Talk:First Iraq Medal of Honor recipient receives memorial headstone at Arlington

We better be ready to run Hezballah press events honouring their selected heros if we start running these types of staged press events promoting one side of a military conflict.This article is an extension of a US government propaganda event. All the sources are us government propaganda agents. NPOV means NPOV Paulrevere2005 04:49, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Paulrevere2005, do you have any links to events presented by the insurgents in Iraq?

There shouldn't be a problem with a story about the burial of a soldier from the other side of this conflict.

Do the insurgents have a cemetery where their dead are buried? I've only seen parades where they carry the coffin, but I can't recall coverage of a burial ceremony which showed where the coffin was buried.

As a practical matter, unfortunately, I've only seen copyrighted photos of such processions. There doesn't appear to be the equivalent of a Department of Defense for the insurgent movement which makes public domain photos available for their events.

Please feel free to post a story about the burial of a soldier from the other side of this conflict based upon any reliable info you can dig up. — DV 05:13, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DV Just look at the sources for goodness sakes.This isn't about the burial of a soldier. Read the glorifying descriptions of "killing 50 enemy soldiers"..do you really think we could or should run such a story if the "hero" was on the other side and the 50 "enemy soldiers" were young British or American soldiers? And I am sure there are newspapers and websites around who have such stories but the point is not to balance 1 POV story with another; the point is to not have any POV stories..right? Paulrevere2005 05:27, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Paulrevere2005, do you propose to censor the quote about the 50 enemy soldiers?

Instead of acting as a censor, why not find a quote from an insurgent bemoaning the loss of their 50 soldiers (or perhaps disputing that 50 soldiers were even killed), and present the other side of the story?

I understand that you find the quote from Bush about the 50 enemy soldiers rather one-sided, but it's a quote - no one here on Wikinews is asserting the quote is a fact.

I realize it might be difficult to find such a quote if most of the potential sources are now dead or in detention centers.

Perhaps one of the insurgent leaders has made a statement about the event in question that could be included?

As for not having any POV stories, I'm not going to beat that dead horse. With the China-Taiwan conflict I sometimes write a single story about both sides. Other times, one side or the other hosts an event and most of the story is about that event, although I try to find some reaction if any is available. Sometimes the People's Daily and Xinhua don't respond until the next day, so I write a new follow up story. (Like I did for the 326 rally.)

I think your criticism is valid - the sources for this story seem one-sided, but I hope you will find more sources of information to balance out the story, instead of just tagging it POV and moving on. I simply think it's a waste of time to argue over what is POV or NPOV when it's easier to just add more info to the story to balance it out. — DV 05:49, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The principle of npov applies to the content of articles, not to the kinds of article we run. But if you want to run an article about Iraqi war heroes, go ahead and write one. Don't mark other perfectly acceptable articles as bein non-neutral to make your point. Dan100 (Talk) 08:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And it must be said that the news story here is that the first MoH recipient got a memorial headstone at Arlington a few days back. There's not many PoVs you can hold about that and the sources for it check out fine. The rest of the article is just background information on the soldier, which is only for reader's interest. If you can find a source that disputes of that day link it and put in an appropiate paragraph. Dan100 (Talk) 09:32, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Ok, you two have convinced me. I'm trying to remove my tag but itseems simeon put his own in. Paulrevere2005 17:59, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Paulrevere2005. Please feel free to remove any remaining tags. — DV 18:06, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Follow up

Paulrevere and Simeon, I'm rather looking forward to a story about a "Hezballah" press event. I'd be curious to see how such an event is run. Please feel free to post a story about such an event. I'll be right there with you if someone tries to stop you.

As for this story, if you can find opposing quotes about this specific event, you are welcome to add them. Tagging a story for deletion and going on your merry way is simply not productive.

Finally, I disagree that the article is too detailed. I found the bit about the MofH flag at the end very informative and relevant to the story.

I am tired of reading so many three-paragraph, lightly researched news briefs on this site that compel me to go elsewhere to get the full story. (Ilya made a similar comment the other day.) If we really want people to depend on us for the news, we need longer articles, not shorter ones.

I am doing my part to improve this situation. If you look at the stories I have submitted in my writing log, I'm starting to make more of an effort these days to write longer, more informative pieces - Wikinews is not paper - and I invite you to do the same.

As long as you use the inverted pyramid writing style, most important info first, followed by successively less important info, the reader can simply stop reading if they get bored, while still taking away the high points. Just open any respectable broadsheet newspaper and you will find we are nowhere close to writing stories which are too long. — DV 18:06, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• David, you won't be seeing such a story from me. My POV is I HATE wars and war propaganda from ANY side..especially the "God (and "good") is on our side and the other guys are 'evil'(axis of evil) or 'The Great Satan'(as the USA has been called)" type of propaganda.

...and I don't believe one-sided reporting on wars is really news at all...its simply an advertisement for one side in the conflict. Paulrevere2005 18:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Clean up'

This article had been tagged for clean up accusing it of being full of propaganda and having too much detail(!).

The bottom line is that this is a wiki - you build on the work of others, you don't attempt to destroy. As long as the material in the article doesn't break our guidelines, it's OK. Don't disrupt the wiki just because you don't like what you're reading. Dan100 (Talk) 08:45, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Commons

Please replace Image:1150501.jpg with Image:Paul Ray Smith headstone.jpg. -- Cecil (talk) 11:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC) Done --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 12:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)