Talk:Emma Brockes

message: 1) The article claims that Brockes implies Chomsky denied the Srebrenica massacre. This is inaccurate. According to the text of the website of the interview as it appears on the website "www.chomsky.info", she does not claim he denied it altogether; merely that he said it was "probably overstated" and that he disagrees with the use of the term massacre, and that he highlighted his disagreement by putting the word "massacre" in quotation marks. Although Chomsky has correctly pointed out that he never put the term "massacre" in quotation marks, yet he has never denied having told Brockes that it was "probably overstated". Thus, it is untrue that Brockes implied Chomsky had denied the Srebrenica massacre; rather, the essence of their dispute was over whether and to what extent Chomsky had minimised the massacre. The Wikipedia entry should make this clear. 
2) The article claims that "Kamm and his associates have since proven unable to produce any evidence that Chomsky has ever denied the massacre or questioned the death toll at Srebrenica". This is simply untrue. In one interview to which Chomsky's critics have linked, he seems to imply that the death-toll at Srebrenica was "much lesser" than the Indonesian massacre of 5-6,000 East Timorese in 1999. See the following link:
http://www.hagglundsforlag.se/forfattaredok/Johnstone/ChomskyDararnas.htm
Chomsky's words are, arguably, open to different interpretations, but the article does not make this clear. Furthermore, the same link shows him praising Diana Johnstone's book 'Fool's Crusade', a book that comes as close as possible to denying the Srebrenica massacre without formally doing so. Again, there are different ways one can interpret Chomsky's words, but the Wikipedia article gives only the pro-Chomsky point of view. 
The Wikipedia article appears to be a polemic in defence of Chomsky and against Brockes, Kamm and Chomsky's other critics, rather than an attempt accurately to portray both sides of the dispute. This is an abuse of Wikipedia's purpose.
Update: Since I posted the above criticism, the article had been edited, though it is still a partisan piece.
1) It claims "Kamm and his associates have since proven unable to produce any evidence that Chomsky has ever denied the propriety of the term massacre or questioned the death toll at Srebrenica, while any mentions Chomsky has made of Srebrenica in his writing says he agrees that a massacre took place."
This represents the viewpoint of the pro-Chomsky party to the dispute; members of the pro-Brockes party feel that such evidence has indeed been provided. At issue is a difference in interpretation, and the author should present both sides of the argument.
2) The article portrays Chomsky's defence of Johnstone as solely concerning her right to free speech. Yet Chomsky praised her book as an 'outstanding work' based on 'fact and reason'. This does not necessarily mean that Chomsky himself questioned the Srebrenica massacre, but it does mean that he praised a book that does.
3) The article fails to mention that the external ombudsman John Willis, asked by Kamm, Aaronovitch and Wheen to adjudicate in the dispute, criticised the Guardian's Readers Editor Ian Mayes for responding to Chomsky's complaint by removing Brockes's interview from the website and for running a comment piece by Johnstone. Willis felt that Mayes had 'overcompensated' and that this was 'not completely fair to Emma Brockes'.
Update: Many efforts have been made to include all of the material above in the body text of the Wikipedia entry, with the goal of representing opposing sides of the controversy. If that goal is now met to the satisfaction of the dissenter(s) to the article, let this dispute section now be removed. If anything else need enter the article, let it be entered at this point so that the matter can be put to rest.
:I don't know if the edits referenced above are the cause, but this article, currently, is cack... "on the one side this, on the other side that" is not NPOV.
:  The facts (as far as I can see) are these:
:: a) Emma Brockes interviewed Noam Chomsky
:: b) This interview received numerous complaints regarding misrepresentation of Chomsky's views,
::    particularly with reference to the war on Bosnia.
:: c) The Guardian reader's editor decided that Chomsky had been misrepresented.
:: d) An appeal to an outside ombudsman decided that the readers editor's decision was correct, but 
::    he may have "over-compensated" by deleting the article etc etc.
:: If anyone has any evidence to counter the above schedule of events, then say so or forever hold 
:: your peace... otherwise, I propose changing the article along these lines.  Ms Brockes and her
:: supporters may wish otherwise, but independent arbiters have ruled, and encyclopedias are supposed
:: to report on "accepted fact", not form an ongoing battleground for competing viewpoints.
:: There's an argument that Ms Brockes isn't even worth an entry anyway, it's only the notoriety she
:: accrued following this that mitigates against such a view, hence the need for a section.
:: Grmdy (talk) 21:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV dispute - Chomsky controversy

message: True, Noam Chomsky has never denied Srebrenica massacre; the only thing he denied is Srebrenica genocide. Do you get the point? Of course you don't. There is a difference between the massacre and genocide. Go figure. Bosniak (talk) 07:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: You're All Missing a Point

message: I have drastically reworked this article, after concern was raised at the BLP noticeboard. The reasoning is as follows. 
* This is a biography of Brockes. She is a journalist and author. On that basis, she is notable for our purposes. In BLPs, we should must be careful to provide balance and not use them only to highlight specific controversial incidents. As it was, this article has minimal information about Brockes and lots of information about the Chomsky profile incident. This was clearly giving the incident undue weight, especially given Brockes is notable notwithstanding this incident and the incident quickly expanded beyond Brockes' profile and became a pissing contents between various intellectuals.
* Therefore I have pruned the detail of this incident, leaving a balanced summary, and tried to expand a little more about Brocke's career. Even now, I would argue in terms of content, this incident has still been given slightly undue weight, but it is difficult to summarize the incident (which clearly is notable) in any less words.
* If the incident itself is notable, then the pruned content can be moved to an article about the incident.
I'm happy to discuss this, in good faith, if there is disagreement. Rockpocket 05:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  BLP rework