Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Campbell (journalist)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was KEEP (no consensus). TigerShark (talk) 22:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

James Campbell (journalist)

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Notability

Is Wikipedia going to have an entry for every Herald Sun journo who's won a media award? There are no neutral citations in the article as to the subject's notability.

(It'll be interesting to see if the supposedly neutral Brandonfarris now goes spends a significant amount of time trying to find some. After I pointed out that the Nicola Gobbo and Age "hacking" stories were not notable enough even for a WP mention, s/he quickly went and added them. Garth M (talk) 21:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Only one editor who's added this material, seems suspiciously POV

Is user Brandonfarris associated with the subject? Seems very likely. The extraordinary level of detail - having found an obscure article that mentioned his school, for example - is very concerning. Garth M (talk) 21:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some background: This attempt to get the article deleted is part of a struggle between users Garth M (talk · contribs) and Brandonfarris (talk · contribs). A left-wing blogger named Jeremy Sear has attacked Brandonfarris on a major left-wing political website; like Garth M, Sear has expended considerable energy insinuating that Brandonfarris is James Campbell. To complicate things even further, Sear's post is now getting hostile publicity for reasons not relevant to Wikipedia. CWC 13:47, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not background, it's smoke. Sear has not 'attacked' Brandonfarris (talk · contribs), he has simply questioned his/her motives and objectivity, along with the notability of the article. Nor has Sear "insinuated" that the editor and the subject is the same person; in fact he has explicitly acknowledged they are not. Nor has Sear "expended considerable energy" on the matter (certainly much less than Brandonfarris (talk · contribs) himself). As for the use or misuse of cartoons, they have no relevance to the matter at hand, and mention of them is just argumentative twaddle. Niceperson907 (talk) 19:20, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The subject is clearly notable, as the sources suggest. Compared with other articles, there is no extraordinary level of detail and the sources were found using an excellent research tool that all should consider using from time to time, called Google. This excellent site enables one to search on the names of individuals - or indeed any other subject - to find appropriate secondary sources for Wikipedia articles. I commend it to all. --Brandonfarris (talk) 21:37, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a procedural note, this "keep" is from the person who created the page and is suspected of being close to the subject of it. Is it also redundant? Garth M (talk) 02:33, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete What are these "sources" that claim that the subject is notable? Simply claiming "Google" clears it up is nonsense. Garth M (talk) 21:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a procedural note, Garth M was the original nominator, so this "delete" is technically redundant. —C.Fred (talk) 21:45, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sources in the article.They speak for themselves. Clearly a prominent Melbourne journalist. --Brandonfarris (talk) 21:44, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To what neutral, objective source in the article does Brandonfarris refer? The only sources seem to be the subject himself. Garth M (talk) 21:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to delete this "delete" if it's redundant - sorry, wasn't sure. Garth M (talk) 21:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sources generally demonstrate notability, no more so than this prestigious award on a story that led to the resignation of the state's top prosecutor.[1] --Brandonfarris (talk) 21:55, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And it is reasonable to use the announcement from the awarding agency to verify the award, as opposed to third-party coverage of the award. (If Campbell's own newspaper ran the story that he won the award, that could enter the realm of self-publication.) —C.Fred (talk) 21:57, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's only the Melbourne Press Club whose award it is who calls it "prestigious" - which is like the Smith St Invented Society Club calling its Hypothetical Nonentity award "prestigious" because it says so - but more importantly, if that's the only basis on which it is said that Campbell is notable, then why aren't there entries for previous winners? There are lots of awards out there, and their recipients don't automatically qualify for a WP bio. Garth M (talk) 22:07, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have previously addressed this on Talk: "For example, a Quill award is described as prestigious by the Law Institute of Victoria[2] on Rebecca Maddern's article here and by the Melbourne Press Club itself.[3] I don't think it's necessary to put those links next to the word prestigious in the article but the fact they were so easily found when the user persisted in a manic deletion of the word 'prestigious' because he doesn't like the subject is highly revealing of what's going on here generally." --Brandonfarris (talk) 22:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What's going on here is that Brandonfarris seems to be very closely associated with the subject of the article. His smears about me notwithstanding - and I definitely have NO connection with the article - all I'm doing is trying to clean up highly POV material he's added to WP. Garth M (talk) 00:41, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I add to that a source no less than the ABC which also describes the award as prestigious. [4] The Age concurs it is prestigious. [5] You can just feel the prestige, really. --Brandonfarris (talk) 22:18, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Having a Quill award doesn't make someone immediately worthy of a WP article, as you can see by following Brandonfarris's links back and seeing how many of the previous winners of Campbell's award also have WP entries.Garth M (talk) 00:41, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question He seems like a relatively unkown journalist, but the references cited also seem adequate for having an article. What he has written about is noteable and given he appears to have paid more than a passing role in a politician getting in trouble, it would seem that an article is legitimate. However, I have no idea what the potential POV issues are. If the creator of the article is pushing some kind of POV, I think that would make having an article suspect.

I can't really vote until I know a bit more about what the potential POV issue is. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 00:00, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's one user, Brandonfarris, who seems to have a great deal of personal background information about the subject and it is written in a very POV fashion.

Which stories are noteable? For the record, Brandonfarris - whose account is only a week old - has created the (also very POV) WP entries for Campbell's Age story, Nicola Gobbo, and Jeremy Rapke. If he's claiming notability because he's created WP entries for certain stories himself, then that's obviously fairly circular. Garth M (talk) 00:41, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No sources about this person are provided to establish his notability. I agree with the concerns about Brandonfarris' editing. Nick-D (talk) 01:18, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. —Nick-D (talk) 01:23, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Nick-D (talk) 01:23, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

comment - The Melbourne Press Club award is encouraging, but it's a primary source. All the others are by, not about the subject. Delete if no better sources can be provided. GNG has not been met.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 02:58, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It should be noted that one user is blanking a significant part of this article while we consider it for deletion. Also, a number of new sources have been added that go to the question of notability and the prominence of the award-winning, senior journalist. --Brandonfarris (talk) 08:08, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's one award, despite attempts by Brandonfarris to boost the article with very POV material. The material that's been removed is a redundant claim about the "prominence" of his column and the material rehashing two columns of the subject's about Gobbo and the subject's articles attacking competitor publication The Age. The user has also added links to other media organisations criticising the subject for beatups. There are no neutral sources as to the subject's notability. Garth M (talk) 08:40, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Clearly the guy exits, clearly he writes newspaper articles, but I am not seeing any significant coverage about him, so he fails WP:GNG etc. Mt king ^(edits) 08:44, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. In summary, he is a little bit notable, but not notable enough. --Legis (talk - contribs) 07:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I find it puzzling that a high-profile journalist of this kind is deemed by some not to be prominent. He has a weekly prominent weekly column near the front of the best selling Sunday newspaper in Australia and has broken front-page exclusive stories quite regularly, in addition to winning a highly prestigious journalism prize. Not every journalist is notable, for sure, but this one clearly is. I think a review of this mighty list of much lesser known journalists helps put this discussion in context [6] --Brandonfarris (talk) 07:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I raise as just a selection from many examples Kyla Brettle, Mark Juddery, Phil Doyle (writer), Emma Quayle. None of them are as at notable as Campbell and none of them are nominated for deletion.--Brandonfarris (talk) 07:21, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This argument is so common in AfD discussions that we have a page about it at Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. Long story short: it is not a convincing argument, because all too many of our articles are crap, or at least crappy. Regards, CWC 13:47, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep. That Quill award is a major, major point of WikiNotability, but not enough by itself. Given some of the investigative reporting Campbell has done this year, I foresee more awards for him, which would mean we should have an article about him. So I say we can save some effort by keeping the article now; in a year or so, we can run another AfD if his WikiNotability is still disputed. On the other hand, I'm not going to be sobbing in my muesli if the article is deleted ... cheers, CWC 13:57, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The journalist in question might have won some minor awards and written some front-page leads, however to my mind the only journalists who should be documented in WP are those with a significant body of work or a history of breaking major news stories. This subject does not meet those criteria. Also, I find the edits of User:Brandonfarris to be dubious. He/she shows an interest in and knowledge of the subject that suggests a very close affiliation with him. Niceperson907 (talk) 14:15, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I admit I thoroughly researched the subject, using Google and reading many of his columns which contain autobiographical references about his background. But I am not him, nor am I "closely affiliated" with Campbell in any respect. I read and enjoy his column most Sundays, as do most people in Melbourne who buy the newspapers. I have worked hard on the article and think it's a terrible shame to have that thrown out because he's not considered "notable" in Wikipedia terms when he is clearly one of the most currently notable journalists in Australia and is certainly much more so than the hundreds of Australian journalist Wikipedia articles some of whom are clearly not notable and have probably written their own articles. That isn't the case with this article. --Brandonfarris (talk) 22:00, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That comment alone calls your objectivity on this topic into question. You might "enjoy his column" but how on Earth could you know that "most people in Melbourne who buy the newspapers" also do? You sound like the guy's mother, best mate or the president of his fan club. Which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, if you could provide reliable third-party sources to support your assertions - but you haven't. With regard to your other two points, it is not in dispute that you have diligently worked on the article, but that in itself is not grounds for retention. And if there are other articles on non-notable journalists out there, they should be scrutinised in the same manner as this one. Niceperson907 (talk) 06:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep Winning an award marks Campbell above the average workaday journo. However, the article is still very poorly sourced - the academic paper seems self-published and irrelevant; citing newspaper articles written by the subject does not really demonstrate the notability of the newspaper articles... Sionk (talk) 21:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete It seems to me that the claim to notability rests on the single quill award, which isn't enough, per WP:1E. He would, however, merit a mention in a hypothetical Quill Award (Victoria) article. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, as has not met WP:GNG, WP:CREATIVE or (for the sake of completeness, as a stint in academia is mentioned in the article) WP:ACADEMIC. Notability has not been sufficiently demonstrated, the Quill award notwithstanding. Colon el Tom 02:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.