Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pepe Escobar

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 no consensus. This AfD has been bludgeoned to death by walls of text by the nominator, who has since been blocked for this kind of conduct. A renomination without their participation might help result in a clearer consensus. Sandstein 21:45, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Pepe Escobar

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Pepe Escobar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Hi,

From WP:JOURNALIST:

Authors, editors, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, artists, architects, and other creative professionals:

1. The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors; or

2. The person is known for originating a significant new concept, theory, or technique; or

3. The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of an independent and notable work (for example, a book, film, or television series, but usually not a single episode of a television series) or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews; or

4. The person's work (or works) has: (a) become a significant monument, (b) been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) won significant critical attention, or (d) been represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums.

So, clearly, the only chance an editor would have in establishing Pepe Escobar as a notable "journalist" is via avenue 1, which would presumably entail the collection a range of reliable sources, from over his 3-decade-long career, featuring "peers" or "successors" (i.e., other journalists) widely citing him, indicating he is "regarded as an important figure". I would write that as "an authority" or "acknowledged expert" or something, but, at any rate...

HouseOfChange argues that:

== Notability, per NJOURNALIST 1: "widely cited by peers" ==

Pepe Escobar's peers would be other journalists who take an interest in world affairs. Based on multiple citations from multiple journalists over multiple years, he meets WP:NJOURNALIST #1, widely cited by peers.

• 2012 The Atlantic
• 2013 Mercury News
• 2015 The Week
• 2016 Oliver Stone in Interview magazine
• 2019 Jacobin and Secret Notes from Iran
• 2021 Times of Malta

The article needs more third-party sourcing and better content, but Escobar is clearly a notable journalist. Of course, it is always a problem to Google material ABOUT journalists because there is typically so much more material written by said journalists. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

References

The second reference to him in the 2012 The Atlantic piece is more than trivial. He is quoted, somewhat derisively:

"In Thailand's Asia Times, Pepe Escobar gives a somewhat poetically ominous depiction of what goes on at AIPAC. "The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) get-together in Washington takes place in an intimidating, cavernous Colosseum where the wealthy crowd ululates in unison for Iranian blood." Ululates, eh? Escobar laments the state of U.S. foreign policy saying "the graphic proof that Israel exercises virtual complete control of US foreign policy was the sight of an American president defensively addressing the AIPAC Colosseum." - Hudson, John (March 5, 2012). "World Reacts to Obama's Security Pledge to Israel". The Atlantic.

Other than that, Refs 1, 7 and 9 simply mention his name in a list of others, the very definition of a "trivial" mention (WP:TRIVIALMENTION).

Then he has a couple of single sentence quotes in minor publications (2013 in Sane Jose's The Mercury News, again, mostly for comic effect, amidst half a dozen quotes from more serious "analysts"; and 2015 in something called The Week, same sorta thing, comical quote, amidst the input of others.

Ref 5 is an atrocious source (Oliver Stone name checks Escobar - along with fellow RT/Sputnik/Press TV/ traveler Robert Parry - in a publication called Interview Magazine).

Which leaves us with Ref 6, his 2019 quotation in JacobinMag, which is nowhere close to being a RS, and proves it in this very instance by not directly quoting Escobar himself, but simply hyperlinking to the article where he made the statement: Globalresearch.ca a haven of crackpots and conspiracy theorists that Wikipedia has long blacklisted, so technically this source shouldn't be allowed on those grounds alone.

So, has HouseOfChange proven that Pepe Escobar is "regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors" in the field of, I don't know what, international journalism and/or as a geopolitical analyst? I would maintain he hasn't. He's been at this game for three decades now, and he's yet to have a single byline (article published) in a mainstream reliable source. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• Weak keep Escobar is just barely notable enough that we do our readers a service by having a short encyclopedia article about him. I believe that he meets the low bar of "widely cited by peers," with said peers being other journalists. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:46, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: And this exemplifies what I see as a fundamental problem with how the culture of "inclusionism" and off the charts recentism. I could cite WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NOTDATABASE and WP:BLP policies every day until the cows come home, but obviously the policies aren't being adhered to, as there are an seemingly infinite number of these type of BLPs on Wikipedia the fail the very basic requirements of notability.

As, the fundamental objection I have to this page and many pages like it, is just calling yourself something ("journalist", "analyst", etc doesn't make you one). In what sense is here an actual journalist? The definition is pretty simple: "a person who writes for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or prepares news to be broadcast" but in the age of blogs, self-published presses, and websites and TV stations of extremely dubious credibility and reliability (for e.g. Press TV, Al Jazeera, Sputnik, Middle East Eye, Middle East Monitor, FOXNEWS, Salon, Slate, the Daily Beast, I could go on forever) then literally anyone can start calling themselves a "journalist" in a matter of months, they wouldn't even have to leave the house. They'd just have to choose the team, and spin their narrative from their laptop.

So even if Wikipedia was a database (which it is not per WP:NOTDATABASE), the only way he would be included in any database of journalists would be as an example of one of the many of these fringe figures who've managed to eek out a career working almost exclusively for dubiously-funder outlets who adhere to very low levels of editorial standards. He, in particular, among this rather large and ever-growing crowd of online-only "journalists", would be a fact-checker's nightmare: a single piece of his may contain half a dozen fails (references to long debunked theories, 9/11 denial, various ongoing popular conspiracy theories, with AIPAC and Mossad and the CIA all secretly orchestrating everything that happens - most of this isn't even marked for the read as "opinion" or "commentary" btw).

EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 03:07, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

He is certainly no fan of AIPAC, but he can separate fact from opinion well enough that scholarly sources cite his articles e.g. (looking at Google Scholar only for English publications 2020 and later) American Journal of Public Health 2021(footnote 31 goes to a 2020 article by PE), University of Leicester Ph.D. thesis 2020 (footnote 2 on p. 10 to a 2017 article), Journal of Security and Strategic Analyses 2021 (footnote 11 to a 2018 article). HouseOfChange (talk) 04:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

You couldn't have illustrated my point more perfectly. I immediately clicked on the University of Leicester source, on account of the fact that once upon a time I nearly did an MA there. But, you linked me to 'a student's thesis'..... you seem to not yet quite understand what a reliable source is, but, in case you didn't realize, a student's thesis, is not. Anyway, more importantly, in that thesis, the student cites an article Escobar wrote for Russia Insider. The fact that he's happy to write for an outlet that constantly promotes Holocaust Denial should immediately disqualify him from any possibility that he be considered a serious journalist (if you don't believe me, have a quick read of their website, where you'll see among of their seven sub-sections you can visit are "revisionist history", "WWII revisionism" and "the Jewish Question"... click on the latter[1] and prepare yourself).

Now, your second source is - aside from being written in atrocious English - is again from an unknown author publishing in a journal that is put out by an unknown Pakistani think-tank in Islamabad (the journal didn't even appear in most websites that are dedicated to collecting ranking data from academic publications). If you click on the link to the think-tank itself [2], it's dead. The page for the journal seems to be up at least,[3] nevermind it having the appearance of something was was coded in the mid-90s. If you go to Google Scholar and search for it's articles, none of them have even a single citation.[4] I was finally able to find it recognized somewhere, hoping to see a hilariously low Impact factor, but, of course, it's not even significant enough to warrant some poor employee being told to calculate it's insignificance.[5] If you type the name of the Journal into Google News[6] it gets 0 results. But on top of all this, the article of Escobar's that the author cites, was published in Consortium News. You can go to WP:RSP where it's coded red and says: " There is consensus that Consortium News is generally unreliable. Certain articles (particularly those by Robert Parry) may be considered self-published, as it is unclear if any independent editorial review occurred. The outlet is known to lean towards uncritically repeating claims that are fringe, demonstrably false, or have been described by mainstream outlets as "conspiracy theories." Or visit Ad Fontes Media's entry on it, which ranks it as extremely unreliable.[7]

And, then you put forward an article from, of all places.... The American Journal of Public Health? When we say peers, we mean, fellow professionals, other journalists, you get that right? And that, Medical Doctors, even ones that write in academic journals, aren't journalists? Did you check the citation? He isn't quoted from, or even named. So aside from being another great example of WP:TRIVIALMENTION, the author is disagreeing him, in a rather cheekily mocking tone I might add. She writes: "Nevertheless, one point is clear: those seeking an understanding of China’s current response to COVID-19 need not turn to ancient Confucian culture to explain everything from universal mask wearing to compliance with draconian restrictions on personal freedoms." And his article in the Asia Times is listed in the footnotes. Why is she mocking him, what did he write? "Confucius is winning the Covid-19 war"[8] He presents us with this gem: (beware folks, bit of a rant ahead...)

"I offer, as a working hypothesis, that the Asia triad of Confucius, Buddha and Lao Tzu has been absolutely essential in shaping the perception and serene response of hundreds of millions of people across various Asian nations to Covid-19."

And then proceeds to spend the entire rest of the article, expositing the basic precepts of Taoism/Daoism! This is at once hilarious in its open display of ignorance, but also a grossly offensive thing to say, as someone who has spent much of his adult life in Hong Kong, as a journalist (well, he says he is anyway), and in writing this literally in The Asia Times! In short, Daoism and Confucianism are something like equivalently as incompatible as Socialism and Feudalism. Daoism is all about "going with the flow" to put it into English vernacular, accept what you can't change, and don't struggle against the natural world. I mean, he actually mentions "Wu-Wei" ("action through inaction", or "effortless action", impossible to translate)! If you took a Daoist approach to the Pandemic, you wouldn't do anything! Such viruses are a natural part of the world, you have no control over that. Laozi (aka Lao Tzu) said "the best leader is one you never notice", who walks behind (i'm getting rusty, it's been over 15 years since I studied this and University, and a couple more since I lived in China). Laozi wasn't writing to politicians or about politics, it's a classic example of wisdom literature, and in content is much more akin to ancient Greek Epicureans and Stoics. Which is why is such a hilarious thing to say. Imagine someone someone - not Italian - having the nerve to write that he Italian response to Covid was shaped by its trinitarian heritage of Catholicism, Caesar, and Dante." LOL. Completely meaningless. The original point, from whom he was quoting, was that of a Korean who said Confucianism is the overriding value in East Asian societies, even in supposedly "Communist" China. And this is true. It's general knowledge in fact. So in talking to a Western audience, he was saying that in the Far East the is more respect for authority, tradition, elders, law etc, than there is in the United States. Pepe Escobar read this, ran with it, added in Buddhism, because, well, it's "cool"? We don't know he doesn't explain why Buddhism is part of the "triad". But decided that he's run with Daoism, and completely contradict the point Mr. Han was trying to make. Laozi and Conzi (Confucius) are so diametrically opposed in philosophical terms, that it's the most popular "religious tradition" amongst anarchists. So, needless to say, a Medical Journal is not a reliable source for.... whatever it was you were trying to do with it. And Pepe Escobar is clearly not a reliable source for almost anything. I wouldn't trust a restaurant recommendation from him at this point. But I want to thank you for this HouseOfChange, I had no idea he was as entertaining as all this, this makes makes me wanna order all his books and read them at night in bed and laugh myself to sleep.

So, anyway, in short, you've offered us:

1. A footnote from an article in a medical journal discussing responses to Covid around the world, which mentions only to mock what he says. And, incidentally, what he was saying was wrong anyway. I shouldn't have to even mention WP:TRIVIALMENTION, it's all irrelevant anyway.

2. An article from an unknown author published in an unknown Pakistani journal (and I mean,literally unknown, it doesn't have an Impact Factor of 0 or 0.1, it literally doesn't have an Impact Factor; it may as well not exist as far as Wikipedia is concerned) where the author cites an article written by Escobar for already Wikipedia-blacklisted, Consortium News. Did not the horrendous English of the article - not to mention the design of the website - not give you pause for thought?

3. And yet another trivial mention, in a student's thesis, which, and I feel sorry for this student, cites an article Escobar published in a far-right Kremlin-funded anti-semitic Holocaust denying website very popular with white supremacists and neo-Nazis.[9]

I do worry, if you are as to wrote to me the other day, a quiet little WikiGnome who goes about trying to improve people's BLPs and such, for your capacity to determine reliable sources from unreliable ones. I honestly, really encourage you to take another good, close read of WP:RS and WP:BIO. Cheers, EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 08:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• Delete. Confusingly for an AfD, the nominator does not actually put forward a deletion rationale; the person who created the AfD is not suggesting that this be deleted nor be turned into a redirect but instead that the article be kept. Such an nomination should ordinarily be speedily kept, but somebody responded with a deletion rationale before anybody got around to making this a speedy keep, so I might as well make an argument since we're past the point of a procedural keep.

  The nominator puts forward an argument about being cited by peers. I personally don't buy arguments that, for purposes of notability, widely cited by peers means that eight sources report that you reported on something and trivially mention your name. The provided references additionally don't actually cite him for facts in any meaningful way. Rather, they trivially mention that he was among a group of people or they mention a very short blurb of his—that simply isn't the threshold of widely cited; being widely cited means being cited in a wide range of sources, not being infrequently cited in newsletters or only very occasionally being referenced in academic literature. (Academics aren't peers of journalists either, for that matter).

  EnlightenmentNow1792 argued above that the individual doesn't pass WP:NJOURNALIST (a particular SNG), but this isn't a valid deletion rationale on its own. The subject of the article would also need to fail WP:NBASIC for the article to fail WP:N. I am unable to find WP:SIGCOV of this individual, so I think that the article fails WP:BASIC as well. For the reasons I state below, I believe that the coverage coverage in each of the eight sources that mentions him by name fails to contribute towards passing WP:NBASIC:

  1. The first source mentions his name as a part of a list and provides no coverage of him whatsoever besides that his name doesn't sound like that of a Muslim extremist.
  2. The second source briefly quotes his reaction to a particular foreign policy decision by Barrack Obama. The coverage is not in-depth, nor is it actually from The Atlantic (it's content from The Wire).
  3. The third source quotes a sentence of his but doesn't actually provide any significant coverage of Escobar as a person. The source also refers to him as a Brazilian analyst, which isn't the same thing as a journalist that some of the people supporting the article being kept are saying.
  4. The fourth source says that Escobar wrote something about Medvedev, but the coverage of Escobar as a person is not significant there.
  5. I have no clue if the fifth source is even reliable for the words of who it interviewed, but a random shoutout that consists solely of Escobar's name isn't WP:SIGCOV regardless.
  6. The sixth source coverage of Escobar consists of a two sentence quote of Escobar's with extremely limited commentary. It's also very clearly an opinion piece, which isn't necessarily a reliable source.
  7. The seventh source does very little except mention Escobar's name. It doesn't even really cite him for anything; he's just put on a list along with TeleSur and "Global Research Foundation" among others.
  8. The eighth source is an opinion piece whose only reference to Escobar is that he once appeared as a guest of a Michael Brooks production.

Simply being name-checked by a bunch of sources doesn't make a person notable under WP:NBASIC. The specific references above also don't show that Escobar is widely cited as a journalist, which is what WP:NJOURNALIST would require. Getting one's opinion pieces quoted is few publications is simply not evidence of widespread citation, nor is being cited in three academic journals. If there are multiple in-depth articles about Escobar he'd pass WP:BASIC. If his work were widely cited, it would be easy to show. Unfortunately for those who want to keep the article, it doesn't appear that anybody can actually show that this individual meets any relevant notability guideline. As a result, his article seems fit for deletion. — Mhawk10 (talk) 06:57, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Yeah sorry, I messed up the AfD process, my first one, I had to get someone us to fix it for me.[10] - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 08:34, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

(Also replying to Mhawk10) Thanks for the effort you put into your collegial reply. I agree that PE fails to meet NBASIC. I thought that being multiply "name-checked" and occasionally quoted added up to being "widely cited." Just to clarify, I do not like Escobar's politics, but feel that should have no bearing on if he is notable or not. I suppose I was being stubborn about this because I did the work to see if he was Notable or not and thought I had discovered that he was--also probably also because EnlightenmentNow1792 seemed to me to be motivated by his own political POV. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:54, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@HouseOfChange: Did you really just say that? What has anything I've written implied that I was coming at this from a political angle? Seriously, please, I'd love to know. What do you think my "political POV" is? I'm genuinely curious, I won't be upset I promise. I just can't see you being able to deduce that from what I've written here. I'll give you massive props if you do get it, honestly. My own siblings don't even know that, and we talk about political issues often. It's just that they never ask too many probing questions like that, because they know I'll have them bored to tears and still be trying to explain myself 20mins later EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment This is the messiest AFD I've ever seen. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:13, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

@Liz: You are! EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

@Liz: It is a strange discussion. The article has been around since 2008 and articles about PE are in several other wikis. The mentions, cites, and name-checks I uncovered may or may not add up to bare NJOURNALIST. PE's pro-Russia, anti-US POV isn't relevant to AfD. Nor is the guilt-by-association argument that neo-Nazis and anti-Semites hang out in his fringe spaces. Nor is the STRAWMAN argument that cites and quotes I offered to support NJOURNALIST would not suffice if I had instead been trying to show NBASIC. I will be glad when this closes, one way or the other. HouseOfChange (talk) 13:59, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Extended content

He's published for an explicitly far right, antisemitic, holocaust-denying website ("Russia Insider"). That's not "guilt-by-association". I can see why you'll be glad this closes, indeed. Maybe next time you'll think twice before you double-down on a "keep" for a BLP fringe personality. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 02:13, 13 February 2022 (UTC) @EnlightenmentNow1792: On the contrary, citing a connection to Russia Insider to criticize PE is a classic "guilt by association" argument, as is the red herring following from it, that Pepe Escobar is a bad person and therefore I should not express my opinion that he is Wikipedia-notable. Wikipedia is not censored, and especially it is not censored by deleting information about notable topics. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC) @HouseOfChange: - Why have you still not learned that you must read the sources you bring forward? The only reliable sources you've brought forward so far, that specifically discuss him as a peer, just as WP:JOURNALIST demands, have done so in a disparaging manner. And the only one that does so at any length at all, you've not just ignored and not bothered to even read it, but you actually doubted that it at face value, it, and not the sundry White Supremacist ones Pepe usually writes for. The RS reads in part: "In the Grayzone-affiliated podcast and video series designed to discredit secular opposition to Assad sarcastically called “Moderate Rebels”, they invited Pepe Escobar to discuss his theories about how the US is using the coronavirus as a weapon against China. Pepe Escobar has over 300 articles as a contributor to the fascist website Russia Insider. He writes about hanging out with Aleksandr Dugin... as well as writing for the Russian state affiliated Duginist outlet Katehon. On another podcast, Pepe spoke with the Veterans Today–affiliated Holocaust denialist Kevin Barrett and Anthony Hall stating Pepe was one of their main reasons for going to the New Horizon conference. When Gareth Porter of Grayzone later stated regret about having attended the New Horizon conference, he insisted Pepe... [was] also surprised and dismayed by the antisemitism and other conspiracy theories. Yet, his defense of Pepe and his regret comes off as disingenuous because Pepe is, as we’ve seen, something of a pillar in these networks. He must not have regretted it much though, because he went back again in 2019. That's not guilt by association, that's association, pure and simple. How many fascist, holocaust-denying individuals (three mentioned there, I know of many more), outlets (two mentioned there, I know at least two more he still writes for) and conferences must someone posing as a serious "journalist" and "analyst" attend before the "they're just all a series of coincidences" no longer seems credible to you? Does not the fact that he echoes pretty much 90% of their talking-points give you a slight hint? Evidently not. - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 15:29, 19 February 2022 (UTC) I did read their piece, I also read US State Department document it's based on, which may be excluded by WP:BLPPRIMARY. We need extra-good RS to put "contentious material about living persons" into Wikipedia. PE's alleged bad character is, however, irrelevant to the question of whether or not his pre-Trump journalism career was "notable." HouseOfChange (talk) 15:49, 19 February 2022 (UTC) HouseOfChange, if I may be so bold, can I ask you a couple of questions? You said on my Talk page (your titled your entry "Caution regarding your edits" or something) that I am "not improving Wikipedia", and that you on the other hand, are a harmless "boring wikignome with a boring interest in biographies and NPOV". I don't consider either of those two things boring, for what it's worth. Then you again posted a big scary sticker on my Talk page, saying my edit summaries weren't civil and I was not AGF. I totally disagree with the civility, but yes I do admit I was wrong to not AGF. However, I must say, you started that message on my Talk Page with the words: "You seem to be a new editor, at least with this account..." Should I take that as a accusation or just a suspicion of sockpuppetry? Do you still think I am or might be a sockpuppet? And, finally, considering all the time and energy you put into trying to keep this article (that I don't understand at all - why? I love interesting people with interesting lives and interesting things to say? Why would you spent so much time on this? That's why I initially didn't AGF) and considering the fact that you repeatedly kept coming back with the same low-quality, sources, from the strangest of places... do you think someone should maybe go through some of your edits to check just in chase you've made similar mistakes elsewhere? I mean, if I had just added a source that revealed that someone wrote for a website crawling with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and either (a) didn't bother to read the read it; or (b) didn't notice by looking at the site? I'd wanna take a good hard look at myself, and my whole process. Anyways, no hard feelings, - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2022 (UTC) I explained my reasoning above. I have no desire to chat, justify myself to you, etc. HouseOfChange (talk) 23:47, 7 February 2022 (UTC) Then perhaps you'll be so kind as to stop bombing my Talk page with warnings/threats/accusations. Thanks. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 02:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. It’s not a great article, he’s not a great writer and this is not a great discussion; but fifteen seconds on Google is enough to demonstrate to any fair-minded observer that he is significant enough to warrant a (better) article. Nwhyte (talk) 00:57, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Nwhyte Fortunately, "fifteen seconds on Google" is not how Wikipedia determines notability. Read: WP:JOURNALIST. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 02:24, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 04:10, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• Weak delete: I do weight the mentions in academic journals strongly in determining whether Pepe meets WP:NJOURNALIST#1, but three mentions are not quite sufficient. There seems to be one independent review of his book "Empire of Chaos", not in a great source. The couldn't find independent reviews for his other books, so he does not meet WP:NAUTHOR#3. I think it's a shame there isn't more coverage of journalists in general.. Femke (talk) 14:47, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Femkemilene: (1) There actually aren't three mentions of his journalism in "academic journals", there are precisely zero. Unless you count a student thesis, a footnote in a medical journal, or a citation in an unrated, unrecognized, self-published "think-tank"; (2) Again "Foreign Policy Journal" might sound rather grand and be possessed of a fortuitous domain name, but it's just a website, essentially a blog, full of fringe conspiracy theories[11] [12] and theorists [13]. It is not an academic journal, it is not a reliable source of any kind (crackpots galore), and, moreover, it ceased to exist in 2020. Needless to say, the author of that "independent review", one "Jim Miles", is not an author/journalist/academic of any repute, but is instead a Canadian school teacher who has an unhealthy hobby of writing on "alternative" websites about the usual "Alex Jones-esque" conspiracy theories. (3) "I think it's a shame there isn't more coverage of journalists in general" - that's where you're mistaken, in this case. Escobar isn't a "journalist" anymore than Vanessa Beeley or Eva Bartlett are. The only reason why the latter two bloggers are explicitly defined in Wikipedia's editorial voice as "activists" and "conspiracy theorists" is because they became notable enough to reach a broad online audience in light of their activism and conspiracy theory propagation in favor of Assad in those few years when the US public still cared about the Syrian Civil War. Escobar espouses an essentially identical worldview, and would be commensurably pilloried if only he managed to make himself as "notable" - i.e. notorious - as they did. My point being, merely calling yourself an "independent journalist" does not mean that you are, in fact, a journalist. Let alone one deserving of an entry in an encyclopedia article. Unfortunately Wikipedia is rife with such vanity BLPs because if you "spend 15 seconds on Google" their name pops up everywhere - and they exist and grow simply because there is no one around to enforce policy. Meanwhile, serious, respected, award-winning journalists with decades-long careers filled with thousands of bylines in the most prestigious of publications, don't even feature at all on Wikipedia. Whereas the likes of Jon Gaunt, who, if we're being honest, doesn't actually qualify as a journalist himself, has a lengthy semi-protected article. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I'd like to echo the advice of fellow editors: you're more likely to convince people when you use fewer words. You're using a lot of words for something that could be said in few words. Femke (talk) 16:58, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Seems non-notable, but the explanations above just seem too long to bother with. Oaktree b (talk) 20:34, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Oaktree b: I would've thought that being an editor of an encyclopedia would more or less necessitate occasionally spending 10 mins or so actually, ye know, reading.. kind of an occupational hazard I would of thought? Yet I'm repeatedly dumbstruck at just how averse so many editors - especially the most bullish ones - are to reading any more than a few sentences at at time, or engaging in any more "research" than 10-60secs of Googling. Doesn't seem to stop them from reverting or commenting though of course. So, thanks for your comment. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

It's almost 12 pages of text above. Post the TL:DR version then. Still not seeing notability. Oaktree b (talk) 01:37, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

TLDR summary @Oaktree b:@Femkemilene:@Mhawk10: Does Pepe Escobar meet the very low bar of NCREATIVE #1 "widely cited by peers"? (Not one person asserts that he meets GNG, and most of the text above denounces various bits of evidence for NCREATIVE #1 as insufficient to show GNG.) Here are a few examples of people well-qualified to judge who "cite" Escobar as a journalist/writer:

• Article implicitly criticizing and quoting PE at length in The New Republic: "One of the main ways in which RT manages to persuade legitimate experts and journalists to appear as guests is by providing extensive airtime for issues that generally fail to register on other, larger news outlets...Pepe Escobar, a left-wing writer for Asia Times and frequent guest on RT, was happy to pile on..."
• Journalist F. William Engdahl in "Putin’s Geopolitical Chess Game with Washington in Syria and Eurasia" (2012): "Veteran roving journalist Pepe Escobar recently summed up the situation in all its grim reality..."
• Santiago Zabala responding in 2015 to question "What is the most important advice you could give to young scholars of International Relations?): "To follow philosophers such as Judith Butler, journalists such as Pepe Escobar...must provide the big picture. These radical intellectuals might be able to help. They certainly help me."
• Centre for analysyis of the radical right: Way lotta text denouncing Pepe Escobar and his journalism history in-depth even, though I doubt this is a reliable source that counts toward GNG.

We show NCREATIVE #1 by showing the opinion of people able to judge whether or not PE is a widely-read journalist/writer. Bare mentions of his name in a list of others actually establish exactly that the writer expects readers to know the name of PE. Just one factual correction to the text above: Citing three results in English from 2020 or later taken from more than 1,000 results for "Pepe Escobar" in Google Scholar is not equivalent to saying that Google Scholar has only 3 results showing the opinion of people qualified to judge that Pepe Escobar is a notable journalist/writer. HouseOfChange (talk) 17:16, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Just to reiterate—being cited in <10 pieces is not being widely cited for a journalist. The bar for being widely cited is high, not absurdly low. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:35, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I mean, I can't believe he's had another go, and make exactly the same mistakes again. I'll be as brief as possible:

(1) Jesse Zwick (yes, that Jesse Zwick, I believe) isn't "citing" Escobar in his 2020 piece for TNR as a "peer", he's lumping him in with all the other crackpot conspiracy peddling LaRouche movement far-right and antisemitic "journalists" for RT, Sputnik, and the like. Zwick mentions Lawrence Freeman, a self-described "Political-Economic Analyst" whose "stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton." That alone makes his moral character lightyears ahead of the warmongering, hate-filled Escobar. Zwick quotes Escobar because presumably he gave him the best one, he, again, unconsciously, makes himself look a fool for saying he was worried about moving to RT but the money's great and their videos get so many hits on YouTube!

(2) You second source is F. William Engdahl. You didn't bother to read his Wiki? He's even less of a journalist that Escobar. Again, doesn't have a single byline to a reputable publication to his name. His a life-long member of the far-right LaRouche movement, writes for self-consciously bogus websites (beforeitsnews), is openly antisemitic and espouses his Holocaust Denial and Jewish/Rothschild New World Order crankery on Russia Insider (just like our Pepe), the openly antisemitic and Iran-run Veterans Today (which also publishes Fake News constantly) conspiracy outlets like GlobalResearch.ca, InfoWars, all Rockefellers and Soros anti-vaxx, and 9/11 was an inside job, 5G, I need not go on. Oh, except he's also a fan of Dugin's neo-Fascist "Eurasianism" too, which nicely rounds out the picture.

(3) Your third source is a self-published website (not RS) of a lecturer in International Relations at a 3rd-rate provincial British university, who actually is interviewing someone who is notable enough (or at least notorious/criticized enough) to warrant a BLP himself. He is a philosopher, who, well, writes a lot and seems to have made quite a good career for himself (despite never having expressed a single original thought in his life, and is possessed of such intellectually juvenism that he can write things like this, a direct quote, a closing sentence, and think they're profound (nevermind utterly nonsensical): "But we believe philosophy may provide us with an escape-hatch from the gulag of neoliberalism and other totalitarian regimes, leading us into a future committed to freedom, democracy, and the celebration of differences." Anyway, Zabala is not a journalist or "political analyst", as Escobar claims to be, and the philosopher merely makes a trivial mention of Escobar, as one of his sources for political insight. Which explains why he thinks his ideology of "Hermeneutic Communism" could work in the real world. Oh, and he's a self-described Catholic religious atheist too.

(4) Ironically, quite sadly really, your fourth source that you dismissed out of hand, is the only one that would qualify as an RS. It is staffed by legitimate experts, university professors, with decades worth of published research in peer-reviewed academic journals, and is partnered with genuine NGOs, with Nobel Laureates, de-radicalization charities, and like-minded non-profits like the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies. But what's more, that very article you post but didn't bother to read, was spot on. Perfect. You really, really need to read it. It mentions both Escobar and F. William Engdahl among many others who have unwittingly - through either ego or simple naivete - become willing and enthusiastic (and well paid, I might add) disseminators of far right extremist tropes and anti-scientific, anti-democratic disinfo, all through a well-supported network of Puninist and Khomeinist outlets. The article lists literally all the ones I mentioned here and more. Even LaRouche and Russia Insider.

I am genuinely worried about your competence now. You little just wrote "Journalist F. William Engdahl wrote in Putin’s Geopolitical Chess Game with Washington in Syria and Eurasia(2012): "Veteran roving journalist Pepe Escobar recently summed up the situation in all its grim reality..." followed by your glib dismissal of the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right as though I doubt this is a reliable source...

Maybe it's just the topic area, I don't know, but you still seem utterly incapable of distinguishing not just reliable sources from unreliable ones, but even from really, really bad ones. Like, literally, actual Nazi bad... repeatedly... - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 08:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment article should be updated/corrected to reflect the new information, may support keeping it, seems notable. Oaktree b (talk) 17:57, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I hope you're kidding. In which case, nice one. If you being serious? Why even bother to come on comment on such things you have no interest in learning about and can't be bothered spending 15mins reading to get a basic understanding of? We're supposed to be building an encyclopedia here, right? EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 08:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Comment I give up, I think it's worth keeping and OP still refuses. Can we close this out as a matter of procedure at this point? Oaktree b (talk) 15:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

• Strong keep It's very clear to me that a notable journalist who does not toe the Western narrative and does not belong to what is considered mainstream media is trying to be removed/silenced or deleted from Wikipedia. I have to note, this is really appalling, the pro-delete camp ignores the significant google search results that do indeed show notability, but the fact that a non-Western-narrative journalist is not warning us or screaming about an "imminent" Russian invasion of Ukraine, is too inconvenient for them. George Al-Shami (talk) 06:02, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@George Al-Shami: - How can you be a "notable journalist" if you've never written for a notable publication, or been cited by one? Google results do not determine notability. Notability ≠ Notoriety. Serial killers get more google hits than academics. Read WP:JOURNALIST, the person has to be "regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors; or be known for originating a significant new concept, theory, or technique." If still to see a single "peer" cite him in a RS. Because "peers" in this case would be journalists. And he's never done any, ye know, journalism to speak of (breaking stories, insightful commentary, etc). That's why no serious outlet has ever published his work.

If only you could appreciate the irony of your personal attack on me. Would you be surprised to learn that I am not, in fact, Western, and that I am, as we speak, a legal resident of one of the two countries who pay their inflated salaries of the likes of Escobar, Bartlett, Blumenthal, Engdahl, Beeley and all the rest? I wonder if that's your real name - impossible, you've made a crucial mistake - but if it's indicative of where you're from, we might be a lot closer to each other than you would've thought! EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 08:27, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@EnlightenmentNow1792: your repeated claim that Escobar has never written for a notable publication, or been cited by one is mistaken. Notable publications that publish an Escobar page listing his articles there include Common Dreams[14], Mother Jones[15], and The Nation[16]. Aggregator RealClearPolitics also has many search results in its international section linking to articles by Escobar.[17] Surely the choice by all these outlets to publish multiple articles by Escobar should count as peer recognition suited to NJOURNALIST1. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:08, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Wow. You've confused things a little, but you're right, I didn't go beyond the thousands of articles that are still live, online, accessible that he's published 10 or 15 years ago to see his writing didn't used to be so outrageous. Nothing original or newsworthy, certainly never gonna win any awards (I never heard of him back them, and I'm pretty sure I've been at the same functions as him - in the same countries even - during the late 20EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2022 (UTC)00s and early teens) - but he can sure keep those old dozen or so articles right at the back of this Portfolio of tens of thousands of unhinged rants on extremist websites. They're not quite "notable" or "prestigious" in my opinion (hell, I was published in both MJ and the Nation in my early 20s, I'm embarrassed about it now, but do you think I deserve an article?), so I'd still say the same thing, use the same words, but I wasn't aware of it, good researching. (rearclearworld just re-prints his Asia Times articles by the way, as it does for all sorts of wing-nuts). Still no peer recognition though is there? Have you noticed MJ have actually taken down his text? Think you can guess why that might be? Any thoughts on the why the Arnaud de Borchgrave blog might be one of your worst efforts yet?

EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• Draftify - Whilst there does not seem to be a consensus forming around keeping or deleting this article (the issue appears to be notability) I think that there is at least some consensus that the page could be improved and a move to draft space would offer a compromise that would allow for the page to be improved without the time pressure of an active AfD. Those who argue for the page to be kept would then have the opportunity to work on and develop the page before it is approved to be moved to main space. Gusfriend (talk) 06:59, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

@Gusfriend: I'd be more than happy to write a neutral, objective BLP of Escobar in the manner of his fringe colleagues such as Vanessa Beeley and Co. It would of course have to be briefer because he hasn't quite attracted the level of notoriety they have, despite being around for a lot longer. Probably because he started out reasonably sane and never appeared on cable TV wild-eyed and frothing at the mouth. He actually comes across as quite likeable - if you don't listen to the substance of what he's actually alleging. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 15:45, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• Keep Per HouseOfChange. Seems to meet GNG, even if WP:JOURNALIST might not be met. The arguments by the nominator are unfortunately long-winded, confusing and include personal opinions about the article subject. However, as HouseOfChange said "PE's pro-Russia, anti-US POV isn't relevant to AfD." RoseCherry64 (talk) 13:23, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

@RoseCherry64: There's plenty of notable "pro-Russia, anti-US journalists". It's a good thing I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that Wikipedia policy be applied. Making hundreds of appearances in fringe, non-notable self-published websites/blogs - many of which are explicitly Far Right, White Nationalist, outright fascist, and some deny the Holocaust as an editorial policy, and he's written hundreds of articles for them! - is does not meet the requirements for notability as per WP:JOURNALIST, which require that he be "regarded as an important figure" or be "widely cited by peers". He ain't. The only time's he's ever mentioned is trivially, in passing, usually amongst a list of other crackpots, or as a figure of mockery. I can provide you with the sources if you want, but you seem to have made it clear that you are one of the many denizens of Wikipedia had has an aversion to reading. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 15:39, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

You don't understand my point. I don't think any opinions the subject holds or have expressed publicly has anything to do with arguments made on AfD, and bringing those up will turn people off immediately. There's over a hundred Holocaust deniers who have articles here. Fringe political ideas are widely covered on Wikipedia.

For the record, I looked up mentions of the author on JSTOR and Google Scholar, not fascist blogs. RoseCherry64 (talk) 15:53, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• Delete Passing mentions don't count towards notability, neither do articles written by the subject, even if a lot of them can be found. It doesn't seem like he easily meets any of the journalist specific criteria either. Deleting the page isn't like "silencing" him, it just makes sense. BuySomeApples (talk) 06:03, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Comment Move that we make a decision, one way or another, this has gotten silly. I voted to keep with new sources found and OP is still refusing to accept it. Oaktree b (talk) 15:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Request to closer Could the article be draftified as suggested by Gusfriend, so its history is not deleted? I don't think I've done a good job supporting my spidey-sense that Escobar was a notable journalist when he was running around Eurasia doing research on what he called "Pipelineistan" (his theory that the US-Russia-China struggle for control of oil/gas pipelines is the modern Great Game in Eurasia.)[18][19][20] But those references are hard to Google and I am still finding them. I don't want to create a sanitized biography, and I will also look for RS to describe his recent espousal of several conspiracy theories. HouseOfChange (talk) 17:51, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

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.