Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Chapman (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 delete. Fails WP:GNG.

Thank you everyone for participating and assuming good faith! If you disagree with this closure, please take your concerns to Deletion Review prior to my talk page. Thanks again and happy holidays! Missvain (talk) 00:49, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

James Chapman (journalist)

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This article appears to be full of PR and contains nothing (arguably perhaps one thing) notable. There is a very full explanation of the reasons for the deletion proposal at the Talk page of the article. There has been an attempt to edit all the errors but these keep being put back immediately, including broken links and without references. It may be that an admin will feel the page should be put up for improvement instead of deletion, but it certainly seems to need an admin to take a view through their more experienced perspective. Emmentalist (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

The article is titled 'journalist' but the subject is no longer a journalist, according to the article itself. It is not clear that he a PR person either (as the article says he is); the article in fact refers only to a period of a few weeks in 2017 when the subject worked at a PR company. The article includes broken links, primary sources, material put there by the subject (see edit history) and PR puff. The appointments referred to almost all lasted only a few months (government, Bell Pottinger). Some never took place at all (Guardian). There is even a reference to two tweets proposing a new political party which apparently never went any further. There is no notability at all.

At the edit history it's clear that much of the article does indeed appear to have been written by the subject of the article (jameschapman1). The subject seems to have been correcting and adding to edits made by someone else on his behalf (see the previous edits which leave gaps to be filled in). Emmentalist (talk) 08:51, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I now see the edits by the subject of the article took place in July 2017, during the few months the article says he worked in PR. The wikipedia article on the relevant company, Bell Pottinger, notes that it went bankrupt a few weeks later owing to a controversy about its clients and work. One things the company is criticised for is making conflict-of-interest edits on Wikipedia. The Jameschapman1 edits seem to show a to and fro between Chapman and another member of staff at Bell Pottinger.

For interest, too, a simple search on the author of the GQ article which praised Chapman's PR status shows that he seems to have worked with Chapman until shortly beforehand, was sacked by GQ for well-publicised reasons immediately afterwards and is no longer a journalist either. As said above, while some GQ article may be acceptable as sources, many are not. This seems to belong to the latter category. Emmentalist (talk) 09:33, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I think I'll make this my last comment, unless someone else comes in. I've noticed that the creator of this page @dinosaursloveexistence created another page 39 minutes earlier with all the same PR puff shortcomings: Tom Alexander. A couple of days later, there's another: Lynn Barton. I might be wrong here, but I've not exactly looked hard (just a few edits either side of one (in 2016) out of many thousands over the years. They look to me like they've been produced professionally, but to minimum spec, for otherwise unknown clients. I know there's a mechanism for enabling people to be paid for putting up Wikipedia content, but I imagine there has to be fun acknowledgement (very much in learning mode, here). So I'm suspecting COI at this point. I've flagged the other two pages for speedy delete. Again, I might be wrong, but maybe I don't wanna be right.

Finally, finally, there seems to be an odd pattern of editing with this article. @PhillipCross may be a COI editor, @brownhairedgirl makes 1000 edits per day and never takes a break according to her user contribution history. I'm not suggesting she'd doing something wrong, but it seems pretty notable. The address doesn't look like a bot. I feel like I've stumbled across a series of interlinking PR puff articles which extend from the same people and phenomenon. Again, all said with respect and I accept I may be wrong. Any corrections or advice most welcome. Emmentalist (talk) 12:57, 29 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete fails GNG. LondonIP (talk) 19:22, 28 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete fails GNG. Emmentalist (talk) 08:17, 29 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:31, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:31, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:31, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment something odd is going on here. That said, this article from The Independent suggests there is coverage. User:力 (powera,  π,  ν ) 04:58, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @力 The article you flag is a good example of why I put the wiki article up for deletion. The Independent is an online newspaper now which contains many articles of PR puffery. As a source, Wikipedia editors have to be discriminating. The story you flag, for example, has the appearance of a person moving from one important job to another. You'll see, however, that it says the first job came 'at the height of' a campaign. That's because the subject was only in the job for a couple of months, according to the WP article's own timeline. Moreover, you'll see it refers to an appointment which is upcoming, not yet extant. In fact, the subject was only in that second job for a couple of months too. In the article, the subject is referred to as a PR professional, but again according to the article, he was at this third job, Bell Pottinger PR agency, for only a couple of months too. And that was in 2017. What you have there is a series of entirely non-notable appointments presented through the lens of the PR agency where the subject worked (very briefly) at the point the substantive content of article was inserted mainly by the subject himself. All the best, Emmentalist (talk) 13:16, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom Devokewater (talk) 14:33, 1 December 2021 (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.