Slim decided that leading british paper is not a reliable source Options

Jenny Kleeman responds...

Thanks for getting in touch. I don't think my reputation as a journalist would be enhanced by participating in the WR thread, but I appreciate you drawing my attention to it. There seems to be a degree of hysteria on the thread and I have neither the time nor the inclination to answer the barrage of questions about my identity, my sources, my experience and my beliefs that will inevitably follow should I involve myself in it.

Anyone is free to complain to my editor at the Observer, should they feel moved to do so. My original article was far longer than the one published, and it was cut down by sub editors into a shorter piece. Several paragraphs were removed, and I fear to the detriment of some of the sense of the article, which included a lengthy interview with Professor Bob Kowalski, Professor Emeritus at Imperial College. This happens sometimes. Even still, I stand by what was said in the published piece.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact me.

Best wishes

Jenny Kleeman

OK, Carolyn Doran's former husband Sean H Doran who drowned on their honeymoon in 1999 served in the CIA in the mid-late 1990s, exactly the time that SlimVirgin was supposed to "hung around with the CIA crowd":

"served in the Air Force for 18 years, working in the field of weapons development and evaluation. In addition to stations in Florida, he served with the U.S. On-Site Inspection Team in Russia in support of the SALT agreements. He had served in the Washington area for the past five years and transferred to MIMA last year after being with the Central Intelligence Agency ."

Do we know the professions of Doran's former spouses Phillip Brown and ? Bothwell?

I really doubt thhat SlimVirgin is that influential in CIA circles. Wasn't she an agent that was accused of not being very good? And as her real-world identity has been uncovered, because she used her wiki name on her own university alumni page or whatever (doh!), I doubt such people will take her into their confidence or treat her as anything but a bit silly.

This thread is accusing the Guardian of being corrupt now!

"Wasn't she an agent that was accused of not being very good? "

The only source that she was an agent that wasn't any good were peoples opinions on this board, so I'd have to say non reliable sources. She worked with Christopher Elliott, now the managing editor of the Guardian on an article in 1994 in the Times on an insurance broker connected to the CIA Iran Contra scandal. We have reliable sources that says that SlimVirgin hung out with the CIA crowd in the 1990s so my question was, was Linda Mack then a contact used by journalists to get information on the CIA? Is that why she changed her name to Sarah McEwan?

I have neither the time nor the inclination to answer the barrage of questions about my identity,

Why should there be any questions about her identity, if she's really Jenny Kleeman?

I have neither the time nor the inclination to answer the barrage of questions about my identity,

Why should there be any questions about her identity, if she's really Jenny Kleeman?

I took it on faith, even though someone upstream wondered aloud if jennykleeman@gmail.com really belonged to the journalist by that name from the Observer.

someone upstream wondered aloud if jennykleeman@gmail.com really belonged to the journalist by that name from the Observer.

I did, because I've e-mailed several excellent scoops on Wikipedia to her and she's only ever once responded, to say she was busy on something else. It's hard to believe that a competent journalist interested in Wikipedia would have let herself be scooped so many times.

Perhaps she doesn't want to write stories that would bring Wikipedia into disrepute.

Perhaps she doesn't want to write stories that would bring Wikipedia into disrepute.

That's not true. She originally approached me to write an article about why I was blocked.

I'm a little confused. The complaints, upthread, are that she writes puff pieces for Wikipedia.

Has she ever actually written anything that casts Wikipedia in an unfavorable light?

This post has been edited by Moulton: Thu 20th December 2007, 4:47pm

I doubt that Ms. Kleeman is particularly biased in favor of Wikipedia, or against us... She seems like a reasonable person in general. Lots of people write what appear to be "puff pieces" on WP, based entirely on WMF press releases of course - that's nothing new. The timing of her initial contact with Poetlister and myself was a little, shall we say, discomfiting, but at this point I'd have to say it was just a coincidence.

Y'all have to remember that she's a freelance writer, not a line reporter, so she has to sell these stories to various publications in advance of actually writing them, for the most part. There's also the economics of it to consider - even if she's handed a potential scoop on a silver platter, most internal WP matters aren't likely to be so newsworthy that she could get a slam-dunk out of them. And if there's no slam-dunk, then any research and digging she does prior to shopping the article idea is unpaid time, if the article doesn't get picked up.

And her being a member here could be compromising to her - we should generally avoid accusing other members of being specific people regardless (unless it's Gary glaringly obvious), but IMO we should be especially careful when it comes to journalists, the non-blogger ones in particular.

Just my $0.02, folks... I'm not trying to threaten anybody here...!

I've closed my E-Mail dialogue with Jenny Kleeman. I've left the door open in case she decides to disclose or publish anything further that she wants to bring to the attention of the WR readership.

Carl Hewitt has posted his own independent account, but I don't see where he has left open a place on any of his blogs for further commentary or dialogue. In any event, I'm sure he appreciates that he is also more than welcome to add more here, if he should so choose.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Thu 20th December 2007, 5:29pm

Well, that was a whole lotta worthless. I've formed my opinion of Ms. Kleeman, and there it shall be until she shows some level of ability to critique the entity of Wikipedia. I'm sure she's really sweet.

Greg

Perhaps she doesn't want to write stories that would bring Wikipedia into disrepute.

That's not true. She originally approached me to write an article about why I was blocked.

But didn't. Listen, I get that that might not have been a big sales story, in common thinking. But in fact it would have been a big sales story, if she had wanted it to be.

She could have been Cade Metz, but instead, she's the Wikimeetup cheerleader who dissed a faithful professor on the word of a bunch of 16 year olds.

As for not being paid unless the story sells... well, uh uh. We all make our choices in life. If you need to cut those kinds of corners, then maybe its time to have a backup plan or write for a 2nd hobby job, until you can write with integrity.

Mebbe she'd be interested in writing a story about why a lot of people are similarly blocked, in a Kafkaesque charade that most of us can now recite by heart.

Think about it. Hewitt, Awbrey, Poetlister, and yours truly are all over-educated in applied mathematics, logic, systems theory, and the like. Why would a bunch of anonymous adolescents be intimidated by the likes of us?

This post has been edited by Moulton: Thu 20th December 2007, 6:15pm

I doubt that Ms. Kleeman is particularly biased in favor of Wikipedia, or against us...

Sorry Somey you are wrong on this, every article she has written has indeed been a puff piece for wikipedia, either describing the lives of your hard working wikipedia editors, or denouncing dastardly vandals. Has anyone found anything significant she has written that was not about wikipedia? Consider this hypothesis, Wales recruits a "trusted editor" to submit some articles on wikipedia to major UK newspapers. She then becomes "that journalist who knows about wikipedia". Thus, if anyone else tries to contact the mainstream press, they would probably contact her first, and then she would dismiss the story and it wouldn't get published. Obviously Seth Finkelstein has done his bit, but even his column isn't in the main part of the Guardian.

What galls me is how she took the words of the ban and arbcom and wrote them as if they were part of a normal judgement procedure.

I hope for her soul's sake that she is blissfully ignorant of how different the reality is, and how hard hard words were tossed about by teenagers and envious less accomplished academics against this man, who gave every evidence of congenial response (save for fighting for his edits, but hey, he's an academic, that's what they do for a living!!).

Yes, I hope she was led like a sheep author to the lame article slaughter. Because if she really thinks that those words were fair towards him, then she's a messed up person.

Look at my post above- is there any evidence she has ever written anything that wasn't about wikipedia?

In all fairness, I doubt Jenny Kleeman has a lot of depth in technical, mathematical subjects, and I doubt her readership has much interest in what Hewitt was fighting to include in Wikipedia.

Look at my post above- is there any evidence she has ever written anything that wasn't about wikipedia?

OK, scrap that hypothesis- she has worked for the BBC and Channel 4- there's a photo of her here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...2/ixportal.html

Archive of Ms Kleeman's Guardian articles here. I think the question we need to ask is what was her motivation in writing the articles on Wikipedia? Is she a Wikipedia editor or administrator herself? Did the Wikimedia foundation ask her to write articles, or did someone at the Guardian suggest it, perhaps because of her age?

Y'all have to remember that she's a freelance writer, not a line reporter, so she has to sell these stories to various publications in advance of actually writing them, for the most part. There's also the economics of it to consider - even if she's handed a potential scoop on a silver platter, most internal WP matters aren't likely to be so newsworthy that she could get a slam-dunk out of them. And if there's no slam-dunk, then any research and digging she does prior to shopping the article idea is unpaid time, if the article doesn't get picked up.

Well, some of what I forwarded to her did get picked up by other reporters - SlimVirgin, Durova.