User:Kylerstrickler/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Crowdfunded journalism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose it because it seemed like one of the few articles under the topic of journalism that was not fleshed out and lacking. In other words, I wanted an article that would lend itself to a rather easy evaluation, and this one met the criteria as I noticed it was in need of quite a few changes.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

The lead to the article begins strong, as it is easy to understand and does a good job explaining the basics of crowdfunded journalism. However, after the first paragraph, there is only one more sentence in the lead, which is probably not enough. Additionally, the information presented in this second part of the lead is probably too specific to be in the lead. It also mentions some information that is nowhere else in the article, such as the fact that universities contribute to crowdfunded journalism. Sure, the lead mentions all of the sections of the article, but that is because there is only one real section. The second sentence either needs to be moved out of the lead, or there needs to be a section dedicated to it.

Content

This article is severely lacking in content. As stated before, there is only one real section. The "examples" section needs to be built on, with explanations and sources detailing them and how they are related to the different ways journalism can be crowdfunded. It feels like a lot of content is missing that is based on the actual publication of crowdfunded articles, along with the general process one would take. Another possible section could be the differences of crowdfunded journalism to traditional journalism. There also might be a bit of a gap when it comes to different forms of journalism, as only traditional journalism is mentioned, when in reality, some might consider Youtube or streaming journalism, which are two of the most popular crowdfunded projects. On top of that, the second half of "controversies" is completely unnecessary. The author fails to make any relevant claims and talks in circles. Finally, the "Crowdfunded Journalism Projects" section is either wrongly titled or simply does not have relevant information. The content in this section is mainly just stats about the demographics of crowdfunded journalism, so this section should be renamed and this information should be put in a new section.

Tone and Balance

It seems as if the tone and balance in the article is generally off and should be corrected. In the first paragraph of "Characteristics", the article seems to be completely on the side of crowdfunded journalism versus traditional journalism. There should be a far less biased tone in this section. Also, in the "Issues and Controversies" section, it seems as if the article is trying to refute the claims made by sources. On top of this being Wikipedia malpractice, no sources are provided for the counter-arguments. It seems as if the article has taken a clear view that fact-checking should not be mandatory - an odd view to take, especially in a place where fact-checking is a practice that is the heart and soul of the site. Even if this point was relevant to the article, the author did not cite a single argument made in this questionable section, and makes odd claims like "fact checking is about checking the facts". Statements like those are assumptions, which should simply not be used. It is also stated that "A common misconception is that, facts are opinion-based." What does this even mean? There is no citation here to back this up - so why is it a misconception? Why is one side right? If they could not find a source to back this up, then the only reason one could think that they included it in the article for is to insert their own opinion.

Sources and References

This is a very lacking part of the article. While the article does not have a great deal of information, there is even a smaller amount of sources used, and several section are missing sources completely. The aforementioned fact-checking section has 3 "citation needed" notes, which is pretty much the whole section. As for the sources themselves, they are repetitive and appear in every section. There needs to be a greater variety of them. The most-used source is an extremely solid one, which is a journal that is lengthy and valuable. However, the other sources are okay at best, and definitely not good enough to be a backbone of a whole article, which is what they are treated like. Besides one Forbes article from 2021, there is no source from later than 2016, which is troubling because there has been a lot of advancement in crowdfunded journalism since the dates those articles were posted.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is very poorly written. To begin, there is a notable inconsistency of how "crowdfunded" is spelled. Within the same paragraph, it is spelled "crowd-funded" as well as "crowdfunded". No matter which is correct, it should be consistent throughout. There is also a notable lack of capitalization consistency. In the title of the article, "journalism" is not capitalized. This remains true in the section headings in the article. Yet, several times throughout the article "Journalism" is capitalized. There is also some questionable phrasing in the article, note the beginning of the third sentence in the "Issues and Controversies" section.

Images and Media

There is a single image on the page, which is placed in a spot that is not near the information it references. On top of that, the image simply restates information that is brought up in the article instead of supplementing it. Along with an explanation of the notable examples of crowdfunded journalism, there should probably be accompanying pictures that add to the information given. On top of that, the image does not have a citation. It might violate copyright rules.

Talk Page Discussion

There is pretty much no important discussion going on behind the scenes. There has been one talk post so far, which simply notes how the article did not mention a form of crowdfunded journalism. Apparently, the article "is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment." It also is "within the scope of WikiProject Journalism".

Overall Impressions

This article is biased, poorly written, and lacking key information. Massive changes need to be made - in its current form it is probably not an article that could even be on the site.