User:RoySmith/essays/orgdepth notes

A frequent point of debate at AfD and DRV is the quality of sourcing for articles about startups. Often, a number of articles can be found about the company, published in ostensibly reliable sources. The problem is that these articles tend to be based entirely on press releases issued by the subject company. Typically, a small company will release press releases any time they close a round of funding, release a product, have a change in their corporate officers, etc. These press releases then get picked up by multiple publications which focus on business/finance in general, or the particular product area of the company.

The standard debate has some people saying this meets WP:CORPDEPTH because the media outlets are independent (i.e. not owned by subject company, discuss business details, and are worded differently. The other side (where I usually stand) says that since these are all reactions to press releases, they fail the test.  Fundamentally, we should be looking for coverage about things companies have done, not things that they say they want to do.  And, those things should be fundamental to their core business, not incidental to running the business (closing a funding round, no matter how much money is involved, is an incidental activity).  And, the coverage should be based on independent research, not simply restructuring the information contained in a press release.  -- RoySmith (talk) 14:38, 17 July 2017 (UTC)