Talk:Dorothy Kilgallen

Gossip columnist

Hello all- There is disagreement between two editors, one an anonymous IP editor, the other CityOfSilver, regarding whether the word "gossip" should be wikilinked to the Gossip column article. I'm creating this section so they can discuss the issue if they like.

My 2¢: Despite my tendency to de-link common terms (see WP:OVERLINK), I think there may be a good argument for linking this term in this article, as I would guess that the term is much less familiar to readers today, especially younger readers, than it was in Kilgallen's time. That said, in my quick glance at the gossip column article, I found it sorely wanting of at least some copyediting. Eric ^talk 12:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Eric that this could be a useful wikilink for some readers. "Gossip columnist" isn't linked anywhere in the article, but the article is in the American gossip columnists category. Schazjmd (talk) 14:18, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

CityOfSilver, could you explain why you still oppose linking gossip column? Schazjmd (talk) 22:13, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Funny, I was just finishing an episode of What's My Line when I saw Schazjmd's post. City, I second that emotion. While I'm disappointed in the IP's lack of constructive engagement despite my attempts to encourage it, and am a staunch de-linker, I do see an argument for linking this term. Eric ^talk 01:19, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I concur. She is identified as a gossip columnist and there is no reason it should not be linked. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:55, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

My most recent edit summary was for the anonymous user (who I sure as hell am not going to call "the IP" or anything like that because that's a human being and not an internet protocol), who I believe to this second has not read WP:OVERLINK. Incredibly, I now feel, with 100% sincerity and not one iota of snark, that there are longtime users here who themselves have also not read it, or at least haven't read it in a long time. Couldn't be me! In fact, I've read it repeatedly over the past few days, including another dozen effing times while I've been banging out the message you're reading! I've read it over and over and over and over because ever since that user decided to just not let go of one of the many, many nothingburger reverts I do whenever I'm going through the pending changes log, I've been genuinely bewildered that citing OVERLINK isn't enough to let my correction stand. I keep going back to comb through it again and again and again because I must be missing something that others are seeing, right?

It doesn't seem fair that after I've explained myself three different times, I'm still being asked why I keep undoing that edit. I could just cut and paste my edit summaries but I won't do that since I know I've already gotten too mean and shitty here. At OVERLINK, a section in the Manual of Style, there's a list of things that "are usually not linked" and the very first entry is "Everyday words understood by most readers in context." The troublesome part:

Kilgallen's columns featured mostly show-business news and gossip, but also ventured into other topics, such as politics and organized crime.

I keep removing the link because I believe that anyone who came to this article not fully knowing what a gossip column is would have gained that knowledge upon reading this sentence. OVERLINK says "in context," meaning that we don't need a link when the article itself is enough to educate readers on an unfamiliar concept.

@Eric, Schazjmd, and Ad Orientem: Let's say a younger person who isn't familiar with the concept of a gossip column reads that sentence. Do you really and truly think that this sentence's use of the word "gossip" and the words surrounding it still wouldn't be enough for such a reader to understand what a gossip column is? Because to my mind, the only person who wouldn't be able to learn from that sentence what a gossip column is would be one who literally does not know what the word "gossip" means and I just, I don't get it. I say that if a reader doesn't know what a gossip column is, they learn what it is by reading the quoted sentence. Am I wrong? I'm sorry if all of this is patronizing but I don't know how else I'm supposed to defend what I did here. CityOfSilver 04:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I am not suggesting you acted in anything other than good faith so please don't take this personally. This is just a run of the mill disagreement over a link. Nothing more. I tend to err on the side of assuming that at least some of our readers are in fact, not well informed about things in the world. If that were not the case, why even have an article about gossip columnists? Ad Orientem (talk) 04:52, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

To clarify my view: I would not link gossip to define that standalone word. But my guess, which I did not make clear above, is that the notion of a gossip column might have faded from modern awareness since Kilgallen's day. My subjective sense is that this term carries less of a potential negative connotation than the simple word gossip, and that the wikilink pointing to Gossip columnist might be useful as a sort of explanatory note. Or it might be preferable to introduce the term another way, e.g. (if this is accurate) Although Kilgallen first gained readership as a gossip columnist, writing stories about the personal lives of well-known people, she later ventured.... Note: I just now realized that the phrase being discussed is repeated verbatim in the body, so some kind of rewording might be in order. Eric ^talk 12:44, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I like that idea, although the timeline of it is wrong:

Although Kilgallen later became a gossip columnist and TV personality on the quiz show What's My Line, she had first gained acclaim as an investigative crime reporter and took up the mantle again in the wake of the Kennedy assassination.[1]

However, it's difficult to find any reliable source about Kilgallen that doesn't describe her as a "gossip columnist", so it's baffling to me that the phrase doesn't appear in the article [edited to add:] with a wikilink to Gossip columnist. Schazjmd (talk) 13:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Pending any consensus on how to incorporate it into the article body, I've added Gossip columnist to See also. Schazjmd (talk) 23:13, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Dorothy's own words

Today's additions of two Wikimedia Commons files give Dorothy Kilgallen a voice. Here is what she said reacting to the guilty verdict for Dr Sam Sheppard. These are her own words. She is well-known as a wordsmith. Editors here have dismissed one particular Kilgallen biographer as a conspiracy theorist and his books as fringe sources. They are right. Can Dorothy the wordsmith play a part in her own article? Other Wikipedia articles have digital scans from very old newspapers. The New York Journal-American article is one of them. Dorothy wrote for that newspaper. It's time for her article to include her own words.Waring Waning (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

We are not here to promote an individual or provide them a posthumous platform for their writings etc. The front page image is a good find and adds to the article. But this is not an archive for her work. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:29, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Does this publisher sell only fringe sources? It has a new Kilgallen product.

Is a book a fringe source if it is published by PageTurner Books International? Here is how this publisher’s website describes the company.

Here is the Google Books page for the Dorothy Kilgallen book issued by PageTurner Books International.Brent Brant (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The book makes assertions that are widely regarded as fringe. Unless it is reviewed by multiple sources that are recognized by the community as being reliable, that in turn attest to the book's reliability, I would strongly oppose accepting it as a source for anything in the article. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Those reviews will be important. No one knows whether it makes fringe assertions unless they have read it. It might not agree with all the assertions in Mark Shaw’s books.Brent Brant (talk) 08:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I read a synopsis of the book's claims and they are patently fringe. Unless multiple independent sources recognized by the community as reliable in their own right, (ex the NY Times, Washington Post etc.) endorse the work, I don't see any chance of it being accepted. The synopsis strikes me as straight up tin foil hat nuttery. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Personal Life and Mark Shaw book

There doesn't seem to be much on her personal life. It appears that the Mark Shaw book "The Reporter who knew too much" may cover this if somebody has access. For example the Johnnie Ray article includes:

According to lawyer and researcher Mark Shaw, Ray's relationship with Dorothy Kilgallen produced her youngest child Kerry Kollmar, whom her husband Richard Kollmar disowned after Kilgallen's death in 1965. In two books that Shaw has authored, he claims that Kilgallen remained faithful to her husband for 13 years, ignoring rumors of his extramarital affairs because she did not witness evidence of any of them during that time frame. After years of infidelity, Kollmar became careless, to the extent that in 1953 he brought a male lover into the third-floor master bedroom of his and Dorothy's new home, a five-story townhouse on Manhattan's East 68th Street. After Kilgallen caught the two men in a compromising position, she and Kollmar decided to stay married strictly for business. Their business included a talk radio show they broadcast from home every day that brought them large salaries and that promoted Broadway shows produced by Kollmar. "Dorothy and Dick", as their radio listeners knew them, discussed Ray's singing style on their program, according to a profile of Ray in the Saturday Evening Post edition dated July 26, 1952.

In 1954, Kilgallen gave birth to a baby boy who was photographed for magazines and newspapers with her holding him, never with a father. Decades later, Ray often mentioned Kilgallen to his manager Alan Eichler and remained devastated by her unexpected death in 1965. According to Eichler, Ray never spoke about or acknowledged the rumors that he fathered Kilgallen's third child. Throughout the 1980s when Eichler managed Ray, historians of popular music did not consider Ray important enough to research his private life, so Eichler was not familiar with the eyewitness accounts that Mark Shaw discovered years later, and Eichler did not ask Ray about possible fatherhood.

Some of this should probably be included here.

- SimonLyall (talk) 22:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Many previous discussions on this Talk page have established a WP:CONSENSUS that the Mark Shaw book is not a reliable source: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, although I might have missed some others. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 23:35, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Shaw's book has come up so many times here, might it be helpful (if allowed by PAG) to create a banner for this page along the lines of "Numerous discussions on this Talk page have established the consensus that "The Reporter Who Knew Too Much" by Mark Shaw is not a reliable source"? JoJo Anthrax (talk) 11:04, 17 January 2024 (UTC)