wires as you thought the story wasn't neutral. Besides, I am not the only one here and I can't be responsible for the story being left unattended. I thought I was doing you a favor by saving a story that could well be thought of as being in violation of NPOV. --SVTCobra 00:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I have asked a non-US editor/admin to look at this and see if my edits were unreasonable. If either of you say so, I will happily extricate my edits. Well, I guess you already did, but you confirm that you want that, or the other editor sees a problem, then I will. --SVTCobra 01:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ahh I see where I misunderstood you now. Actually, I was the original author, and I was basically trying to offer reasons at the top of this page where I felt that I veered from the writing guidelines, to defend what I did. I made a mistake creating the article anonymously - sorry about the newbie mistake. That's why I corrected myself by creating my user handle. But I can see how that must have created confusion as to who was doing what edits and for what reason.

However, I stand by my original comments regarding the adding of unrelated content. I do not feel that the US commander was responding to the Observer article - it got no coverage elsewhere. He was responding to escalated coverage throughout the worldwide media in the past week regarding speculation of an attack. I also didn't feel that the Observer article was implying that the US was going to attack Iran in the immediate future, just that they seemed to be constructing a "case" for it using unreliable intelligence gathering methods. I think the first paragraph now reads extremely awkwardly, trying to piece together two unrelated facts. I also think it's now highly unbalanced, with 3 quotes (and photographs) of senior government figures denying an imminent attack, and one unrelated quote from Fischer. I still think the "US denies plans of attack" story should be a separate article. I have more to say, but I have to get back to work now :-/ Dox96 01:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Funny, I fixed that "responding" sentence even before I read this. We can't use the Observer's photos of Brose and I'm afraid no free ones are available. But I will gladly look for recent comments by Ahmadinejad to rebalance, or I could seperate. --SVTCobra 01:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Explanation

This article had its origins in the article US interrogators complain of "sickening" pressure for evidence on Iran. I expanded on it a great deal, offering different viewpoints and renamed it. The original contributor felt that their work should stand alone. After a few back-and-forths, I separated the two, restoring the original article separately. A lot of the above discussion refers to the original article and what happened when I added my work. Please add your thoughts here if they pertain to editorial concerns and here if you have opinions on the story. Cheers, --SVTCobra 02:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

More work

OK, now that the articles have been separated out, I have some issues with your work here SVTCobra :-) I really think that this article is seriously imbalanced in favour of the US. For example, the Admiral was trying to tone down talk of a US attack, but at the same time refused to rule one out, as mentioned in the FT article, but not here. Furthermore, Rice's comment "Why won't Tehran talk" is seriously mischievous. She knows very well that the Iranians want to talk, and she even said earlier that she had a condition - that Tehran suspend enrichment. Somehow that doesn't seem to correlate with wanting to talk "anytime". Given that Iran doesn't have any pre-conditions to talks, clearly they are ready to talk "anytime", but not her. I don't have any evidence backing this up as yet, but when I do, I'll add it. I'm also changing some sentences to improve flow. Dox96 08:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I've found that source (contradicting Rice's position). Noam Chomsky, a political commentator among other things, in "What we say goes", regards the US as being the party refusing negotiation (not Iran). He says on page 31, "the US is willing to 'negotiate' only if Iran concedes the result of the negotiations (suspension of uranium enrichment) before the negotiations begin ... and with a gun pointed at their heads, because we won't withdraw the threats (of attack) against Tehran ... which are a violation of the UN Charter. In other words, the United States is refusing to negotiate". Chomsky also points out that Iran has been offering negotiations with the US on all outstanding issues, and has been since 2003. Now whether or not you agree with Chomsky's analysis, you would have to agree that simply quoting Rice like that without offering alternate views is simply echoing propaganda. I will need help in adding this fact to the article, because I don't see how I could do it without seriously upsetting the flow, and changing the topic mid-article. Perhaps it would be better to delete Rice's comments regarding negotiations, because they don't fit in with the original issue anyway, and it really wouldn't hurt the thrust of the article. Given that there are three US voices, it probably wouldn't hurt to get rid of her altogether. Clinton says most of what Rice says anyway. Dox96 10:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)