Talk:Bill O'Reilly sexual harassment lawsuit

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BLP concerns[edit]

I have concerns about the Drudge report piece and the business about debt being appropriate for a BLP. It seems very much like the "speculative, I heard it somewhere gossip" that the policy refers to. If there are no objections, I'd advocate removing it expeditiously. Croctotheface 20:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Done. --However whatever 22:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm concerned about the part in the allegation section which follows the citation that quotes Bill O'Reily "and that any woman who crossed him or Fox would be destroyed." seems like that should be cited also. And if it isn't it shows bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.231.89.225 (talk) 05:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's all from the lawsuit she filed. Croctotheface (talk) 05:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was uncited and did not use exact words from the lawsuit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.231.89.225 (talk) 06:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First off, please don't put spaces before your comments; it makes them appear in this quasi-unreadable box. Instead, indent them with colons as I've been doing. I don't see a problem with the fact that the words aren't quoted exactly; paraphrasing is certainly allowed and it did not purport to be a direct quote. I don't see any evidence that the quote is misleading or the like. As far as uncited, it is attributed within the text, as the sentence begins with "the complaint detailed." It's not hard for anyone looking to track down the source to do so. Naturally, if you feel that another wording (direct quote, etc.) is better, then you should edit the article. Croctotheface (talk) 07:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, googled Andrea Mackris after seeing story referenced and this article came up. Whats here really sucks the sources dont appear credible, all im seeing is the complaint. Add some more stuff or delete it, but my real motive is just to say you suck and i done that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.43.16.108 (talk) 10:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article move[edit]

90% of this article is written about an event (i.e., a particular lawsuit, its causes, its ramifications, and its players). It is thus improperly named and framed as a BLP. One short paragraph in the lead tries to frame it as a BLP, but on observation of the article, it clearly isn't. Every single third party reliable source is on the event; the one that looks like it is actually on her in fact explains itself "Executive summary: Allegedly harassed by Bill O'Reilly." This is an insane textbook example of WP:BLP1E, but should not be deleted, it should be renamed, because it's about an event!

Peace and Passion   ("I'm listening....") 19:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WOW! I just read the AfD for this article and there was clearly a consensus that this failed BLP1E and should be either moved or merged..... Never happened?
Peace and Passion   ("I'm listening....") 19:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
PS As 6/7 people on the AfD specifically supported a rename, I'm doing it now. If there's a question about moving back, please open a discussion here (as sentiment was previously a clearly established in AfD).
There, I've slightly re-framed the page (keeping all the exact same information intact, but moving 2 paragraphs, splitting one, and moving wikilinks so they appear at first instance in the page), and have moved it.

User:Croctotheface — I'm fine with your changes, but now we've got some triple redirects. I'm not experienced with dealing with such monsters; is there some way to get a bot to fix them or something, so we don't have to go and fix 'em one by one?

Peace and Passion   ("I'm listening....") 01:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that bots automatically check for and fix such things. You could ask at Village Pump or WP:Redirect or someplace they might know for sure. Croctotheface (talk) 05:01, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree with the framing of the last sections you just made. The issue seems to be that the lead has been turned around in kind of a weird post hoc framing; ordering the lead in the opposite order of objective "temporality" seems to imply that we're trying to put some less than "objective" spin on the course of events. And the naming of the one section as her "biography" is a bit misleading; it is just meant to provide a brief synopsis of her background in order to facilitate an understanding of her in the context of the event / article, whereas it is not meant to be a "biography" as such, her name alone (indicating she was a "player," for lack of a better term, in the event) provides simple framing that the section is on her. What'd you think?

Peace and Passion   ("I'm listening....") 05:41, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS Part of the issue is that this article is about two suits. While its title now only encompasses one (as well as the lead), the writing of the article predominantly covers the other. This is why I had "extortion and sexual harassment lawsuit" in the initial framing—perhaps I should've said " . . . lawsuits", and it would've been clearer. Do you see what I mean? The framing of this article is becoming skewed to the "after the fact" sexual harassment suit which was just 50% of the issue (i.e., the one clearly precipitated the other), and the article needs to be balanced between the two.
PPS I also believe that neither of their names should appear as the first term in the article. The date as the first thing seems to be much more encyclopedic for an event.

The extortion lawsuit is not particularly relevant to the issue here; it arguably does not belong in the lead of the article at all. That suit had no merit and was probably designed specifically to "get ahead of the story" and frame the public reaction to Mackris's lawsuit, which apparently had merit based on the available evidence and the fact that O'Reilly never denied the charges and settled for millions of dollars. What's relevant here is Mackris's suit, and it's standard to lead with what's important and relevant rather than what happened first chronologically. Croctotheface (talk) 06:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. If all that about the suit having "no merit," etc. is true, it should be reliably "sourcable" and belongs in the article. The whole story is relevant here. If the one side was unfounded and just a tactical move, that should be included; we shouldn't just cover one side of the story because the other side "had no merit." Regardless, it was a part of the whole event.
Peace and Passion   ("I'm listening....") 01:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We should certainly cover it, and it is very prominently mentioned in the article. As far as the relative merit of the lawsuits, we might be able to find someone who said that in a reliable source, but it's easier to just look at the relative weight the extortion lawsuit received in sources. The harassment suit was covered extensively, and the extortion suit is barely an afterthought. Croctotheface (talk) 02:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why does this entry exist?[edit]

Is it really necessary to have an entry on someone that consists of nothing more than their involvement with someone else? There is absolutely no information about this woman other than her lawsuit against Bill O'Reilly. What is this purpose of her having her own entry here? 72.85.173.37 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC).[reply]

This article is on the event you refer to, which is highly notable. For more information on inclusion criteria for articles, see our guideine on notability, WP:N. Also, just to be clear, the title of this article is Bill O'Reilly sexual harassment lawsuit; it's not an article about an individual. If you believe that the article is currently talking too much about the person and not enough about the lawsuit, you're free to edit the article to reflect that if your changes improve the article. Croctotheface (talk) 05:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My version is clearly better[edit]

We can't have phrases like "Andrea Mackris' lawsuit who had suit him for sexual harassment" in Wikipedia. It's barely coherent. We can't mention O'Reilly's suit before Mackris's for at least two reasons. First, this article is about Mackris's suit (hence the article title); second, O'Reilly's suit did not receive significant attention from sources compared to hers. The section on the allegations should describe them and quote occasionally when it helps the description. It should not be a dumping ground for the most salacious bits. People who want more detail can read the complaint themselves. Croctotheface (talk) 17:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge[edit]

Since the result of the AfD was merge, I'll go ahead and post what I think should be posted in the article:

Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, sued Bill O'Reilly for sexual harassment on October 13, 2004, seeking $60 million in damages in response to a lawsuit O'Reilly filed previously that day charging Mackris of extortion, alleging that she had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. In her allegations against Bill O'Reilly, Mackris claimed two types of legally cognizable sexual harassment claims that are not based upon physical contact: quid pro quo and hostile work environment. She produced quotations from alleged phone conversations between herself and O’Reilly in which he suggested various sexual fantasies he had for her. On October 15, 2004, Fox sought judicial permission to fire Mackris, but Mackris was never fired. On October 19, 2004, Mackris filed an amended complaint seeking further damages for illegal retaliatory actions by O'Reilly, Fox News, and the News Corporation-owned newspaper, The New York Post. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement and dropped all charges against each other. According to several published reports, as part of the settlement, O'Reilly paid Mackris millions of dollars, but the terms of the agreement are confidential.[1]

I'll go ahead and leave this up and if there are no objections, I'll move this and ask for an admin to complete the AfD. Soxwon (talk) 17:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's been almost a week with no replies, I'll go ahead and merge. Soxwon (talk) 17:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Howard Kurtz (2004-10-29). "Bill O'Reilly, Producer Settle Harassment Suit". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-05-28.