Talk:Leslie R. Mitchell

source: Christian Science Monitor

In response to a question on my talk page by User:HighKing, the Christian Science Monitor was a major, large-circulation, American, mainstream, daily national newspaper, that was highly respected for the caliber of its journalism. This was a feature story about the Jamboree on the Air that included a couple of paragraphs about Mitchell as the founder. I accessed it via a paywalled online search of Proquest News archive and downloaded it as a pdf. Note that sources do not have to be open access or readable online to be valid. and note that such sources are often essential in avoiding the Wikipedia:Systemic bias that creeps in when assessing the notability of topics from the pre-internet era, which can be too easily deleted by editors running the kind of searches that find sources for contemporary topics.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for answering here. Just for completeness, I'll repeat the questions below which were asked on the Talk page of User:E.M.Gregory:

Hi, you found a reference for the Leslie R. Mitchell article from the CSM dated 16 September 1965 and written by Harold F. Bennett titled "Scouts tune in all over world: Calling all Scouts!". Is there an online link to this article? Is it an interview with Mitchell? Is it a PRIMARY source or an independent secondary source? Thank you

As you can see, I've no concerns at all with the CSM as a source and none of my questions are in regard to that aspect of the reference. I had already found the paywall but was wondering if it was possible to access the interview in a different publication. From experience, what I find is that most sources relating to the scouts tend to take their information/facts from the scouting organization itself, usually in the form of interviews or quotations. This is a problem (related to your point about systemic bias) so it would be rare and excellent news if this article was different. Can you confirm if that that is the case here? Can you describe the source in terms of meeting the criteria in WP:RS? Thank you. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 22:00, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• You may have a misunderstanding of WP:RS. This is was a reported article in a major national newspaper, about the Jamboree-on-the-Air with substantive attention paid to Mitchell's role in creating, running this on-air, radio Scouting event. It enables us to source both Mitchell's claim to notability and the details of his career to a WP:RS.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

@E.M.Gregory: Thanks for the response, apologies if it seems obvious to you but I'm struggling to understand exactly how this reference helps establish Mitchell's notability. WP:BASIC states that secondary sources should be "intellectually independent" and "independent of the subject". I've come across lots of articles quoting reliable third party sources but on examination the article is really an interview with the subject and there is no evidence of fact checking on what is said. This is the reason for my question. If this article is an interview with Mitchell or relies on Mitchell to provide the details and facts, then it could be argued that the article does not help establish notability and it is not a secondary source at all but a primary source. On the other hand, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS states that the reliability of a source depends on context. Perhaps the context of the article is more than an interview? Thank you. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 20:27, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Signed, reported articles (not op-eds) indicate that the publisher stands behind the information. Does the BBC or Agence France ever make a mistake? Sure they do. But in we accept them as WP:RSes for the facts they report.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:21, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe it is closer to the truth to say that the publisher stands behind the accuracy of their reporting, not the accuracy of the information. Big difference. Signed, reported articles which are essentially interviews do *not* stand behind the data/facts/opinion of the interviewee. Hence why an article that "quotes" an interviewee is essentially a PRIMARY source. That said, given the age of the article, WP:CONTEXT must surely lend extra credence to the interview. I'm sure Mitchell wasn't "promoting" anything for his own benefit (unlike a lot of published interviews). -- HighKing⁺⁺ 16:05, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

You are leaping to assumptions. Although the journalist must have interviewed people to write it, the article was not "an interview;" it was a reported article. Rather, I assume that the journalist would have worked in the way reliable journalists working for major publications work: by gathering info from multiple sources.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps I am leaping to assumptions - I have no way of telling because you still have not answered the question I posed. Your latest response seems to confirm that the article was not an "interview". By that, I mean that the article doesn't "quote" Mitchell, or include parts that start with "According to Mitchell", "Mitchell stated", etc. It would be helpful if you could just clarify that point - it is the only question I've asked. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 16:42, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

@E.M.Gregory: Just seeking some clarification before assumptions are leaped to. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 15:02, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

This is a long, reported article about the Jamboree-on-the-Air, written back in an era when amateur radio was a very popular hobby. I have just re-read it, in a pdf file linked via Proquest. It broadly covers the radio aspect of that year's jamboree, Scouts in various parts of the planet participating, a Scout troop in which every boy has a radio operator license, the photo is of a Schout troop in Norway listening in on their ham radio set. In the course of all this there is a section on Mitchell as the "originator" of the Jamboree. it included a potted bio of his involvement with radio, his wartime service record, the 1958 jamboree where he originated the program. It does not feature any direct quotes or, indeed, any indication that the journalist spoke with or met him. It is, is, however, the paradigm of a WP:RS.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Excellent stuff, thank you! -- HighKing⁺⁺ 16:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

source 73 (magazine)

Searches turn up snippet views of at least 2 separate articles in 73 (magazine) published in different decades, about Mitchell (called "Les Mitchell" here and in other sources,) funding the jamboree-on-the-Air.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:21, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

sourcing and notability

Most of the sources are Scouting-related (a few are ham radio-related, but only 1 is from a major, general-circulation news source) In part, this undoubtedly results from the fact that many news outlets of the 1950s and 1960s are NOT available online, in part, it results from searching on his name, more sources turn up when searching his handle: G3BHK. But the fact that sources are not available form the era in which Mitchell is active contributes to a severe Wikipedia:Systemic bias towards recentism; a problem that applies with special severity to organizations like the Boy Scouts that were a really big deal in the pre-internet era. Someone with a file of old news clippings could probably improve this article form WP:RSes;reliable sources do not have to be available online to be valid. That said, however, all of Mitchell's notability stems from his role in Jamboree-on-the-Air, a brief article into which we might consider merging/redirecting this brief article.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

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