Talk:Alexander Cockburn

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March 2022

See this discussion for motivations/explanations driving the mega-pruning to this article. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 13:58, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried to pound this article into shape, but am now seriously considering removal of the entire 'Political views and activities' mega-section, as little content therein is referred to secondary sources, most of the topics are tangential to Cockburn, etc. Thoughts? JoJo Anthrax (talk) 19:21, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly looking much better. I think there needs to be something for his views, as that was his schtick, but I think it might have to be done with a healthy dose of WP:TNT. I wouldn't object to removing it wholesale, for now. Same with the friendship with Hitchens section, which should be a couple sentences in his personal life. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

{: =More condensation and trimming, perhaps making things a bit more encyclopaedic. Cites to Cockburn's primary published works remain, which might not be optimal but it was either that or remove pretty much everything. To any one reading this: please feel free to restore content that you deem absolutely essential. I haven't touched the Hitchens material yet, but yeah, there's plenty to do there. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just hacked all of the primary sourced cruft out of the Hitchens section. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a shame that you guys have managed to totally wreck this article in the name of 'pruning'. It had lots of interesting material before, which was useful in determining what kind of political figure Mr. Cockburn was. It's perfectly fine to use primary sources to verify personal views. In this case, it's even more ridiculous to remove CounterPunch references on 'reliability' grounds, considering that the man himself literally founded the magazine. smdh 81.191.204.248 (talk) 16:46, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JoJo Anthrax and ScottishFinnishRadish: I am wondering if you might have some feedback regarding WP:SPS/WP:ABOUTSELF and how it applies to this article since Cockburn's own writings (rather than secondary sources) are used to back-up what he apparently believed. For example, the section titled "Opposition to conspiracy theories" has four Cockburn/CounterPunch articles strung together to make the point that he was not a conspiracist. (The editor(s) who strung this together did not add material that he was a firm believer in the CIA drug trafficking allegations.) The "Social topics" section is built similarly. -Location (talk) 19:59, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Location, what is left is the result of a huge amount of pruning. It was much worse before, and as I noted above I'd have been fine with removing all of it, but there should be something about his views. I'm not terribly fond of using articles written on a topic as ABOUTSELF, since writers can and do explore different points of view in their work. It also puts too much interpretation in the hands of the editor, as they're deciding what's worthy of inclusion and what's not. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:24, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As I wrote above, I intentionally left some of Cockburn's publications as primary sources because if they were all removed, little sourced material would remain. I know that is sub-optimal, but because I thought the content was non-controversial, having something in the article was better than nothing. Perhaps I was wrong about that. As SFR wrote above, the article was significantly worse prior to the pruning of March 2022. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 02:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback. I've quickly harvested various secondary sources (with difference biases, levels of reliability, and levels of coverage) for future reference:

The fractured brilliance of Alexander Cockburn - Reuters

The Rise and Fall of a Radical Journalist - The New Republic

ALEXANDER COCKBURN, 1941–2012 - New Left Review

Alexander Cockburn, 1941-2012 - The Village Voice

Alexander Cockburn's climate change adventure - Salon

Interview: Alexander Cockburn. Judging the Jury - disClosure

“Oliver Stone’s Paranoid Propaganda” - USN&WR/Frontline

Alexander Cockburn Fearlessly Decries Al Gore's Ties to Big Nuke - Reason

Anti-Israel conspiracy author accuses opponent of 'Bigfoot erotica' - The Jerusalem Post

Eco-Hustle! Global Warming, Greenwashing, and Sustainability by Bruce E. Johansen

-Location (talk) 01:01, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ye the article is not to long by a long shot. And for whatever reason it doesn't make clear that

Cockburn was very much a man of the Left -- pretty far left I would say. He was a radical leftist, a lot more sympathetic to Lenin than most anybody, disdained liberals and "pwogwessives" as poodles for capitalism, considered Hitch a wannabe establishment poodle, and so forth. I don't think this comes across very strongly at all... yes there's scattered stuff about that, but there's also scattered stuff that makes him look right wing, like the gun stuff and the Afghans. He's a contrarian. Afghan society is pretty bad, and full of, and/or run by, extremely misogynist illiterate fascistic drug addicted religious nuts and always has been. People of the left are supposed to (and do) ignore that and be like "Oh they are darker-skinned and indigenous so they must be oppressed by the West and thus must be good guys", but Cockburn having none of following that crowd and will say so. He's coming from a leftist anti-tyranny place unlike conservatives who are coming from an exceptionalist imperialistic ignorant racist place. Very very different but same end and the casual reader is not going to to see that.

I'm just saying. There are plenty of secondary sources, obits etc. that make this clear. I am too ~~busy at the moment~~ lazy to put them in myself tho. Herostratus (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]