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Updating the Lead to Reflect Media Characterizations of the Steele Dossier as ‘Discredited’

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I have carefully reviewed past discussions on this talk page regarding the framing of the Steele dossier in Wikipedia’s lead section. While I fully acknowledge that this topic has been debated extensively, Wikipedia’s editorial process is dynamic, not static. Discussions are not meant to cement articles in place indefinitely but to ensure that Wikipedia continues to reflect the most up-to-date and widely accepted understanding as documented in high-quality sources.

Given this, I believe the current framing of the Steele dossier does not fully align with how it is now described by leading mainstream media organizations. Reliable sources—including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, AP, BBC, and Newsweek—have, in their own editorial voice, consistently referred to the dossier as "discredited."

This is not a fringe or partisan characterization—it is an independent journalistic consensus that has emerged from years of investigative scrutiny, legal proceedings, and intelligence assessments. Currently, however, the article does not reflect this prevailing assessment in its lead section. Instead, it frequently frames the dossier’s credibility as a matter of political dispute, often in relation to Trump or Putin, rather than acknowledging the substantive and independent media reassessment that has taken place.

Some might argue that describing the dossier as "discredited" in the lead is too absolute or that some allegations remain unverified rather than disproven. However, this argument is based on a false equivalence. No one is claiming that every single line of the dossier has been disproven. Instead, what leading sources are saying is that, taken as a whole, the dossier does not meet the credibility threshold it was initially afforded. This is precisely why the media uses the term "discredited"—not to imply that every claim is false, but to signal that, on balance, the document has failed to hold up under scrutiny.

Wikipedia is not an investigative body that determines what is true or false—it summarizes how the most authoritative sources describe a topic. And in this case, there is no ambiguity in how major outlets now describe the dossier.

To ensure that Wikipedia accurately reflects this well-established editorial consensus, I propose the following measured and policy-compliant revision to the lead:

"Although some general allegations—such as Russia’s preference for Donald Trump—resembled later findings, in recent years, multiple reputable media outlets have referred to the dossier as ‘discredited,’ pointing to limited or unreliable corroboration of its more specific claims."

Supporting Sources

Each of the following sources explicitly describes the Steele dossier as "discredited", reinforcing the need for this update:

BostonUniver (talk) 16:12, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Until you have something new that overturns the existing consensus about not using that very vague, misleading, and easily misunderstood word with many meanings in the lead, I see no reason to make the suggested change. Please drop the stick. You keep coming back to this matter but remain unsatisfied.
There is no doubt that many sources, including RS, use that word, but they rarely explain what they mean or why they are using it. It is an obvious fact that they are repeating partisan characterizations used by Trump, who was criticized by a judge when he used that word.
Are you correct when you write "pointing to limited or unreliable corroboration of its more specific claims"? Possibly so, but it's your OR interpretation. We describe the corroboration status of many allegations, and it is clear there is often lack of agreement among RS, so we just write those contradictory interpretations and leave it up to readers to decide what they want to believe. You seem to want to nail down one side when it is not clear that only one side is correct, and then add a vague word that colors everything in a negative light.
It's unfortunate that many sources misunderstood the status of the dossier, in spite of Steele never making claims that it was perfect or vetted. On the contrary!!! Then those sources got disappointed and blamed the dossier for their misunderstanding. Time has shown that it is the initial misunderstandings by those sources that have been "discredited". Their mistake was to make those improper judgments and expectations. Don't blame the dossier by labeling it "discredited". The label is misplaced. Steele never claimed it was 100% accurate, and he quickly turned over his work to the FBI to get it vetted. The mainstream media fairly quickly lost interest in the dossier, but the unreliable sources in the right-wing media bubble are the side that keeps "the dossier" alive as a distraction. 95% of my Google Alerts that mention the dossier are such sources, ones we can't use here. We don't cater to them here, and using their misleading labels and attacks in wikivoice is not proper. Just drop it. BTW, congrats on the new username. What does it mean? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Valjean, I appreciate your continued commitment to ensuring that Wikipedia adheres to its policies, but there is a contradiction in your position that cannot be ignored. You have long maintained that Wikipedia does not make independent editorial judgments but instead follows what reliable sources say. Yet when those same sources—including The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal—consistently describe the Steele dossier as “discredited,” you argue that this framing should be excluded. If Wikipedia is meant to reflect how authoritative sources characterize a subject, then why is this particular descriptor being selectively disregarded? Either Wikipedia follows sources or it doesn’t. The moment we start picking and choosing which journalistic conclusions to acknowledge, we are no longer summarizing—we are curating a narrative.
I anticipate the response that excluding “discredited” is an act of neutrality rather than bias, that the media’s use of the term is vague or open to misinterpretation. But neutrality is not achieved by omission. Wikipedia routinely includes descriptors that require careful framing—“controversial,” “debunked,” “unverified”—none of which are removed simply because they could be misunderstood. The assumption that “discredited” is uniquely dangerous to include while other, equally complex terms remain suggests that the objection is not about accuracy but about controlling perception. If the concern is that some readers may misinterpret the word, then the solution is not to remove it but to provide proper context, as we do with any term that requires clarification.
There is another inconsistency here. You have previously argued that early media reporting misjudged the dossier, that unrealistic expectations were set, and that sources later adjusted their views in response to new information. But if early reporting required revision, why does the same logic not apply now? If we were obligated to reflect how the dossier was described in 2017, why is there resistance to reflecting how it is described in 2025? This is not a question of whether today’s media consensus is permanent but of whether Wikipedia accurately documents how sources currently portray the dossier. By selectively treating past assessments as worthy of inclusion while resisting the inclusion of more recent ones, the article is not reflecting sources—it is preserving a specific interpretation.
You have repeatedly invoked the concept of “consciousness of guilt” when discussing Trump’s reaction to the dossier. You have stated that excessive denial signals awareness of truth, that avoiding certain topics indicates an effort to obscure reality. Yet here we see an equally determined effort to avoid a descriptor that is dominant in reliable sources. If a public figure went to extraordinary lengths to prevent a specific word from being associated with them, would you not interpret that as revealing? If refusing to acknowledge something makes it more credible, then what does it say when Wikipedia is the only major platform systematically avoiding this word in the lead?
This is not about inserting an opinion into the article, nor is it about taking a definitive stance on the dossier’s credibility. It is about whether Wikipedia accurately reflects the way the subject is described today, just as it reflected how it was described in 2017. If a casual reader compared this article to how mainstream sources now describe the dossier, would they walk away with an accurate impression? If the answer is no, then the current framing is not neutral—it is incomplete. The true measure of neutrality is not how long an argument has been debated, nor how firmly one resists change, but whether Wikipedia continues to evolve alongside the sources it claims to summarize. Iispepsiokay (talk) 19:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a matter of general principle, I agree with much of what you say. It has always come down to how to mention it in the body, and previous discussions and RfCs found no consensus for adding it to the lead, and unless something new has come forward since then, we should not change the content. I'm open to a sentence or two somewhere just to scratch your itch. I think we could add mention near the quote from Judge Mehta or somewhere else in the "#Reactions to dossier section". Mehta's statement provides context and clearly frames it as a matter of "political statements intended to counter media accounts about the Russia investigation, rather than assertions of pure fact." A legal opinion is a strong view to document.
When you mention "adjusting views", we're talking about apples and oranges. You write: "You have previously argued that early media reporting misjudged the dossier, that unrealistic expectations were set, and that sources later adjusted their views in response to new information." Yes, that's true. When new information fills in the gaps or corrects misunderstandings, we do update the information. The word "discredited" does not do that. It is an original description, right from the beginning, that stays alive, totally independent of facts, along with many untrue statements made by Trump, no matter how many times they have been debunked. It's part of his Big Lie propaganda technique. Just keep repeating it and people eventually come to accept the untrue or misleading claim as true.
In this case, "discredited" does not reflect a real change, but an attempt to "damage the reputation" of the dossier and "drag it through the mud". With Trump, the word "hoax" is often used, even though there is no evidence of a hoax. The words "fake" or "discredited" are opinion, not, as Judge Mehta said "assertions of pure fact". So we're dealing with opinions, and we do mention them, but we don't use such labels as main descriptors as they "prime the pump" in a biased manner. If they were factual words backed by evidence, it would be a very different matter.
It is a fact that sources have lost confidence in the dossier as a source for more information because the original sources that Danchenko talked to could not be interviewed. When one hits a dead-end where one hoped for more, one loses confidence in that attempt. In that sense the source becomes discredited as a source for more information. The FBI ran into that wall (and then all attempts to verify the dossier were immediately stopped once the Mueller investigation started), but since they had their own sources that were telling them many of the same things as the dossier told them, they depended on their own sources and kept investigating. Their own sources, which they could verify, agreed with Steele's sources for some key allegations, and that gave them confidence in the dossier, but they still couldn't use it for more as it was a dead-end. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Valjean, you say that Wikipedia does not make editorial judgments, that it merely follows reliable sources—yet when The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal now consistently use the term “discredited,” you insist Wikipedia must override them. But the moment Wikipedia begins filtering out a descriptor universally applied by its most trusted sources, it stops summarizing and starts curating a narrative.
You claim that “discredited” is a political term that existed from the beginning, yet also argue that it gained traction only after years of repetition. Which is it? If it was always a political attack, why did mainstream news outlets avoid it initially? And if it only became widespread after years of legal scrutiny and intelligence assessments, then it is a product of evolving evidence, not propaganda. You cannot hold both positions at once.
You concede that confidence in the dossier declined—not because it was disproven, but because Steele’s sources could not be reinterviewed, and investigators determined it was not useful for further inquiry. But that is precisely what it means for something to be discredited. You have described the process while refusing to acknowledge the conclusion. Wikipedia is not here to argue whether sources are right or wrong—it is here to reflect what they say.
Your reliance on Judge Mehta’s ruling is equally misplaced. He commented on Trump’s use of “discredited,” not on how media outlets independently apply it today. If Trump had called the dossier “unverified,” would you now argue we must avoid that term too? This is an attempt to manufacture doubt where none exists. Reliable sources have settled on this descriptor, and Wikipedia does not reject terms simply because a politician once misused them.
You suggest adding a sentence in the body, but if “discredited” is valid enough for the body, why is it not valid enough for the lead?
I also need to address a problem with how you edited my post on February 19. Rather than replying after my paragraph, you inserted your own comments inside my text. That altered the flow and gave the misleading impression that I was citing “unreliable right-wing” sources - more specifically that
"the unreliable sources in the right-wing media bubble are the side that keeps "the dossier" alive as a distraction. 95% of my Google Alerts that mention the dossier are such sources, ones we can't use here. We don't cater to them here, and using their misleading labels and attacks in wikivoice is not proper. Just drop it."
In fact, I had specifically mentioned mainstream outlets such as The New York Times and CNN.While indenting or block quoting is normal for readability, the effect in this instance changed my intended meaning. The result was a truncated or spliced post that unfairly implied I used non-reputable sources.
I ask you to correct this edit and to in future please respond below or clearly separate your remarks from mine so there is no confusion about what I actually wrote.
Thank you for understanding. If you want to challenge any sources I cited, you are welcome to reply to them individually—but kindly do so in a new paragraph rather than embedded within my own text.Iispepsiokay (talk) 21:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note about the above comment dated 21:10, 19 February.
After Iispepsiokay included personal attacks and speculations about my motives above, I requested they remove them before I responded here. They did modify the comment and removed some of the aspersions, while also adding more comments about my placement of my response that unintentionally disturbed their comment. That is now fixed. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although Iispepsiokay is now site blocked, I'll reply here to make sure there are no misunderstandings by any other editors in the future who happen to come across this.
I'm sorry I disturbed your comment. That was unintentional as I just saw that list (which you placed in its own following section, and we don't normally reply to a list of sources) as a repetition of your previous postings of the same list, and did not see it as a part of the discussion which was in the now-previous section. I replied there, right after your discussion comment. I didn't want to split the discussion over several sections with a section of sources in between. I will go back and fix that now, but to make sure the section heading for the list doesn't split the discussion, I'll try to reformat it without a section heading. I hope I get this right. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:57, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now done. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:00, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah most sources agree it is discredited and it should be described as basically political propaganda that no sane person takes seriously. PackMecEng (talk) 22:19, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moving forward

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Even though Iispepsiokay (formerly User:BostonUniver) is now site blocked for "battleground, for bludgeoning discussions, and for personal attacks. Stop personalizing discussions", I do not intend to forget the matter in the previous section as it really bothers them and will just arise again. Such matters need to be put to rest by actually resolving the matter. In the past, I have often made improvements based on User:BostonUniver's suggestions, something they, in their frustration, seem to forget. I will now try to figure out a way to include this opinion in a manner that is not misleading or appears as an opinion label that would just function as a badge of shame for the entire dossier.

Unlike the various "veracity" descriptions, which are falsifiable claims not based on vague opinions, but based on evidence or lack of evidence, "discredited" is an opinion that should be treated carefully and not elevated above facts. We are always supposed to make a clear difference between facts and opinions.

Verification of a claim is more than just a verification of the existence in a RS of the claim. It is based on evidence or lack of evidence.

Verification of an opinion, such as descriptions of the dossier as "discredited", "fake", "hoax", etc., is just a matter of verifying the existence of such descriptions mentioned in RS and when RS quote from unreliable sources.

Adding anything more about this should be done in the body, not the lead. The body mentions "discredited", and also U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta's mention of "discredited" and how Trump used it. That might be a good place, but there are also mentions of various other descriptions of the dossier elsewhere in this article. Maybe they should be collected into one place in a subsection of the "Reactions..." section. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:05, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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