Talk:Gatekeeping (communication)

The list of people and organizations regarded as "gatekeepers" is arbitrary, unsourced, inherently speculative, and most likely just the opinion of whoever started this article. With an article like this, every leftist in the world will have their name dropped into that list as a potential "gatekeeper". Who is making these allegations? I've added the pov tag. 207.6.31.119 11:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, only a small percentage of U.S. leftists exercise editorial censorship power over the U.S. Establishment Foundation-funded or CPB-funded left alternative media institutions. So the notion that "every leftist in the world will have their name dropped into" a list of gatekeepers is ridiculous. Only a relatively few prominent U.S. left professional journalists/writers exercise a special editorial gatekeeping influence over foundation-subsidized or CPB-funded media groups like Democracy Now,Pacifica Radio, Political Research Associates/Public Eye, The Nation, The Progressive, FAIR/CounterSpin, etc.--bf [Feb. 17, 2006]

The list comes strictly from the websites that are appended to the article as external links. I compiled the list. I used only those individuals and organizations that were most frequently mentioned across the sites -- in other words, I looked for consensus among those who use the term. Note that I also used the word "purported" to qualify the list, to indicate that these individuals and organizations are not being listed as gatekeepers per se, but rather as individuals and organizations that are frequently referred to as gatekeepers. I hope that this satisfies your concerns. --HK 15:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Partially, but due to the fact that the term is used by conspiracy theorists, I still think the list will be trouble in the future...unless it's watched carefully. I'll remove the pov tag for now, though. 207.6.31.119 19:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Establishment-funded editorial gatekeepers who chose to censor anti-war voices during the Korean War were also criticized during the 1952 U.S. presidential campaign by Progressive Party activists who felt they were the victims of an actual Establishment media conspiracy to censor or marginalize their left anti-war dissident voices. On June 14, 1952, for instance, the Progressive Party issued the following press release related to Establisment-funded editorial gatekeeper censorship:

"Charging a `conspiracy to deny time' to the Progressive Party, C.B. Baldwin, National Secretary of the party, announced that an official complaint had been filed before the Federal Communications Commission against four major radio-TV networks

"Mr. Baldwin also announced that the Progressive Party had demanded prosecution by Attorney General James P. McGranery of the same networks for a `clear case of their violation of the federal election laws,' in contracting for commercial sponsorship for convention and post-convention political campaign coverage.

"The charge is made against the American Broadcasting Company which has a contract with Admiral Radio Corporation, the Columbia Broadcasting System, whose coverage will be sponsored by the Westinghouse Company, the Mutual Broadcasting Company and the National Broadcasting Company whose political coverage will be subsidized by the Philco Corporation.

"`Consistent requests for time on radio and TV since January have been turned down by the networks,' Mr. Baldwin said, `while the same networks have been lavish in placing many hours of time at the disposal of the two major parties. The Progressive Party has been granted 15 minutes of studio time for its Chicago convention of July 4, 5, and 6, Mr. Baldwin stated, `while up to 96 solid hours of coverage has been granted each of the two major parties, paid for by corporations."

Similarly, since 9/11/01, it's been obvious to most U.S. anti-war left activists that the Establishment foundation-funded, CPB-funded or Working Assets Inc.-funded alternative media group gatekeepers have been granting only token access to alternative media editorial pages or radio airwaves for 9/11/01 conspiracy researchers; and have often engaged in Establishment foundation-subsidized conspiracy theorist-baiting of 9/11/01 researchers and left critics of the alternative media gatekeepers' foundation funders. In the 21st-century, conspiracy theorist-baiting has become more common, unfortunately, than redbaiting within U.S. foundation-sponsored left gatekeeper circles.--bf [Feb. 17, 2006]

On similarly controversial lists we've added designations for each entry to indicate which apply the label to them. That might be suitable for this list too. -Will Beback 21:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is oilempire.us, run by Mark Rabinowitz, considered to be a reliable source? It appears to be a one-man operation with fringe concepts. -Will Beback 21:47, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After consulting at the editors at Talk:Hubbert peak theory, I don't think we can call oilempire.us a reliable source. Since we don't know which people are sourced from that website, I'm going to remove the listings. Le'ts rebuild them with indvidually listed sources. -Will Beback 22:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I actually *do* think we can call oilempire a reliable source on this issue. Regardless of what ideas you have about whether he is fringe or whatever, he has been involved with the issue of gatekeeping for years and is a unique source for primary research on this issue. 198.207.168.65 02:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying it is not a reliable source because it is a one-person website holding fringe views. According to Wikipedia:reliable sources, we should avoid using such sources. If Rabinowtiz's ideas are well-regarded then we should be able to find them reprinted in more reputable sources. -Will Beback 02:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure adding the list back in is appropriate even if citations can be provided as to who made the allegations. Are there other lists on WP composed entirely of people alleged to be something? Alleged Kennedy assassins or co-conspirators, alleged reptilian humanoids, alleged closeted homosexuals? The only thing comparable that I'm aware of (but there could well be others) is the list of Neocons, which at least contains a number of people who are self-described as such. Even still that's been up for deletion [1]. Wouldn't a list of gatekeepers have to have at least one person who admitted to being one, or who was convicted of being one in some way? Schizombie 03:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The list of alleged gatekeepers got added back in without much explanation, and the List of people described as neoconservatives got deleted.Schizombie 16:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the list again. We shouldn't use anything sourced from oilempire. -Will Beback 17:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are creating a Catch-22. This is an article that explains the use of a political term, yet anyone who uses the term is automatically a "conspiracy theorist" and therefore cannot be a source for the article. It looks to me like you are more interested in protecting Chip Berlet from criticism than you are in providing information to Wikipedia readers. --NathanDW 20:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I never made any reference to conspiracy theories. Please re-read what I actually wrote. -Will Beback 22:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a shortened list, drawn solely from LeftGateKeepers.com. Now, Will, I would appreciate it if you would direct your concern about sourcing to the "criticism" section, which at present is simply the selected opinions of Wikipedia editors. --HK 23:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that. For some reason only a few of the names on the chart were added. I've tried to add the rest. -Will Beback 00:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was going with my original intention, which was to focus on those alleged gatekeepers that are mentioned in all the various accounts. --HK 01:01, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cberlet's comment

Cberlet, you have added a comment which you represent as the views of "critics." I'm sure that such critics exist, but please identify them with a source citation in the article. --HK 07:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We now have a rebuttal to Cberlet's comment, which is also not sourced. Sources are needed for the entire "critics" section. Cberlet, if you are simply expressing your own opinion here, you should at least put it on your website so you can quote yourself. --HK 16:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hasn't the convicted crook and lunatic conspiracy theorist LaRouche had something to say about this?--Cberlet 01:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Political term, or 9/11 Truth Movement/conspiracy theory term?

I've tried going through the hits on google for "left gatekeeper" (10,000 hits, but mostly mirrors/cut&paste) and "search inside this book" on Amazon (just one hit, citing one of the websites). Everything seems to indicate that gatekeeper is not a political science term, but is limited to the 9/11 Truth Movement and 9/11 conspiracy theories. If it is in broader use, that needs to be detailed in the article, if not, the fact that it is limited to [9/11 Truth Movement]] and 9/11 conspiracy theories should be noted in the lead if not also in the title of the article. Why the accusation of gatekeeper seems to be directed exclusively at the left and not the center or right, I'm not sure. The audience of so-called gatekeepers is quite sympathetic to LIHOP and MIHOP I think. And I still don't think a list of people alleged to be something that is alleged to exist meets WP criteria...? All the criticisms of the (now deleted) list of alleged neocons apply.Schizombie 01:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My impression has been that the treatment of aspects of 9/11 by left media has exposed the gatekeeping, in part because of the strong fear of going against the patriotism at the time, but that the term applies to other related topics in a similar manner: assassinations, vote fraud (early on this was 'conspiracy'), whether the third parties should be allowed to run presidential candidates, whether Bush-era oddities like the Nick Berg video were actually real (he's a human that doesn't pump blood when his head is cut off), etc. But this is only anecdotal. My point is that I don't think left gatekeeping is limited to 9/11 (and logically would apply to the right as well). The Democrats, for example, were terrified of being publicly called 'conspriacy theorists' if they simply asked for a paper receipt for the voting machines after HAVA was enacted and they were wiped out in the 2002 elections (the same election where 3 Republicans each got 18181 votes in a single county in Texas - an extremely unique palindrome suggestive of a hackers calling card). The left media seemed to have the same fears and took a long time to question the voting machines and give a voice to the people putting out the warnings, like Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, who were seen as 'hysterical.' Etc.

Unfortunately I have a job and can't be on here constantly to put together the sources. But my thoughts are that it's not just 9/11, and probably not just the left. Bov 23:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, Democracy Now, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and several of the other alleged gatekeepers did give fairly regular attention to vote fraud and third party candidates (as did more widely available media like Countdown with Keith Olbermann and the satiric The Daily Show, as I recall), and other things that sound conspiratorial like Bush's back bulge which made the cover of Extra!. Schizombie 00:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vote fraud, for example, was treated like a conspiracy theory by venues like Counterpunch, and grouped with the '9/11 conspiracy nuts,' as shown here, and many left publications, like Mother Jones, openly called for third parties not to run candidates. The Progressive and the Nation magazines both supported the pro-war Democratic nominee for President in 2004. Here's an excerpt summarizing the situation at that time:

"Democrats and their leftist lackeys have tried to bully and silence Nader supporters. Nader himself was almost violently attacked when he appeared on the new Democrat-controlled "liberal" radio network Air America. And Democratic-allied leftist magazines such as Mother Jones and The Nation have called on Nader to stay out of the 2004 race, mocking the longtime consumer activist and his followers."[2] 24.4.180.197 01:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of term?

The oldest usage on Usenet of "left gatekeepers" I was able to find was February 18, 2003. There's only seventy-nine uses of the term there total, and I'm not sure how many of those are cross-postings. As I noted above, there was only one use of the term in a book - one published in 2005. There's 10,000 hits on google, but I don't know how to determine how many of them are mirrors, or how to find the oldest online usage of the term. Internet Archive dates one site only back to April 13, 2003 [3]. It seems to me to be a neologism. Perhaps there are older uses of the term "gatekeepers" in the same sense, but it would be harder to find them since there are so many other uses for the word.

It would not surprise me if criticism of the concept will be hard to find, given that so few people use the term. People who would criticize it may not have heard of it, or may not consider it worthwhile bothering. Schizombie 04:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The concept of a Left Gatekeeper is really a segment of the larger concept of "Media Gatekeeping," (a google of Media Gatekeeper" returns 2,480,000 hits, or 726 in quotes) which is a massive and growing area because of the internet, small press vs corporate press, blogs overtaking mainstream media, etc. So there are a lot of older uses of the word gatekeepers which are the same concept: limiting or filtering what the public gets exposed to. This is just about the particular variety of gatekeeping that goes on in left media. There is already criticism of it on this page, so it won't be hard to find. I expect that area will grow on here shortly. Bov 06:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Maybe the article should be renamed Media gatekeeper or Media gatekeeping (more descriptive than "Gatekeeper (politics)", I think), with Left gatekeepers as a subsection? Schizombie 07:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although I don't know what organizations the right-wing might would see as Right Gatekeeping. Maybe someone would fill it in. However, the concept of Media Gatekeeping is a large one, so although I think this topic is better placed within that, as a stand-alone article, at this stage, it's probably fine, at least until someone has the time to research Media Gatekeeping, which I don't.Bov 07:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem that, more or less by definition, the Right is less of a threat to the established order, so the Establishment would have less of a need to spend those big bucks in order to co-opt it. --HK 23:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a concept of "gatekeeping" in media studies, but this page is a collection of allegations sourced to conspiracy theorists and fanatics. A serious page on media gatekeeping would not mention a single source on this page, for fear of being seen as ridiculous.--Cberlet 05:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]