Talk:Tipper Gore

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The PMRC section should be more accurate

As it is now, it looks like a whitewash of her role, and of the PMRC. The Wikipedia article on PMRC does better explain that a major goal of what they were trying to accomplish, was censorship of music with sexual, violent and "occult" themes. Not just "awareness", as is currently implied by this article. I'm not going to do this, but I hope someone will in the future, there is a lot of sources both inside and outside of Wikipedia that will help with that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.232.2.174 (talk) 16:39, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Back In Control

It is well known that Tipper Gore endorsed a right-wing organization that espoused anti-Semitism in the name of protecting children from obscenity. Why does it have nothing to do with her, and why is it only implying impropriety by association? If she does not agreee with the position espoused by the organization, she should have been more careful before endorsing it. Karlap (talk) 00:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC) Could someone use a more rcent picture?

The sole example of calling the Star of David "an occult symbol" does not at all constitute espousing antisemitism. I can find no further information about Back in Control beyond what is printed in your reference, and there is no evidence that this organization fosters antisemitism beyond this one example, which for all we know could have been a misprint on their part or a misunderstanding. Not withstanding the fact that this one paragraph in a single work gives undo weight to the implication that Tipper Gore is as well an antisemite, and undo weight to a Jewish publication's assertion of antisemitism based on a singular piece of evidence; the book is simply pointing out how damaging the headline's implication was but does not verify the headline in anyway. Without further evidence of a strong connection between Mrs. Gore and Back in Control, and further proof that this organization is in fact antisemitic, it is nothing more than speculative and indeed implies impropriety by association. DKqwerty (talk) 00:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

First of all, you're right; the organization is not Take Back Control, but Back In Control, or the Back In Control Center. I have provided an alternative reference clarifying Gore's position. This issue has been raised by many critics of Gore and the PMRC, including Jello Biafra and Frank Zappa. More than one customer review of her book on Amazon mentions it. Perhaps Back In Control warrents an article of its own, and this information would be more appropriate there.Karlap (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Source on music censorship

Tipper's six key demands:

1. Print lyrics on album covers.
2. Establish a "blandness index" and then ban any album that wasn't sufficiently blend.
3. Keep explicit covers under the counter.
4. Establish a ratings system for records similar to that for films.
5. Ban the use of the words "cock "boobs" and "pilchards and gristle" in lyrics.
6. Establish a ratings system for concerts, i.e. tightness of performers trousers, length of pubic wig, etc.
7. Reassess the contracts of performers who fail to engage in violence and explicit sexual behavior onstage.
8. Establish a citizen and record-company media watch that would pressure broadcasters not to air "questionable-talent."
9. Ask a special coalition made up from the Pope, The Dalai Llama and Simon Cowell to determine what was "questionable"

• [1]. Nemissimo (talk) 14:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

But they all sound reasonable to me....well...except banning the words “pilchards and gristle”...because that’s my favorite lyric. Oh...and that’s 9 demands...not 6. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.201.76 (talk) 10:51, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Name

Her name "Tipper" was actually coined by her friends at school, who thought she had a face that looked like the back of a Tipper truck. Dat is a troo story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.152.114 (talk) 16:46, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Photo

Can we get a more recent photo than 1999? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.92.4.85 (talk) 04:33, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Updating this article

Hi there. Over the past few months, I have been working on behalf of the Glover Park Group, friends of Tipper Gore, to prepare some proposed revisions for this article. While Gore is well-known for many political, creative and philanthropic activities over the last 30+ years, the article lacks many details beyond the 1980s and her work with the PMRC. To update this article, I drafted a more thorough and detailed account of her career using reputable, independent sources. I also improved minor issues in the article related to organization, irrelevant, unsourced, or outdated information, broken/dead links and copy edits.

While I haven't written a completely new draft, I have restructured the article to better reflect the typical structure of a biographical article, made substantial additions to many of the sections (while reducing duplicated material), and changed some of the existing wording, so I've uploaded the revised version of the article with my proposed changes to my userspace here:

• User:Heatherer/Tipper Gore

Given my conflict of interest with the subject, I would appreciate it if other editors could review my draft and, if they agree it is an improvement, use it to replace the current live article. I've uploaded the entire draft so that editors can review all the differences at once, but I'm happy to work through the changes section by section if that's what is preferable.

To summarize the major differences in my draft:

• Greatly expanded the Politics and activism section to detail her political endeavors since the 1970s, including:
  • Formation of the Congressional Wives Task Force
  • Additional details about the PMRC and its efforts
  • Co-chairing the National Mental Health Association's Child Mental Health Interest Group
  • Service as Mental Health Policy Advisor to the President
  • Major official activities as Second Lady
  • Campaigning for her husband in several elections
• I also focused on some of Gore's activism, which was previously missing from the section, including:
  • Work with the homeless
  • Efforts on behalf of mental illness awareness
  • Foundation of the Tennessee Voices for Children
  • Advocacy for the LGBT community
  • Co-chairing the Diana Basehart Foundation
• Moved all creative endeavors related to her photography, writing, and music into a new Creative roles section
• Moved information about her children and divorce to the Personal life section from the Early life, education and career section

Editors should note that I am seeking to have the following items removed from the article completely:

• "Her nickname, Tipper, derives from the lullaby "Tippy, Tippy, Tin", originally sung in the 1940 Our Gang short All About Hash by child actress Janet Burston."
  • This explanation for her nickname is actually inaccurate according to Gore. However, the source used here is fine otherwise, so I understand if editors don't want to remove it completely. In that case, I'd suggest adding in "According to CNN". Either way, the second part of the sentence about where the song originated is irrelevant and should be removed.
• "Gore was mocked by the rock group Warrant on their 1990 album Cherry Pie in the track Ode to Tipper Gore, which included frequent obscenity, due to her involvement with the Parents Music Resource Center."
  • The sentence is unsourced and doesn't seem very noteworthy after three decades.
• The two mentions of "Quarante Magazine (1982–1985) published by Kathleen Katz of Arlington."
  • I could not find any source to support these mentions, which read as if they may have been added by Katz herself.

I welcome feedback on the draft, so please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions. As a side note, along with this draft, I'm working on getting some more recent high quality photos of Gore released on Wikimedia Commons. I'll be sure to reach out on this page once that happens. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 20:30, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

@Heatherer: Hello. Thanks for clearly indicating your conflict of interest. The draft has some good improvements, especially the chronological rearrangement. I have some concerns, though.

The "Congressional Wives Task Force" is mentioned, based on a relatively weak WP:TERTIARY source, but is not adequately explained. "...to bring awareness to violence in the media aimed at children" is far too vague. What did this group actually accomplish? Also of concern is that the paragraph is a close paraphrase of the source, which is very bad practice. Please see WP:COPYVIO and Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing for more on that.

Likewise, the paragraph on homelessness is similarly vague. Her commitment is not in question, but the volume of coverage of that activity in the article should be proportional to the sources. The draft does not seem to reflect that.

The section on PMRC is too "PR-speak" in the draft. As an example, the personal quote "...before Congress to urge warning labels for records marketed to children" has been replaced by "The group's goal was to increase parental and consumer awareness of music that contained explicit content through voluntary labeling of albums with Parental Advisory stickers." This change is not acceptable for a couple of reasons. One: the word "voluntary" is accurate but loaded in this instance, since it's not properly supported by either attached source, and two: it has switched from being a quote from Gore (the topic of the article) to a general statement about the larger group (which has its own article). This kind of thing seems euphemistic, and gives the impression of an attempt to downplay or divert attention from something that is well sourced and significant.

Realistically, the PMRC should probably be its own subsection in the article. The coverage pretty clearly indicates that this is a substantial part of her encyclopedic significance. If a source could be found, The Cherry Pie reference would presumably belong there, but it would need to be a very good source to belong at all. (so yes, let's remove it.)

The election activity stuff needs a bit of WP:NPOV work. Her presence on the 1992 bus trip seems a bit gratuitous, and saying she "[helped] build the image of the campaign" is a WP:PEACOCKism.

It seems odd that the Rwanda info, with multiple very solid sources, is given the same amount of space as the SIDS advocacy, with only a local news blurb. Likewise the Honduras info should be trimmed. The specific details of her volunteering are not terribly significant considering the sources.

Most of the rest seems workable to me. Grayfell (talk) 05:08, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the radio silence here, Grayfell. I've been incorporating all these changes and should have an updated draft posted this week. Thank you so much for reviewing, I really appreciate all the thoughtful feedback. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 15:27, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

As promised, I'm back with an update. I've worked through your suggestions, Grayfell, and I've updated my draft. Here's a summary of what I did and how I tried to address all of your concerns.

• I rewrote the sentence that discusses the Congressional Wives Task Force based on two new sources I found (this Washington Post article from 1988 and this Chicago Tribune article from 1992). I tried to be very careful with my wording—any paraphrasing in the last draft was accidental, but perhaps resulted from how little information I had to work with in the original source I used. In addition, since you noted that it was generally a weak source, I replaced it everywhere in my draft with new sourcing and removed a few details that couldn't be supported otherwise. I appreciate the push to dig a little deeper there.

• I rewrote and shortened the paragraph about Gore's advocacy work with the homeless. There is plenty of coverage that discusses it, however. I've updated the paragraph's sourcing, which may also alleviate your concern with the material there.

• I've put the PMRC material under its own heading. I do want to point out that my draft did not replace the quote "...before Congress to urge warning labels for records marketed to children", I just added two sentences before it. I've left both of those in ("The group's goal was to increase parental and consumer awareness of music that contained explicit content through voluntary labeling of albums with Parental Advisory stickers. Their coalition included the National PTA and the American Academy of Pediatrics"). While I appreciate that the PMRC has its own entry and the article should be focused on Gore's activities, I think it's useful to include some background and a description of what the group aimed to do because she founded it and it's such a significant part of her career. I believe the word "voluntary" is supported in this source, which states "In the end, Gore's crusade for voluntary labels was successful and her stand for what later would be called 'family values' contributed to the image of the 1992 Democratic ticket".

• I took out the specific details about the '92 bus tour, but did keep in that she toured with her husband and the Clintons. Tipper's appearance on the bus tour was brought up in this article during the '00 campaign, which I think goes to show that the tour made a lasting impression beyond just the coverage at the time (I've added this second source as an additional reference to the sentence).

• I removed the phrase "helping build the image of the campaign" from the material about the '00 campaign. I see your point there and I think that all the other details are both neutral and sufficiently represent Gore's involvement.

• I reworked the "other initiatives during her time as Second Lady" paragraph, significantly trimming the information about SIDS and Honduras, and moving her role as Special Advisor to the Interagency Council on the Homeless there.

• In addition to your requests, I made a couple other edits that seemed to make sense based on the other changes I'd made, including moving a paragraph and rewriting two sentences.

Your feedback was very helpful and I think that all of these changes have created a stronger second draft. Let me know what you think. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 16:44, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks good. One of the cite templates had an error, and I ended up making several other technical adjustments while I was in there. I will take another pass at it in a while, but the draft currently looks like a significant improvement of the article to me. You're right about the quote, sorry I missed that. Grayfell (talk) 21:33, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

That's great! Thank you so much for your help reviewing and correcting any errors. I just added another photo in there too. After you've had a chance to take another pass, if all looks good, do you think you might be able to move my draft to the live article? Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 19:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

@Heatherer: I've implemented most of the changes suggested, as well changing a few other minor things while I was reviewing them. A handful of the proposed changes still seemed a bit too PRish, but nothing major. The ref named "Warshaw09" in the draft was not defined, so I removed it, but if you can track down what that was go ahead and restore it. I'm satisfied that the article look much, much better. Sorry for the delay, and do not hesitate to ping me if you have any more suggestions. Grayfell (talk) 04:46, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

The article is looking great, Grayfell! Thanks for all your work on this. I went through the proposed changes you left out and I'm fine with the majority of them. The only two I'd like to ask you to reconsider are in the introduction:

• The use of the word "philanthropist" as a descriptor for Gore. I think this is a fair word to use considering the amount of charitable and volunteer work she does.
• I'll concede the phrase "Well-known as an advocate for families, women and children", but I do believe her work on behalf of women and children should be mentioned somewhere. Quite a few of Gore's major endeavors have focused on kids and she has described the "status of children, women" as part of her life's work. Maybe the last sentence can read "She has also advocated for mental health, homelessness, women and children, and LGBT issues."

Finally, regarding the missing reference: sorry about that. I meant to remove that source from the article completely (it was one that we had determined wasn't the strongest earlier in our conversation), so it's fine that you took it out. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 20:32, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The addition of "women and children" is fine. I've rephrased it to be part of the same paragraph as the PMRC stuff, since they are related.

I'm still not sure about the word philanthropist, though. As the article philanthropy makes clear, it isn't a well-defined word. For better or for worse, common usage is associated on large financial donations, which isn't specifically supported by sources. Otherwise it's extremely vague, and a quick Google search for "tipper gore" philanthropist doesn't suggest that this is a common, uncontroversial label. While under the broader definition of the word, she is a philanthropist, I think the word may be more confusing than informative here. Can you think of a better term, or a more specific way to phrase it? Something like "social issues advocate" might work, but that's awfully cumbersome. Grayfell (talk) 21:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, Grayfell. Thanks for making the change re: women and children. I see your point about the word "philanthropist" and think it's fair. I did find some instances of large financial donations that she has made, if that helps? She's mentioned as making a donation with Al Gore here that's worth over $500,000. She has also donated the proceeds of her various photography projects. See here and here. From her perspective, it seems odd that Al Gore's article would say "philanthropist" while hers does not, especially taking into account donations made by him are from their joint assets. Looking around Wikipedia, it seems fairly normal to describe individuals as philanthropists when they're not even as involved in charitable activities as Gore is. I know that's perhaps a bit WP:OTHERSTUFF, but I wanted to note that including "philanthropist" here would be the norm, rather than the exception.

Whether or not philanthropist can also be added, I definitely like the idea of adding "social issues advocate" to the first line. Eager to hear what you think. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 15:48, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, we both know that other articles have problems, and I know this must seem nit-picky in the extreme. Since I generally do not use the term and have removed it from a number of articles, I'm unwilling to add it here without top-notch sources. The lead is intended to be a brief summary of defining characteristics, and I think something like "social activist" would be closer to the defining trait. As I said, she is a philanthropist in the broader use of the term, but that's not the only consideration. I emphatically don't think the article should use both terms, though.

Comparisons to Al Gore are a problem for some obvious reasons, and one that might not be so obvious. Any search for sources linking him to the terms philanthropy or philanthropist is going to be muddied by the huge number of sources that recycle Wikipedia's wording. In some cases this is direct, but there are a lot of sources that do this indirectly, or covertly, or are just written hastily by overworked interns. The term "Citogenesis" is used to describe this in reference to documentable facts, but it just as insidious for vague labels like this one. Such words should be treated carefully since they can, potentially, become self-reinforcing when used in Wikipedia. It should only be add here if it can be supported by high-quality, neutral sources which describe her unambiguously as a philanthropist. It's easy to find such sources for 19th century industrialists, but for living people it's much harder. Grayfell (talk) 22:43, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you're being nit-picky, Grayfell (or at least not any more than I'm being). These things matter—which is why we can spend several paragraphs going back and forth about it. I understand your position and truly appreciate the thoughtfulness of your response. In order to avoid becoming an xkcd comic, let's go with something like "social issues advocate". Advocacy/advocate is a word that is used frequently in sources about her (dating back to the 90s), so I think it falls under the "defining characteristic" criteria for the lede. Sound good?

On another note, a new profile photo is available for the infobox. Would you mind updating? You can find the file here. It's much more recent and a better quality than what is currently in the article. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 21:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for saying that. I appreciate your commitment to openness about editing with a COI, even if it can be tedious.

The wording works for me. I've added the phrase "social justice advocate" to the lead, and the new photo is very clearly an improvement. I've set the request edit template to answered, since that seems about right, but you can reopen it or start a new one, of course. Feel free to ping me if anything else comes up. Grayfell (talk) 23:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

It certainly is answered! Again, thank you for all the work you did. If you ever need a hand with anything, I'm happy to help. I did upload one other photo. The permissions email has been sent, but the page hasn't been updated as of yet. I'll keep an eye on that for any movement, but otherwise, I have no other changes for this article. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 13:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Philanthropist

Wow, I had no idea philanthropist and fascist were interchangable, thanks for clearing that up Heatherer. I feel very naive but I only just noticed wikipedia pages can be bought and controlled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.231.177.2 (talk) 11:09, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

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Marriage

The article said that is was the wife of Al Gore. That is incorrect. They are separated, not divorced. Separated people are still married, so she still is the wife of Gore, albeit estranged. A personally only becomes "was" when the marriage is formally ended, which requires divorce. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 03:02, 6 November 2020 (UTC)