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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Spartaz Humbug! 02:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Allegations of Jewish control of the media

Allegations of Jewish control of the media (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log)
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This article was created by User:Noleander and falls into the content area from which Arbcom has recently [i.e. since the article creation] topic banned that editor. The problems highlighted in the Arbcom case included extensive misrepresentation of sources. The article includes revisiting the topic of a previous Noleander creation, relating to Jewish control of Hollywood, that was deleted in this AfD.

The current article contains an uncomfortable mixture of historic material which reviews how anti-Semitic writers such as the authors of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have advanced the myth of Jewish control of the media with more modern material in which some have sought either to revive the conspiracy theory or to produce less noxious versions saying that Jews happen to be over-represented in the media even though they may not be working together. There have been several intense arguments on the talk page because there is a lack of agreement on whether the artilce is about the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory or about Jews in the media and what their presence may imply.

Much of it uses relatively poor quality sources such as newspaper articles or the websites of campaigning groups rather than the high quality academic sources which policy prefers especially when considering fringe theories and sensitive topics and, as indicated above, there are good grounds for doubt about whether the sources are accurately represented. The article and the talk page remain subject to drive-by edits by some claiming it to be Jewish propaganda.

For all these reasons, this article should be deleted. I am not calling for salting as there is a possibility of a good article being created on a related topic. But this article is not such a good article and its history makes it a poor starting point for achieving such a good article Peter cohen ( talk) 21:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC) [Chronology made more explicit to reduce chance of confusion in !voters -- Peter cohen ( talk) 09:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)] reply

  • Delete - I commented a little more extensively here. I don't know whether a policy-compliant article on this subject could be created or not, but I simply don't trust any of Noleander's research. If an article can be written it would be better to delete this version and all of its history and start with a clean slate. -- Steven J. Anderson ( talk) 21:21, 1 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Personally, if I was moved to create something covering some similar ground, I would note that it is just one tentacle of the World Jewish conspiracy and start with an article on its propagandists.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 21:38, 1 May 2011 (UTC) reply

*Keep - because constant policy violations against NPOV editors lead to problems:

    • While there was a lot of initial back and forth about whether the article should cover "Jewish influence on media," within a few weeks it was settled that it only would cover conspiracy theories, stereotypes, canards, etc. Except for occasional individuals popping up (usually when the article was brought to a noticeboard for other issues or by one talk page critic lately) there was a consensus which I agreed with. My main interest in the article was it was being used by POV individuals to smear current critics of Israel and that if that was being done, then the more nuanced views of these individuals had to be accurately expressed.
    • Many of Noleander's efforts which Peter mentions I also called for removing -- like [overly extensive quoting], questionable advocacy material and especially discussion of current Israel critics. However these were supported strongly by those who had a POV of making anyone who currently alluded to the issue in their criticism of Israel look like antisemites deliberately telling lies (i.e., "canards.") I was constantly harassed by other editors as an antisemite for trying to make the changes Peter Cohen describes and eventually they drove me off the article. So please do not just blame the issues with this article only on any alleged antisemitism by Noleander, when s/he was supported by other editors with an opposite POV. (I myself was confused about Noleander's POV since sometimes s/he would agree with me on NPOV issues, despite adding so much questionable material.)
    • Note that the section that I added the most material to was the historical information on such false allegations in the 1920s-1950s. Because these POV editors insisted on including allegations against modern critics of Israel with more nuanced viewpoints, I often found myself defending edits to those sections to make the article more BLP compliant, even though I would have preferred removing the material. This again led to accusations of bigotry.
    • There have been several serious books on the topic whose sources have been inadequately used and I was working on adding material sourced from them when I was driven off the article. At least three of those sources (including the ADL) definitively said that while Jews may be over-represented in some media, that is not evidence of a conspiracy to control media. Even mentioning my intention to add that led to more allegations! It was truly absurd.
    • I feel it is totally inappropriate to try to delete an article under these circumstances without first allowing editors who have in fact tried to correct these problems to do so without being insulted and harassed. It would help if Peter would actually go to the talk page and more specifically identify which a) material he thinks is most problematic and b) exactly what time period he thinks the article should discuss. I'll bring up his critique there if he does not. However, it's not too difficult to figure out what the problematic material is and, being familiar with the sources, I could cut it out fairly quickly. Of course, I'd probably be assaulted again as an antisemite for dealing with Peter and my legitimate concerns. Perhaps this article needs an objective administrator watching it and dealing definitively with editors who have been using it to push a POV against modern critics of Israel.
    • Delete: it's just a magnet for POV and BLP violations and I don't want to bother to fix it up. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 23:36, 1 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - There's no question that the subject is notable. It's a difficult subject on which to write an article, but that's not a justification for deletion. See WP:DEL. We deal with articles like that all the time. For sources, try searching Google Books: [1]. -- John Nagle ( talk) 04:08, 2 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete and start again. If there is anything that one can learn from the ArbCom case, it is that Noleander's distortions are very pervasive but difficult to spot. MathSci's example was utterly revealing; the method is not dissimilar to Irving. I think it flows from this that all this editor's work is suspect, and I am prepared to vote "delete" on any AFD of these articles. The concept is encyclopedic, and I would be thrilled to see a non-Noleander article on the subject. JFW |  T@lk 07:13, 2 May 2011 (UTC) reply

**Please look at the article history and you'll see sources have been extensively checked and it has been extensively rewritten already by a number of editors, many wanting to expose those who rabidly promote such theories. Any new article would just incorporate much of the same framework and text, merely deleting redundant and questionable POV material as discussed above. Please take the time to study the article and don't assume one editor's participating nullifies the editing of dozens of other editors. Under that criteria many articles would have to be deleted. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 12:20, 2 May 2011 (UTC) reply

  • Delete The topic itself does not merit being an encyclopedia article. It should be a section of the article on Antisemitism. Within that contexdt it should be build up carefully and deliberately. If at some point it is then large enough that it should be spun off as its own article, fine, but right now let all those serious NPOV article do their resucitation efforts while it is in the proper incubator: the antisemitism article. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Keep What's wong with controlling the media? If it's not illegal, let's do it! It seems a good idea. Wouldn't everyone just love to control the media? Too bad. We've got it. Chesdovi ( talk) 21:39, 2 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. This article has two main authors. One has been found to have seriously and commonly misrepresented sources in articles about Jews, while the second has claimed to be an "NPOV editor" trying to "correct the problems" created by the first. However, as both of them have publicly stated that they believe that Jews do control the media, nothing in the existing article can be trusted. Jayjg (talk) 22:54, 2 May 2011 (UTC) reply
    • I keep forgetting I don't have the luxury of being an anonymous editor who can easily hide any POVs or COIs and therefore am subject to constant attack for some 7.80 year old email written under constant harassment from both left and right wing hardcore Zionists hanging out on peace/libertarian email lists, and when I was really pissed off about a US Senator calling for US troops to fight Hamas; it did sound like Pat Buchanan on a tear, though he's still on television regularly.
    • [Paragraph added later: Somehow I missed that Jayjg actually referred to my statement in this June 2003 email where I wrote: the media (which is mostly owned and/or controlled by pro-Zionists, mostly Jews). Jayjg doesn't seem to understand that one's view when angry after a year of watching Neoconservative Zionists on TV pushing an Iraq war for what I knew were, and what turned out to be, phony reasons, might differ 7.8 years later. And if I were writing about the same individuals' failure to get the US to attack Iran now, I'd have a different perspective, wouldn't I? In any case, there was a whole related WP:ANI where people said that what mattered was my current views as I expressed repeatedly on the article talk page, views which were far more nuanced and actually more in accord with the most reliable sources. But some people will keep bringing up past indiscretions, won't they? Like some keep bringing up why Jayjg was prevented from editing in this subject area for six months or so a few years back. But why go into details? Editors are supposed to be able to grow and change, not be constantly crucified for past errors, on or - as discovered through internet trolling - off wikipedia. I certainly won't let it stop me from dealing with the most obnoxious violations of BLP, anyway.]
    • So after the 8th or 9th time diverse editors on diverse articles who all seemed coincidentally to be in the loop on this factoid [about this email] attacked me about it, I decided to stop trying to fight bias and BLP violations in articles on these related topics. Well, at 63 the old noggin tends to forget things. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 23:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC) reply
"Neoconservative Zionists on TV" forced you to echo antisemitic myth? I see. Do inner-city gangs also force you to say bad things about African-Americans? If this is the way you usually explain it, I can see why you're having trouble persuading people. You might want to consider a simple "I was wrong, I take personal responsibility, and I apologize." You might also want to reconsider your choice of the word crucified in this instance, which doesn't help you at all. Goodwinsands ( talk) 17:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Can we please not let this AfD degenerate into yet another round of vacuous name-calling, and dragging up indiscretions from years back. This is an important issue, and it deserves to be treated as such, rather than as a forum for infantile mud-slinging antics. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 00:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete As others have clearly indicated, Noleander is incapable of creating a reliable, encyclopedic article on such topics. That being said, nothing in this article can really be trusted. We need to start fresh. Plot Spoiler ( talk) 14:15, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete The topic deserves an encyclopedia article, but as Jayjg reports there are serious doubts about the fairness of the two editors who have "owned" it up to now, and the article should be recreated in a way that minimizes the participation of those two editors. Similarly, it must be clear from the start that the page is about the antisemitic myth, and editors must recognize from the start the importance of preventing "scope-creep" into its being about, say, Israel and the press, which is another topic. This article can only work if the boundaries are clear. I must also comment that I find statements of the form "I had to intervene in article X because people were using it to support something I disagreed with" to be a confession of premeditated "POV" editing, and I certainly hope that stops. Goodwinsands ( talk) 14:48, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Keep The topic is encyclopedic. Has anybody actually asserted that the current revisions of this article (since the AFD nomination) have had a POV slant? If so, I haven't seen such an assertion and I don't find such a POV slant in the article itself. So what are the grounds for deletion? Even the article as of the last version that Noleander edited did not seem to have a POV slant. It decidedly had the attitude "The allegations are an antisemitic canard and this article is documenting that canard". Rather than trying to condemn/delete the article based on the ARBCOM decision, we should be looking to see if there are any objectionable assertions in the text. If there are more than a few, we should consider deleting the article. If, however, there are only a small handful, then we should just fix them and keep the article. -- Pseudo-Richard ( talk) 15:38, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k ( talk) 18:56, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. The topic is probably encyclopedic. However, this article suffers from flaws so broadly fundamental that blowing it up is the better solution. JFW's desire to draw attention to the evidence Mathsci presented at Arbitration is appropriate. There is every reason to consider this article equally suspect. Again, a fundamental problem with the article is that scholarly sources exist which would provide a broad, reasoned, long-term view of the topic. However, this article is, in the main, not constructed from such sources. This is especially profound in the "Analysis and Commentary" section, which provides little or nothing in the terms of broad, long-view analysis. Rather it is an isolated series of observations, mostly consisting of headcounts of Jews in certain positions, patchworked together in the place of actual commentary. Furthermore, these observations (as with the article in general) are divorced from anything resembling a chronological examination (1999 statements by the ADL are sandwiched between 1936 and 1941 observations), and are often from sources that, although reliable in the Wikipedia sense (Slate, Midstream), are ill-equipped to provide "analysis" of the topic. Consider as well that Foxman's book is given probably undue weight as a subtopic in and of itself, but is nevertheless cited as a reference elsewhere in the article. Even if there is no misrepresentation of the material claims in any of the sources used, this style of reference selection, in the context of an article of this nature, advances an inherent POV, a POV that ArbCom has already ruled against by sanctioning one of the primary editors involved. Serpent's Choice ( talk) 20:03, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
    • Excellent analysis. Issues again I was trying to correct before being driven off the article. Issues that all of those editors of the article who had no problem with it in its current state rarely commented on and did not attempt to correct. But it is obvious to me now that writing an article properly on this issue is less important to some than playing out personal psychodramas, so it's best to just delete the article and not recreate it. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 14:31, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Honestly, I don't have any objection to a recreation, although the arguments made elsewhere in this AFD -- that such an effort should begin at World Jewish conspiracy (or the like) and only explicitly get back here if needed as a spinout -- are also compelling. As for the failure of other editors to fix the problems, that's the essence of WP:TNT; if the current article content was "fixable", it wouldn't be a deletion justification. Serpent's Choice ( talk) 14:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete The way the article is put together is synthesis, unrelated information that creates a concept that may not exist in reliable sources. The juxtaposition of conspiracy theories with actual facts about the prevalence of Jews in the media promotes the reasonableness of the theory, which is POV-pushing. TFD ( talk) 21:21, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete, per nominator. The conflation of the old 'Protocols' nonsense with debates about the neutrality of contemporary media is not just a synthesis, but one inevitably attracting POV-pushing of the most dubious kind. It has no place in any responsible encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 21:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete but Allow Recreation Nuking and starting over is the best avenue here as there is not neutral version in the edit history. The Topic is notable as far as fringe theories go and ought to be covered with appropriate critical commentary. Some material within the article is very salvageable but some of it is horse shit. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•( contribs) 21:58, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply
As I indicated in my nomination, I don't object in principle to the recreation of the article but as it is just one tentacle of the octopus of the World Jewish conspiracy, it would make more sense to create an article on the whole beast first so that the limb can be viewed in context.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 00:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
A very good point - discussing this in isolation looses a lot of context. We have an article on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but the conspiracy theory has 'advanced' (not perhaps the right word) a lot since the publication of that particular pile of poop. We'd have to be careful not to get back into the OR/SYNTHESIS problems we have here though. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 00:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Eh the reality is that we would just end up with it Spinning out again just too much material out there on it. I think such an article on Jews control the world to cover all these in the meta would be good. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•( contribs) 01:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Lew Grade for example? Goodwinsands ( talk) 02:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
LOL typos kill me every time The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•( contribs) 02:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Sure, but then we'd have started with, hopefully, a firmer foundation. Spun out articles appearing before their parent is ready to spin out, or even written, are a frequent source of troublesome content, even in less contentious categories than this one. Serpent's Choice ( talk) 14:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete.This article is beyond a repair is there something salvageable it should be merged to Anti-Semitisim article.-- Shrike ( talk) 05:04, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete this unsalvageable mish-mash violating WP:OR springing from User:Noleander who was topic-banned by the ArbCom from Jews and Judaism topics because of creating controversial, POV-foisting articles such as these, see User talk:Noleander#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander closed: "Noleander...is topic-banned from making any edit relating to Judaism, the Jewish people, Jewish history or culture, or individual Jewish persons identified as such, broadly but reasonably construed, in any namespace." Thank you, IZAK ( talk) 05:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete and allow recreation by good faith editors. The content is corrupted by deceitful editing. It will be more efficient to blank and restart. Noleander, and Noleander's wikifriends should avoid touching this article. Jehochman Talk 15:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
    • Frankly, I always had a suspicion from this one article I was familiar with that Noleander had an obsession with documenting conspiracy theories in such a way as to promote them. But I didn't want to go impugning the motives of an editor who everyone else seemed to support, even when I criticized his/her edits. Glad to see you finally recognize the problem after your months of overseeing the article and commenting on the talk page. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 15:57, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
      • Love that assessment: "Noleander had an obsession with documenting conspiracy theories in such a way as to promote them"! Agreed 100%. IZAK ( talk) 23:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete and allow recreation by good faith editors as suggested above by several users whom I respect. We can not allow such editing by banned users. Quite frankly, User:Noleander needs to be completely banned at this point. Bearian ( talk) 20:03, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Just to make it clear, this article was created before Noleander was topic banned. I'm not aware of his violating the ban.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 21:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Umm Peter, it is precisely because of such articles that Noleander was topic-banned so it stands to reason that those type of articles should be reviewed and as in this case even nominated for deletion because of their faulty premises and slant. IZAK ( talk) 23:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Umm IZAK, if you look at the top you'll see that I am the nominator of this AfD. My comment here was in response to Bearian's comment which reads to me as if (s)he thinks that Noleander created the article after the topic ban. I was clarifying things because none of us had been very clear about the sequence of events up to his point. Personally, I have no objection to Noleander being banned or to all articles he created being wiped. I've been trying to encourage the folks over at WP:ISLAM to see whether his articles there are as tendentious as his Jewish stuff because I don't trust any of his work.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 00:22, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Keepthis page. I want to join this discussion. I found the page useful because I cited it to someone who was guilty of the same kind of prejudicial thinking. Especially a cross-reference to the Protocol of Elders of Zion. So I vote for keeping this page. (I am an inexperienced user, but I hope this comment stays in here as a vote to keep. I found the page reasonably explanatory and not prejudicial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joachim M. ( talk • contribs) 22:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Comment The first rule of Jewish control of the media is that you don't talk about Jewish control of the media. (I just can't resist. It's so appropriate to this discussion.) -- John Nagle ( talk) 22:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
    • Kindly withdraw that comment, it is a slur or worse and does not belong in this discussion. IZAK ( talk) 23:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
      • While as phrased, the comment isn't helpful, one can't ignore the simple fact of human psychology that making topics taboo - especially power elite analysis - can have perverse consequences: suspicion of those who squelch discussion (including on Wikipedia), undue curiosity, false information being spread surreptitiously, and all sorts of resentments that may display themselves inappropriately. Quotes from the article show that has happened repeatedly among people who are not in any way ideological antisemites, and some have suffered for their misspeaking. In fact, I think I will put on my Do List an article on this topic for my web page that will include the better material from the existing article, plus the material from scholarly sources I had assembled but was attacked for wanting to include. With the general theme of: let's talk about the reality and the myths, stereotypes and downright lies. And all this in the context of "Power elite" analysis - what is influence? what is control? how hard are they to judge? should some people be excluded from ever being analyzed by current theories and techniques? I was disappointed that some of these issues were not dealt with in the best sources I found. Of course, I might not get around to it for several years. One thing about Wikipedia, is it makes you work on things you might not otherwise (especially to correct obvious POV propaganda). Of course, it also keeps you from working on your own stuff you SHOULD be working on. Which is why I'm going to try hard to avoid these issues, or at least the more controversial articles. Sigh... CarolMooreDC ( talk) 03:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
It's not necessary to delete the article to change it, of course. I'm amused by the rush to deletion. Most of the arguments for deletion here are really WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Also the claim that, because it was edited by a topic-banned editor, it should be deleted, is questionable. Based on that criterion, many articles by previously topic-banned editor Jayjg ( talk · contribs) now need to be reexamined. -- John Nagle ( talk) 04:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
There is a difference between being topic-banned for being a then major participant in making the content area a battleground and being topic-banned for systematically misrepresenting sources.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 09:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
It would help if you would show where sources currently are misrepresented. I know I found some which seemed to be and corrected them, but I can't remember if I verified every single reference both for exact quoting and for context/interpretation by source. Or are you are talking about over-quoting alleged antisemites or more reputable sources to make certain points. Why must this be taken on faith without one single example? Also, in your original complaint changing "since" to "after" might help clarify matters. Also, it seems strange to complain about the AfD'd article "Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood" (later changed to "Jews and Hollywood") when Noleander announced this was a spinoff of it in his/her first talk page message; I don't remember any editors --including yourself -- raising much of a fuss about that back then; and most of the editors commenting on the talk page were opposed to anything they considered antisemitic. Let's not forget that this article was thoroughly reviewed by such people for months. (Including a few other editors who now want it deleted.) (Not that all this changes my delete vote, based on Wikipedia's evident inability anymore to deal with highly partisan editors, but as a courtesy to others who don't want it deleted and the final admin. I guess I could more thoroughly document all that also, but reading the article's full talk pages really necessary for a full understanding.) CarolMooreDC ( talk) 12:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
The problems with this article are pervasive. The history section -- at least, that section presented chronologically -- is anemic, ignoring important historical background about how and why Jews took up the profession. The citation to Malamat is markedly poor, as can be seen by viewing the original in Google Books. The source does not identify where or when the supposed quote originates, and goes on to discuss unnamed "critics"; this does not suffice as a citation for the emergence of this form of antisemitism. Continuing on, the remainder of the 19th century section pulls quotes from historically important antisemites (and no one else), but provides no context for those quotes, despite actually being sourced to third-party works capable of providing it. The remainder of the history section is actually the bulk of the article, repeatedly presented. First, a relatively small section is dedicated to completing the chronological examination. Then, we rehash the 20th century in "Types of media". Then we rehash it again in "Sources". The most obvious double-dipping here is Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent, which gets article time in both the historical view and in the media-type section, but the problem is really that we go through the same tropes three times. Finally, we get the "Analysis and Commentary" section, which is nothing of the sort, instead continuing the trend of citing individual authors or publications for their sundry headcounts of Jewish representation in one industry segment or another. This is a well-documented sociological problem; surely there exists actual analysis and commentary that does not constitute novel synthesis? But we see none of it. In fact, we see very little context at all (we almost never get the background to answer why), only a lengthy sequence of claims of Jewish media control, often presented with disproportionate weight. Is Spike Lee's judgment of the topic so renowned that it warrants over a hundred words and three citations? The context problem is also visible when criticism of the topic is discussed. Look at the "Politics" section. FAIR, Medoff, and Brook have all spoken against antisemitism, but their presence in the article serves only as a coathanger to introduce the antisemitic quotes they were criticizing. AFD, famously, is not for cleanup, but fixing this article would literally require replacing all the text. That's why deletion is the solution. Serpent's Choice ( talk) 13:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
      • Good analysis, many of which I myself had made, including the redundancy and the "coatrack" argument. However, I'm just not clear what Peter and others mean by "misrepresenting sources" and why they didn't explain these issues months ago when people were trying to fix up the article. In any case, their failure to take these issues seriously for so long is just one more reason to delete the article. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 03:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - I think it should be deleted and another article created focusing on "Jewish influence in Hollywood".
Here's a piece of an article (L.A. Times) written by Joel Stein, "How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah." Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 23:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Now that's a potential option. See "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood" [2], by Neal Gabler. That book even got a good review from the Jewish Book Center. [3] -- John Nagle ( talk) 05:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
I have at the back of my mind the idea that there was an article on the book and it was deleted at around the same time as the Jews and Hollywood article went (Oct 2009). Before anyone expends too much effort, it's worth looking up the AfD for the reasoning behind the decision at the time and seeing whether there has been sufficient coverage in the last year and a half to increase the book's notability.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 09:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Looking for it (I'd not seen it before), it's an active article: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Notability is reasonably high; the book won awards in 1989, and was made into a TV documentary. That article was created by Noleander ( talk · contribs), has been edited by several editors since, and, based on the talk page, generated no controversy. -- John Nagle ( talk) 15:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
Thanks. It seems that I was right about there being an AfD in Oct 2009 but wrong about the outcome.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 22:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete, per JFW. The article consists of lifting a factoid here, a factoid there, out of context or slightly distorted. It's sometimes obvious, and at other times hard to spot, unless you already know what you're talking about or are willing to spend weeks analysing it. The lesson is that Wikipedians wanting to tackle complex historical or political articles need specialist knowledge—or at the very least must be willing to educate themselves, which means spending time in libraries, not just doing Google searches. There's a reason people spend years in universities studying these issues; we have to be aware of our own limitations if we haven't put in those years ourselves. SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 23:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Whilst the topic of the canard and its use certainly deserves mention in any reputable encyclopedia, there are multiple reasons that this particular article should be deleted. Firstly, Noleander has been pretty much proven to be guilty of a pattern of misrepresentation in his articles on religion. Articles of this sensitivity need to be built slowly, carefully, and cleanly. Secondly, as pointed above, we already have mention of the canard in the encyclopedia, at Antisemitic canard#Accusations of controlling the media. The proper process is to start work and enhancement there, and if the section ever grows large enough, then it can be spun off as a daughter article, summary style. Avi ( talk) 02:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete It might well be possible to write a neutral, objectively worded article on the subject, but this one is not it. The flaws are so fundamental that deletion would be appropriate for this version. A new version of the article should be created in userspace by an interested and objective editor and reviewed at WP:DRV before migration to mainspace. Alansohn ( talk) 03:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete, per JFW. -- Yoavd ( talk) 10:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete , per JFW. Gzuckier ( talk) 03:42, 7 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete An article claiming to be about an "antisemitic canard" is in fact an article that (to the receptive mind) promotes the claim that "the Jews control the media". Using "Allegations" is just an admission that the topic is not encyclopedic. A new article on a similar topic might be acceptable if written by an editor who does not have a focus on this sort of stuff, and which is based on good sources (not just stuff that scrapes by WP:IRS). Johnuniq ( talk) 05:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - per evidence presented by Mathsci and by SlimVirgin. -- Petri Krohn ( talk) 00:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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