Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Street (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. JohnCD (talk) 21:46, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Paul Street (journalist)

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Subject does not meet WP:BASIC. While it appears Street has written many opinion pieces and some articles, it does not appear that any reliable, independent news outlet, publication or periodical have written about him. Also, the word "journalist" to describe Street does not appear accurate for a researcher and historian who writes his opinions. The three sources in the article are not reliable citations. A search did not find articles about him from 3rd-party sources. AuthorAuthor (talk) 17:15, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2015 May 29.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 17:35, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment AfD now correctly added. Thank you.  AuthorAuthor (talk) 17:39, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. AuthorAuthor (talk) 17:45, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


 *  Weakest keep : The article reads exactly like a press release sent to a booking agent. It's a brag sheet. The nominator is right that calling this subject "journalist" is inaccurate for his profession, but it's as a "journalist" that the person would be discussed/known outside of teaching. As an editorialist and provocateur, he'll have quotations and responses about. I'm not sure when that ceases to be "to" him and begins to function as "about" him, but I would just barely go over the line to 'keep' here. Hithladaeus (talk) 19:13, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Weak delete after the research done below. I'm still not entirely comfortable, but if the references aren't there, then the article can't be, either. Hithladaeus (talk) 02:54, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. North America1000 19:49, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America1000 19:50, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep - I've attempted to make the article more encyclopaedic and read less like a press release. I've added some more refs and fix a couple of broken ones. Web-searching for a person named Street isn't straight forward. I believe Street to be notable, although more references would be preferable.Jonpatterns (talk) 23:05, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment -By adding more unreliable sources, you have cemented the point that there appears to be no reliable and/or significant coverage of Street. Adding more unreliable refs does not make him notable. The TeleSUR source is listed on the site as opinion and it shows that it was written by Street, therefore, it is not a reliable, 3rd-party ref. The HuffPost piece, which is a blog, has a half line at the bottom along with a dozen others, mentioning something the subject wrote, but the subject is not mentioned in the HuffPost piece. You also cited a prnewswire.com post, which is a promotional site. Before working further on the article, you might familiarize yourself with Wikipedia guidelines on sourcing articles. -AuthorAuthor (talk) 01:17, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Whether a source is reliable or depends on what they are being used for. You are right that the sources you mention do not prove notability, the TeleSUR ref is to show he has written for TeleSUR, the Huffington Post is to show he worked at Chicago Urban League and the prnewswire is a record of his role at Chicago Urban League.Jonpatterns (talk) 09:07, 30 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment In the New Statesman article that is cited as a ref, just one sentence is about a book by Street - which illustrates the lack of substantial coverage of this subject to warrant an article on Wikipedia. -AuthorAuthor (talk) 17:53, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. AuthorAuthor (talk) 18:02, 30 May 2015 (UTC)


 * delete I ran a series of searches on the titles of his books that failed to turn up reviews. Only exception was 2 reviews of the co-authored book, "Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics", both in fringe sources, and . Like Nom, I failed to turn up secondary sources that discuss him and his work, aside from the single sentence in New Statesman.  Moreover, writing essays, op-eds and opinion pieces does not make you a journalist.  I did not check all of the fringe outlets where article states that he has "written for"  However a search of his name in ChicagoTribune.com; and  HNN.org;  failed to  substantiate the assertion that he has "written for" either the the Tribune or History News Network.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:11, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Here are a couple of articles he has written for the Chicago Tribute Jonpatterns (talk) 12:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC):-
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-06-17/news/0306170320_1_major-league-baseball-fans-wrigley-field
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-11-06/news/9711060008_1_city-contracts-corruption-in-city-hall-ordinance
 * He is also mentioned in these articles, mainly to do with his research:
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-06-20/news/0306210282_1_cubs-lovable-losers-unlovable
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-01-15/features/0601150375_1_chicago-freedom-movement-marquette-park-north-lawndale/2
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-11-23/news/0411230329_1_working-poor-families-poverty-line-chicago-urban-league
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-11-02/news/0311020179_1_job-training-jackson-spokeswoman-chicago-urban-league
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-05-28/business/0305280276_1_black-males-white-applicants-affirmative-action
 * http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-09-28/business/0309270285_1_associate-degrees-cards-grads
 * Regarding History News Network, it appear just one article of his was syndicated from Dissident Voice http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/39738.


 * I'll be back later to take a closer look. (What an annoying website the Trib has).  Here's the Street mention in the 2004 article. ""Many families are living in poverty even when the parents are engaged in work," said Paul Street, vice president for research and planning at the Chicago Urban League. "Nobody, working or non-working, should be poor in the richest nation in the world."

The study compared census data from 1989 and 1999. It found, among other things, that three-quarters of people who head families living near or below the poverty line earned just $13,001 a year.

"It's distressing," said Street, a co-author of the study. "The American Dream depends on the idea that if you work, you should be OK. This is a core, I think widely accepted, American value."E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:41, 1 June 2015 (UTC) "There's an aspect of class and race to it, there always has been," said Dr. Paul Street, a researcher with the Chicago Urban League and an avowed Sox fan. The South Side and North Side both have histories that include fans with blue-collar, working-class backgrounds, Street said, but it's changed over the years, so any argument invariably brings up which group of fans better represents the city. "There really is this sense that we're the legitimate, lunch-bucket, Kowalski, South Side, working-class fans down here that appreciate baseball," Street said. "[Cubs fans] are the Lake Shore, Armani-wearing, cell phone-toting yuppies." "Job training is well proven by research to have big payoffs for unemployed populations," Street said. "You reduce the unemployment rate exponentially when you give people skills." The current "vicious cycle" that urban youths find themselves in cannot be stopped without a serious injection of education programs to make them more appealing to businesses, Street said. "Being incarcerated has almost become a normal experience in black urban life," Street said. "If we could take some money out of [jails] and put it into job training, the benefits would be enormous." "Conventional wisdom in the country right now is that racism in any meaningful sense is largely over," said Street. But "disparities still exist." He is author of "The Color of Opportunity: Race, Place, Policy and Labor Market Inequality in the Chicago Metropolitan Area," a research paper released jointly with the hiring study. Street said employers are reluctant to hire blacks, especially black males, because they are afraid they will steal from them or be unable to relate to white customers because of differences in speech patterns and education levels. "They don't think blacks can interact with white customers." Street believes that if it were done today, the disparities would be even worse due to the impact of the poor economy. Government statistics bear this out. Typically, the unemployment rate among blacks is twice that of whites and worsens in a recession. In April 2000, during boom times, the black unemployment rate was 7 percent, the lowest it had been in three years. Last month, the national jobless rate was 6 percent, but among blacks it was 10.9 percent--compared to 5.2 percent for whites. Street calls the study "a smoking gun," saying it illustrates that changing perceptions is a persistent problem. According to Street, "when similarly qualified black and white applicants apply for entry-level managerial jobs in retail companies in Chicago's suburbs, white applicants have a 21 percent higher chance of being contacted for an interview." And, when matched pairs of African-American and white women applied in person, whites received more job offers than African-Americans. The study, titled "Racial Preference and Suburban Employment Opportunities," refutes the notion that racism is no longer a significant problem for African-American job seekers.  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * First, a salute to User:Jonpatterns, searching the Trib it was easy to find an op-ed or 2 by Street, those don't contribute to notability. To find the rest of these he had to comb through pages of hits  on "St. Paul Street", and I admire Patterns for having realized that doing so would, eventually, find articles that quote this Street. The site is annoyingly clunky (locks you in). And you then have to read down the page searching for Street.  So, with apologies for length, Here are the mentions:
 * "The differences between White Sox and Cubs fans are bigger than not being able to agree on who has the better first baseman.
 * "Today, the Chicago area ranks as the fifth most residentially segregated metropolitan area by race in the United States, according to a recent Urban League study, "Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, Policy and the State of Black Chicago" written by Paul Street."
 * Paul Street, vice president for research and planning at the Chicago Urban League, said that as blue-collar jobs have left the city limits for the tax shelters of suburbs and the low wages of foreign countries, nothing has filled the void. He said money spent on education would help to fix the problem.
 * Dr. Paul Street, vice president for research and planning for the Chicago Urban League, said the study looked at the suburbs because they have the region's fastest job growth.
 * Inequality in the labor market: Racial injustice hasn't gone away, according to a recent study by Paul Street, vice president of research and planning for the Chicago Urban League. The report also was authored by the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.
 * That's everything in the Trib, except the 2 opinion pieces. The History New Net online republication of the opinion piece form Diddident Voice is interesting because it offers a potted bio:"[Veteran radical historian, journalist, and speaker Paul Street  is an anti-centrist political commentator located in Iowa City. Street is the author of Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2004), Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), and Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, and Policy in Chicago (Chicago, 2005) and The Empire and Inequality Report. Street's next book is Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: A Living Black Chicago History (New York: Rowman and Littlefied, 2007). ]"   I'm still thinking about this one. Because significant, independently sourced reviews of his books and profiles of him and his career are still lacking.  And because with the Tribune pieces that quote him do so as an employee (who co-wrote a a study) of and spokesman for the Urban League, I'm still leaning towards delete.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:36, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash;Darkwind (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2015 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete per nom; I don't see how he meets WP:AUTHOR or WP:JOURNALIST —Мандичка YO 😜 03:57, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - not seeing notable status. A few books doesn't really rate an entry. Heyyouoverthere (talk) 04:46, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Weak delete - there's not a lot available about the subject, except for review(s) in the New Statesman. Bearian (talk) 20:13, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, slakr  \ talk / 11:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete per the thorough source investigation above, which shows they fail WP:GNG, WP:NAUTHOUR and WP:JOURNALIST. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:19, 19 June 2015 (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.