Africa Growth Pilot/Online self-paced course/Module 3/Rewrite into neutrality 3

Another example: "South Africa breathed a sigh of relief as President Jacob Zuma announced he will be stepping down. At the end of the day, his corruption brought about his downfall."

Not Wikipedia's Voice. Where and how and what might we do about it? Any ideas? What is wrong with this sentence, from a Wikipedia's Voice point of view? For one, how do we ascertain all of South Africa reacted in this manner? *Did* South Africa breathe a sigh of relief? Absolutely not. South Africa is a country. It's a political concept. It cannot breathe any kind of sigh. This is a metaphor. So first of all, let's not use metaphors. It's not encyclopedic. Now, we might say *the people* of South Africa, the citizens of South Africa, breathed a sigh of relief. And if we say that, we need to *prove* that. *Can* we prove that all the citizens of South Africa breathed a sigh of relief? Of course not. We cannot possibly prove that. So we shouldn't say that!

If we want to somehow describe how citizens of South Africa responded to the stepping down of Zuma, we have to look for *sources* on how people responded. Sources such as public opinion surveys or individual relevant opinions. For example, maybe the Archbishop said something, and we can quote what the Archbishop said about Zuma's stepping down. But we mustn't just make a blanket statement about the whole country, which we cannot ever factually establish.

What else is wrong with this example? The second sentence. What is wrong here? "At the end of the day, his corruption brought about his downfall." Can we prove this corruption? Should Wikipedia assert that Zuma was corrupt? It should not. Wikipedia can assert that the police *charged* him with corruption, if that's a fact. But Wikipedia shouldn't itself be the judge and juror and *determine* that Zuma was corrupt. We should *report* about facts. Is it a fact that he was corrupt? I don't know. But it is a fact that he was charged with corruption. It is a fact that there were public allegations of corruption. If he were *convicted*, we could have said "he was convicted for corruption in this or that scandal". But we must not just assert this person was corrupt.

We certainly shouldn't assert *both* that this person was corrupt *and* that that is the reason for his downfall. *Is* that the reason for his "downfall"? *Is* it a downfall? He's stepping down. "Downfall" is dramatic and emotive, and we shouldn't say that. So unless we have a really good source that proves both that he was corrupt *and* that that corruption brought about his *resignation* -- and we should call it resignation and not downfall -- unless we have a source for all of that, we shouldn't say that. Instead, we should stick to the facts, whatever they are. We could say "he announced he was stepping down; he did so in the midst of allegations about corruption", with citations, of course, about the allegations of corruption. And we can *quote* someone, such as a state prosecutor, who may indeed have said that "corruption brought about his downfall". If that's a quote, we can include that. We are applying all the principles we've gone through, rewriting them into neutral prose. Sentences that might read okay in the news, absolutely don't belong in the encyclopedia.

I see a question in the chat: "Is it okay to write 'South Africa's Jacob Zuma stepped down due to corruption charges', backed with citations?". It is okay *if* the citations *show* that he stepped down *due* to the corruption charges. That's actually hard to show! It's easy to show that there *are* corruption charges. That's a fact. And you have court documents or newspaper reports about the charges. That's easy. But is it the case that the charges *caused* the stepping down? That's actually asserting something about *what went on in Zuma's mind*! That's actually quite hard to establish! Please pay attention to this difference: If we want to state as a *fact*, with Wikipedia's Voice, that the corruption charges are the *cause* of the stepping down, I think the main source that could be cited for that is a statement by Jacob Zuma himself. If he were to say: "because of these corruption charges, I have decided to step down." Well, okay, then we have it. Then we could write: "According to Zuma, he stepped down because of corruption charges." Otherwise, we should be careful about asserting a cause and effect relationship when we cannot *show* it. And again, if we really think that's the case but cannot show it encyclopedically, we can cite someone who offers that analysis, and frame it as such. For example, a political commentator. "Political commentator X said that "the corruption charges are no doubt the reason Jacob Zuma was stepping down", with a citation. That we can say.