Talk:W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Reported fabrication

I'm not familiar enough with the details to insert this into a BLP, but Smith's The Tank column for National Review Online is accused of fabricating.

• Edsall, Thomas B. (2007-12-01). "In The Tank: Did National Review Reporter Make His Stories Up?". HuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved 2007-12-03. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

The posts in question, archived in case these get deleted:

• Smith, W. Thomas Jr. (2007-09-29). "The Tank: Hezbollah's 'Show of Force'". NRO Weekend. National Review Online. Archived from the original on 2007-12-02. Retrieved 2007-12-02.
• Smith, W. Thomas Jr. (2007-09-25). "The Tank: Reporting from Lebanon". NRO Weekend. National Review Online. Archived from the original on 2007-12-02. Retrieved 2007-12-02.

/ edg ☺ ☭ 18:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Beirut Controversy

Several anons and new users are removing the well-sourced material under the "Beirut Controversy" section. This has caused the article to be semi-protected. I have restored the section, and welcome more eyes to the controversy. I know nothing about this, other than that the section seems well-documented. Corvus cornix_talk 00:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

There is now an OTRS ticket related to this matter. Ticket #2007121110000096 for those with access. I would appreciate it if someone could start looking over the section to verify that everything in it satisfies WP:V and WP:NPOV. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Reverted removal of sourced material.Please dicuss first.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

An anonymous person with an IP address of 12.147.122.2 keeps reversing and adding libelous material. This has been reported to Wikipedia, and should be disregarded. This is a prime example of why Wiki material should only be accepted from those with the honesty to identify themselves. Gretske (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

I've removed tons of external links and outdated information (as well as outright puffery) from the article. If anyone has any objections to my removals, I'm happy to discuss. // Chris ^{(complaints)•(contribs)} 15:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed from Beirut controversy

I snipped several paragraphs defending Smith from Beirut controversy, supposedly made by "middle east experts". None seemed particularly credible, even in the US conservative circles they represented. The Phares opinion is brief and qualified, containing no defense but saying if a certain report is true then there might be a defense. Meanwhile, Smith is editor-in-chief of worlddefensereview.com, whose boilerplate footer on the Harb article adds:

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not represent the opinions of World Defense Review and its affiliates. WDR accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the accuracy or inaccuracy of the content of this or any other story published on this website.

The Harb quote from Washington Times might be the sole notable opinion listed, not because either Harb or the Times are reliable sources in this matter, but because the Times was considered influential in conservative circles. However, as noted in a bit of summary removed from an earlier version of this article,

Harb did not provide any factual basis for his arguments defending Smith's accuracy in any of the three publications nor did he provide any factual basis for alleging a pro-Hezbollah bias among those journalists who brought Smith's alleged inaccuracies to light.

It's as if Harb is saying the "attacks" on Smith are by themselves proof of Hezbollah's pervasive influence over Western Media. Smith's editor @ NRO, on fact-checking Smith's stories (in another quote removed from this article):

Two of our independent sources agreed with Smith’s critics that the event was unlikely, and one — an editor who lives and works in Beirut — flatly stated that it didn’t happen.

I'd say Harb's line of reasoning becomes plainly incredible because it assumes the NRO kowtow to Hezbollah's mighty propaganda machine, but the familysecuritymatters.org citation more or less explicitly make this accusation of NRO. Incidentally Smith is on the board of advisors @ familysecuritymatters.org . Harb has a few articles up on Smith's World Defense Review, but if there's a conflict of interest it's not clear to me.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The sources defending Smith were WP:FRINGE at best. They cannot be included in this article as unchallenged "experts", and they are neither significant nor credible enough to mandate inclusion.

As noted near top of this Talk page, this article historically has been subject to aggressive pro-Smith sanitization (not to mention puppetry). / edg ☺ ☭ 04:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)