Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brandon Tatum


 * 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 delete.  Sandstein  21:41, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Brandon Tatum

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The individual does not meet notability. He's a mid-level employee at Turning Point USA whose own founder does not meet notability per Wikipedia Consensus
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 07:19, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Arizona-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 07:19, 4 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete fails WP:GNG, what reliable sources I could find about him were all regarding a single event, which was his dismissal from the Tucson Police Dept. Best, GPL93 (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Hope you'll add that to the page.  I can see that he was on the force, that his boss was unhappy about the social media posts, and that he is no longer on the force.  But there are so  many sources.  I read a lot, but I dind't see something explaining whether he was fired or quit, or the date.  So, if you remember where you saw that, adding it would be useful.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I searched harder; Arizona Daily Star says Tatum quit.  Added to page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:21, 12 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete No indication of notability beyond perhaps a BLP1E. Reywas92Talk 00:08, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete a non-notable low level political activist.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:45, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Political operatives aren't automatically entitled to have Wikipedia articles just because they exist, but the only reference being cited here at all just makes him a WP:BLP1E rather than a subject of enough sustained and substantive media coverage to clear WP:GNG. Bearcat (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Terrible article, sourced to look like WP:BLP1E, it appears to have been written as an attack page to discredit Tatum. My searches show that he has been getting press coverage for years and has 124K twitter followers and 251,814 subscribers to his YouTube channel.  I support Delete, but (striking after lookin gmore closely at sources available) there should be no prejudice against a new page written with adequate sourcing and  a NPOV.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:31, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Social media does not mean notability. Also, feel free to share the links on that years of press coverage you claim to have found.--Mpen320 (talk) 22:26, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Daily Beast: "Candace Owens and Brandon Tatum have become two high-profile and highly controversial mouthpieces for the movement... Tatum is director of urban engagement at Turning Point USA."; Arizona Daily Star, 2017,: Tucson police officer pushes boundaries with viral rants: "When Brandon Tatum starts talking into his camera, you get the feeling he will burst if he doesn’t unload right then. Tatum, a Tucson police officer, started his Sept. 25 YouTube rant this way: “Alright, we’re going to talk. Now, y’all have made me talk.”He went on to lambaste NFL players who have protested police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. And a segment of the country embraced him, viewing the video more than 410,000 times, making him a viral video star of the week once again...."; Washington Post, 2016: Police officer: Trump protesters were ‘the most hateful, evil people I’ve ever seen’: "Brandon Tatum, an officer in the Tucson Police Department, went to a Trump rally on Saturday as a civilian to see what was going on. In a subsequent video, he said he thought there was going to be “a full-fledged riot” at the event — but not because of Trump’s supporters. The protesters were the problem, Tatum said....". All I did was key his name into a gNews search, and, as I wrote above, SIGCOV going back years comes up.  More came up in a Proquest news search. Frankly, I grow weary of rewriting articles at AfD on individuals whose POV I find inimical, but I am also tired of seeing individuals deleted without the least evidence that Nom or other editors commenting have run a simple WP:BEFORE search on gNews.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:46, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Mpen320, I see now that you nominated the article and forgot to sign the nominating statement. I think that if I had nominated an article, and an experienced editor wrote something like: "My searches show that he has been getting press coverage for years and has 124K twitter followers and 251,814 subscribers to his YouTube channel." I would go back and and run a gNews search before assuming bad faith by dismissing the "years of press coverage you claim to have found."E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, 78.26  (spin me / revolutions) 14:28, 11 March 2019 (UTC) Keep - The article meets GNG. When the sources include The Washington Post across multiple years (2016, 2018, 2019), plus the Arizona Daily Star, plus Fox News (2017 and 2018), plus the Daily Beast, Riverfront Times, and The Arizona Republic, the deal is sealed. XavierItzm (talk) 22:18, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:HEY Keep (changing to MERGE, see below). Page has been thoroughly revised, sourced, more can still be done, but notability is clear.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:13, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. No WP:SUSTAINED coverage, and article content can't change notability. &#8211;  MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 19:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Er... WP:HEYMANN upgrades demonstrate notabilty that was not on the page when the discussion began.  Editors have rewritten the page showing WP:SIGCOV that began in ~2004 with his college football career.  (ROUTINE coverage of his career as a police officer but was not added to the page.) Coverage  of his outspoken, controversial political views began in 2016 and has continued into 2019.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:16, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * 2004 coverage was all local news outlets. We aren't talking anything national until 2016, and even then it was in the context of that one rant of his. The page includes articles such as 1, 2, and 3. 2 & 3 mention Tatum's name a total of four times.. The Daily Beast link is an opinion piece that is really about Tatum's position at TPUSA. For a second, I would say that the Fox News piece may make the opposite case for you, but then I read it. The only takeaway related to Tatum is a single quote which is used in the aforementioned opinion article. Go figure. &#8211;  MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 03:06, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Conservatism-related deletion discussions. &#8211;  MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 19:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Merge/Redirect - I think a line or two documenting his role could be added to Turning Point USA, along with mention of his former employer and controversy of leaving, which seems related to his new position. A lot of good work has been done for the article in the days since it was first nominated for deletion, and in the future if there is a bit more significant coverage such that this subject eventually meets WP:BASIC, it would be nice to see that work to have gone to waste. -- Netoholic @ 22:08, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The subject fully meets WP:BASIC because 1. Multiple published secondary sources that are reliable - yes, the article has 17 different sources, which include The Washington Post, the Tucson Citizen, the Arizona Daily Star, the Riverfront Times, The Daily Beast, Fox News, etc.. 2. Intellectually independent - yes, clearly established because the sources reflect different events in the biography of the subject at different times (the sources date from 2004, 2005, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) and reflect the three main phases of the career of the subject, i.e., his sports career, his police officer career, and his activist career. 3.  Independent of the subject - yes, no need to elaborate, but clearly zero sources are blogs or owned or controlled by the subject. These are the the three criteria required by WP:BASIC, which furthermore adds: "People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable". XavierItzm (talk) 01:57, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Redirect as almost every single reference seems to mention him in connection with Turning Point USA. There is a lack of depth in coverage which makes it seem that, while Turning Point is notable, Tatum himself isn't. For example, describes him in a single line.  is an article about Candace Owens and only contains a couple of quotes by him. The links to his "sports career" are local news coverage, the kind which covers regional events. These do not indicate notability. The somewhat OK coverage is about the video which went viral, but that's like a single event. Subsequent coverage seems to be mention him very briefly in context of turning point . I think redirect is a good option here. In the future if he manages to become as high profile as say, Candace Owens, there could be an independent article about him.--DreamLinker (talk) 06:58, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - run of the mill middle level operative. Bearian (talk) 17:41, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment, Although Tatum's POV is aversive to most editors, I do think that we can all agree on the need to describe sources accurately. It is flagrantly untrue that "almost every single reference seems to mention him in connection with Turning Point USA" - sources now on the page show Turning Point be his 2nd paid employment as a political activist, both jobs came after the national attention in 2006, and 2007.  And article meets BASIC because his childhood, college football career, ane employment history are covered in multiple WP:RS, as is his political activism.  Nor is overage of a college football career is not mere "local," coverage, especially not when it is revisited by national media a decade later.  It is inaccurate to dismiss "the video that went viral"  as "a single event" because there were two such "events", the Trump campaign thing in 2016 and the "crybabies" thing in 2017  related to the U.S. national anthem protests (2016–present).  Fact is, "run of the mill middle level operative(s)," do not get the kind of coverage that Tatum continues to get.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:16, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge to Turning Point USA seems reasonable.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tymon. r   Do you have any questions?  15:42, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride Through Donald Trump's America, Alexander Zaitchik, Skyhorse Publishing, has this section: .  It's a collected reporting on the Trump campaign sort of book,  original story ran in Salon.com, My week inside the Donald Trump campaign: Sheriff Joe, Sean Hannity and behind the scenes at an Arizona rally and Trump HQ.  I try to come back and double-check my opinion when a discussion goes into a second week.  This shows that my previous searches were by no means exhaustive. E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:58, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The longer this discussion continues, the more uncomfortable I become with the political views of this individual. He's still on a campus speaking tour, and in today's news but in a source that is pretty far out there   The Rebel Media: "School won't host 'White Privilege Is A Myth' event headlined by black former police officer".  I argue, strongly, for KEEPING people like this, people like Kremlin propagandist Articles for deletion/Rania Khalek (2nd nomination) and topics like Articles for deletion/Force and Determination (Hungary), because covering notable movements and individuals that promote ideas that WEJUSTDONTLIKE is part of what an encyclopedia does.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:30, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The subject's actions in 2016 cited in a book while he was a police officer, and long, long before he became a TPUSA employee really ought to put the kibosh on the theory that the subject is not independently notable of TPUSA. I see the book is now cited in the article.  XavierItzm (talk) 07:44, 22 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete: WP:TOOSOON per review of available sources; fails WP:BASIC. Not independently notable of TPUSA, while a merge would not improve the target article. --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:09, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete doesn't pass WP:GNG, arguably violates BLP1E. SportingFlyer  T · C  23:11, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - A thorough and comprehensive explanation of how this article easily passes WP:BASIC is listed above, dated 16 March. With regard to BLP1E, please note how the current article passes WP:BLP1E:  1.  "reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a single event." - passes, the article has 19 different sources, which are from the years 2004, 2005, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.  The sources are from different events in the life of the subject.  For example, the 2004 and 2005 newspaper articles tend to be from the subject's athletic career while in college.  The 2016 sources tend to be from one event while the subject was a police officer, and include one The Washington Post citation, for example; the 2017 sources generally arise from an entirely different event that also took place while the subject was a police officer; the final seven sources, dated October 2017 to February 2019, and which include two articles from The Washington Post, document the subject's later career as a political activist.  It cannot be argued with a straight face that "a single event" applies in any way, so the article passes. 2. "person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual" - passes, this is why newspapers around the nation have cumulatively reported on the individual for decades now and reflect the three main phases of the career of the subject, i.e., his sports career, his police officer career, and his activist career.  How many low profile individuals get newspaper coverage decade after decade, 2004 to 2019? 3.  "If the event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented" - this third criterion does not apply as the subject has been followed by the news media across the years, and not for one single event.  WP:BLP1E requires that all three conditions be met: "We generally should avoid having an article on a person when each of three conditions is met".  Insofar as the subject does not met condition 1, does not meet condition 2, and does not meet condition 3, it is impossible to say that the article violates BLP1E.  Cheers, XavierItzm (talk) 03:48, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It's a bit disingenuous to say "decades" since he doesn't pass our college athlete notability guidelines. At best he's been cited in a few articles and isn't notable on his own - the BLP1E doesn't really matter all that much. Cheers, SportingFlyer  T · C  06:35, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Coverage of his college football career is coverage. More to the point, he meets WP:BASIC.  The 2016 BLP1E argument is tendentious because sources on page show that he has been in the news continuously in 2017, 2018, and 2019:  Brandon Tatum a  "high-visibility black Trump supporter", 2019 "Chants of ‘We love Trump, U-S-A!’ echoed across the East Room of the White House before, during, and after President Donald Trump’s address....  part of the Young Black Leaders Summit (YBLS)... student-activist group, Turning Point USA, is hosting the event. Brandon Tatum... Director of Urban Engagement at Turning Point USA... told Fox News that....E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:53, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I do not think this article should be deleted. It is page about a professional football player who now works for a conservative group and he happens to be African American.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.174.131.73 (talk) 03:13, 25 March 2019 (UTC)


 * 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.