Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lizzie Phelan (2nd nomination)


 * 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. (non-admin closure)  Jay Jay What did I do? 00:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Lizzie Phelan
AfDs for this article: 
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There is no sourcing I can find that indicates any sort of notability. Mentions noted in previous AfD were nearly all trivial. Being a journalist who writes articles is not sufficient for notability. Article is very poorly sourced and has been hit with recent egregious BLP violations. The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 23:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: Are you seriously calling the New York Times, The Guardian or Syrian Arab News Agency trivial? Crtew (talk) 05:08, 30 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. Her claim to notability seems to come from the fact that she witnessed rebel atrocities during the anti-Gadaffi war, and that her reporting was criticized (by mainstream media) for being too favorable to his regime. There could be a higher number of sources, but those that do mention her don't do it trivially, and dedicate quite some space to the journalist. The potential for BLP violations is not a valid reason to delete an article, since it can happen to any article. This argument must be clarified to state why the article cannot remain, with vigorous policing, free of BLP violations. Shrigley (talk) 08:59, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no indication of any meaningful criticism from mainstream media. All we have is a single journalist who runs a blog on the New York Times site criticizing her. I can tell you right now, after looking through every page of the Google News results and every page of the regular web results that what we have in the article presently is the best we've got. Nearly all the other sources that could even remotely be construed as reliable are opinionated rags making brief mentions of her reports as part of a broader criticism of the Libyan war, and those are not in large supply either.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk.  cntrb. 18:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:17, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:17, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:17, 29 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep. In preface, I'm skeptical of any second nominations to delete but I looked at this one seriously. As evidence, I made efforts to edit the page, and in the process I have added facts, organization, links and filled in her infobox (see history) with this purpose. In conclusion, I have three to four reasons for my vote for keeping this, strongly. First, I cite WP:SIGCOV for both her New York Times and SANA interviews. She is the subject of the interviews, and they become as much about her as why she holds her opinions. Second, she has been a contributor to several newspapers and television stations, including Iranian Press TV and Russia Today, which are major media outlets. I've seen other journalists who have not won awards yet who remain in Wikipedia because they are contributors to major media outlets. The categories for TV and radio personalities would carry some of these. Third, just for the "controversy" she has created in her strong opinions (The Guardian called her controversial) and the response of British regulators to her work, IMHO, is enough for a keep. In addition to the British Office of Communications' need to label her work with the Russian media as biased, the same office dealt strongly by censoring Press TV, to which Phelan has contributed. Finally, I see a bias in the first nomination process and one that I hope will not creep up in this one. It is a bias against the alternative media. If the alternative media and blogs that covered Phelan were taken seriously, it would be unquestionable that this article is a keeper and that two nominations are excessive because they show extensive SIGCOV. The bias (WP:NPOV) that I see is that those who propose deletion want coverage or appearances to be in the mainstream media. That imposes a POV. A non-biased approach to this would admit that Phelan doesn't seek the acceptance of mainstream media, has a clear audience, and is widely known within that sphere. Yet she still gets attention from The Guardian and the New York Times. This makes her different. Although she is young and not a TV presenter, she strikes me as similar to an Amy Goodman in her alternative approach. I may not agree with Phelan or think she advocates the truth, but that should be beside the point in such a nomination, and I'm able to see that she has another side of the story to offer and is known for it. That's why I would vote strong keep and why I see this second nomination as a waste of effort. Crtew (talk) 05:03, 30 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Strong keep! I don't know how accurate Phelan's reporting is, but I know from having lived in the Middle East that the mainstream media, including the New York Times, are shockingly biased and ignorant. Their reporters don't know the languages and so depend upon a tiny cadre of English speakers to provide their info. We desperately need alternative views such as those provided by Phelan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger McKinney (talk • contribs) 19:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is an instance of an article I stumbled across... I had seen mention of this woman elsewhere, and wanted to find further information about her.  As so often, her Wikipedia article (though not the best such) turned out the be the place to look.  So this article did me a service, and I expect it does the same for others.  Though her notability quotient is pretty low, it's sufficient I think for Wikipedia purposes.  --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:13, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Aside from the New York Times source, any coverage of her as far as I can tell has been in the context of noting her reporting for x news source on y event. This is trivial and routine coverage for a journalist and does not translate to notability.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk.  cntrb. 00:13, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Multiple New York Times interviews. You almost have to look at her as an academic/expert on a subject than a journalist if you want to exclude publications where she had authorship. Mkdw talk 20:34, 4 January 2013 (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.