Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shinan Govani


 * 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 no consensus. Promotional language can be dealt with by editing. ansh 666 22:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Shinan Govani

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Advertorially toned WP:BLP of a journalist and writer, not properly referenced as clearing our notability standards for journalists or writers. This is referenced primarily to sources where Govani is the bylined author of the source, which is not how you reference a journalist as notable -- he has to be the subject of coverage written by other people, not the author of coverage of other things, to clear Wikipedia's notability standards. But the few sources here where he isn't the author aren't making him notable either, as most are just glancing namechecks of his existence in coverage of other things. There's literally only one source here (#16, a short blurb from the CBC's local news bureau in Toronto about his retirement from the National Post) that actually lines up with what's required -- but one valid source isn't enough to get a person over WP:GNG all by itself if the rest of the sourcing around it is garbage. Bearcat (talk) 16:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Hong Kong-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Washington, D.C.-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:31, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:31, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 23:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

additional primary and secondary references have been included to further validate Shinan Govani as a notable figure. thank you for your support! - — Preceding unsigned comment added by Changwo4 (talk • contribs)
 * I've already explained on your user talk page why the new sources you added aren't helping: one's a blog; one's a glancing namecheck of his existence in a book about somebody else; one's a Q&A interview in which he's giving soundbite about other people, not an article about him; and the last is about his taste in interior design, not about him doing anything remotely relevant to whether he would belong in an encyclopedia or not. Bearcat (talk) 00:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Further, I've also included additional references that speaks about Shinan Govani, further validating this page and his notability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Changwo4 (talk • contribs) 20:40, 7 July 2018 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Thanks very much for your continued feedback and close observation. I've provided additional feed back on my page in response to your key points.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 08:41, 11 July 2018 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 10:28, 18 July 2018 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Possible delete, but giving a final chance for further discussion...
 * 'Comment there are some good sources out there, but he article is such a nauseating advertorial that it probably needs WP:TNT.96.127.242.226 (talk) 03:43, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Lourdes  16:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Bakazaka (talk) 17:43, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.  Information about the source's page numbers in the print edition is available on page 198 of https://eprints.qut.edu.au/31241/1/Cori_Stewart_Thesis.pdf. Archiveurls of the six pages of the web article: https://web.archive.org/web/20070325035916/http://www.torontolife.com/features/fabulously-strange-life-shinan-govani/<li>https://web.archive.org/web/20071107103112/http://www.torontolife.com:80/features/fabulously-strange-life-shinan-govani/?pageno=2</li><li>https://web.archive.org/web/20071107103118/http://www.torontolife.com:80/features/fabulously-strange-life-shinan-govani/?pageno=3</li><li>https://web.archive.org/web/20071107103124/http://www.torontolife.com:80/features/fabulously-strange-life-shinan-govani/?pageno=4</li><li><li>https://web.archive.org/web/20071107103128/http://www.torontolife.com:80/features/fabulously-strange-life-shinan-govani/?pageno=5</li><li>https://web.archive.org/web/20071107103136/http://www.torontolife.com:80/features/fabulously-strange-life-shinan-govani/?pageno=6</li></ol> The article notes: "It began, none too auspiciously, in Uganda, where he was born in 1973, a couple of years after Idi Amin came to power … His father had also been born in Uganda, his mother in Tanzania. The grand­parents on both sides had moved to East Africa from India, and even though the India connection is two generations removed, he feels a much stronger attachment to the subcontinent than to Africa. … From Uganda, the family fled first to Belgium, living for about a year as refugees, dependent on food rations, and finally, through family connections already in Canada, ended up in Toronto in an apartment building across from the Fairview Mall (which he describes as “the Norma Desmond of malls. It used to be big”). His father found work as a shipper-receiver in a factory, and his sister was born two years later. (Her name, Rishma, means “silky” or “fluffy” in Persian, he tells me. “It’s a common name in Bollywood movies. My name is made up. I’ve never met another Shinan. I’m invented. Like Marilyn Monroe. But not.”) The family is devoutly Ismaili Muslim (a subset of Shiite Muslims who consider the Aga Khan their spiritual leader). … ... He was a member of the debating society, and served on the student council in his later years—“I was such a keener,” he says. “But no one ran against me. I was acclaimed to the position. Always a bridesmaid.” He wrote a column for U of T’s The Newspaper, called Political Shenanigans." Gerald Hannon's article is an extensive profile of Shinan Govani.</li> <li> The article notes: "The scene: a mid-afternoon in June, and the sun is shining as bright as paparazzi flashbulbs. Shinan Govani, Social Creature (as he calls himself) is sipping an amaretto-laced iced latte at Bloor Street's hyper-swank Lobby. He is well styled for the role of gadfly: light facial hair, loose tie, distressed jeans, Gucci runners. At the moment, he's lounging on a voluminous white couch, looking decadently comfortable. He's ready to enjoy himself thoroughly. He always is. Not five minutes into our conversation, I'm treated to one or Govani's defining attributes: his laugh. It tumbles out of him almost uncontrollably, gradually gaining volume and vigour until, at mid-howl, it seems he's finally realized the full hilarity of the joke (usually his own); then it slows to a few chuckles, each like a latecomer to a raucous party. That laugh is now part of the soundtrack to most Toronto functions, where the wee Govani zips about--the schmoozer par excellence--with in my element merriment. Each exchange (double kiss, witty riposte, punctuating guffaw) lasts no more than a few minutes. Though he is technically there to observe the scene, he remarks with not a whiff of modesty, 'Now I am the scene.' As gossip columnist for the National Post. Govani spends about six nights a week at parties, covering anything that involves cosmos and stilettos: resto openings, media events, the Cannes Film Festival, Naomi Campbell's birthday party in St. Tropez. During last year's Toronto film festival, he attended 40 fetes in a single week. One unusually slow night led him to the Xacutti bar for a solo nightcap; it ended with him sharing yam frites with Renee Zellweger. ... Although he read voraciously (his parents didn't allow him to go to movies) and loved writing (he proudly recounts the time he won a Scarborough-wide competition at age 10), he never considered a career as a writer. 'I was supposed to be a nice chiropractor or something,' he chortles. He went to U of T and studied poli-sci, then took off to meet the bigger world. He interned at US and Rolling Stone in New York, worked with Conservative cabinet minister Janet Ecker in Toronto, and enrolled at the London School of Economics but never finished his degree ('I majored in London, as one does'). In 1998, he worked in Washington, D.C., with the heady-sounding Council on Hemispheric Affairs but spent most of his time obsessively following another kind of affair: the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. At 25 came the career turning point: he wrote an article about the secret link between Monica Lewinsky and Starbucks (thesis: the coffee chain plotted the sex scandal) and sent it to a slew of American mags. Shortly thereafter, he got a call from J.F.K. Jr., who praised the piece and then published it in George. Govani returned to Toronto in 2000 to pursue freelance writing. After contributing regularly to the Post's comment page, he was summoned to editor Ken Whyte's office and offered the gossip gig."</li> <li> The article notes: "During the 90 minutes I spend with Shinan Govani, Canada’s most celebrated gossip columnist, Victoria Beckham is being touted as the new Paula Abdul on American Idol, rumours are swirling about a pregnant Halle Berry, and Matthew Broderick and Molly Ringwald have spoken about John Hughes’s death. One sentence into this piece and I’ve managed to name-drop six celebrities. But I can’t hold a candle to Govani, whose first novel, Bold Face Names, is being released this month. By page 10, Govani has dropped the names of 66 famous people or star-studded events, including Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Jimmy Choo, Susan Boyle, Suri Cruise and even David Frum. ... The book is great fun, if a little insider-ish. ... His biggest scoop to date was bringing actress Mary Jo Eustace to the MuchMusic Video Awards. Organizers hid them in a room because Tori Spelling, Eustace’s former husband’s new wife, was there. And Govani’s “fairly certain” he was the one who first announced Ryan Gosling’s and Rachel McAdams’s romantic relationship."</li> <li> The article notes: "This was quite a few years before the advent of the ubiquitous Shinan Govani, the National Post tattler and author of Boldface Names, who has the flack/hack relationship down pat, and uses his book to show exactly how. It features a main character named Ravi, uncannily similar to the man himself, who attends functions, writes about them and, in the case of the book, at least, has slight traces of a conscience, a desire to explain his vocation and hankers to leave behind the high life of celebrity-watching and all its many perks. ... Now, if Govani is as well read as his doppelganger, and with the way he has with a metaphor (even with his overuse of hyphenated, made-up, de rigueur words and phrases), you have to wonder why he didn't write something else entirely. Something a little further afield from the party-going, name-dropping, power-wielding yet limiting tale told from an exclusive and, we're supposed to feel, enviable behind-the-scenes vantage point. I've seen and heard the book being called 'social satire,' but in an age when celebrity antics pass for hard news, coming at us breathlessly from every corner of the media, it's difficult to make a case for a gossip columnist toying so precariously with his own livelihood - even if it takes place mostly in Toronto and we Canadians care far less about our so-called star system than our U.S. counterparts. Perhaps Govani has an exit strategy similar to that of his fictional twin, a serious writing career plan to take him away from the gruelling, vacant world of celebrity gossip/worship."</li> <li> The article notes: "Appropriately, it's on page six that Shinan Govani begins hoofing his old boss, Conrad Black, in the nads. But it's gentle - more of an onside kick than a point after. ... Govani, the city's best-known gossip tattler, has shoehorned the fallen press baron into his first novel, the roman a clef Boldface Names. Or, it's pretty clear he has. ... He goes out to the sorts of parties that you wish you'd been invited to. And once there, he watches. Occasionally, he speaks. Rarely, he eats. Then he leaves and goes to the next party. He's there to find an anecdote, to run into what he calls 'serendipity.' Serendipity might mean someone you've heard of making out with someone else you've heard of. If they do it within a square kilometre of Govani's constantly twitching celebrity antennae, they can expect to see it in print the next day. ... Govani is not in any sense nasty. He is positively luminescent. ... Not just a character tick, it's a survival strategy. By never dipping too low, Govani has earned himself free entry into the city's most glittering homes. By this point, he's a bigger local star than many of the names he highlights in his National Post column."</li> <li> The article notes: "TWO sentences into his debut novel, you know that National Post gossip columnist Shinan Govani should stick with his day job. ... Boldface Names, a sloppy and self-aggrandizing roman à clef about the prowlings of a Toronto gossip columnist, offers incontrovertible proof of an author who can neither write nor think. ... Ethnically East Indian, vertically challenged and drop-dead witty (just like his creator on all three counts, no doubt), Ravi spends the novel going from party to party, trolling for column material among the chattering classes."</li> <li> The article notes: "When Shinan Govani began his society column in the National Post 12 years ago, there was no Drake Hotel, the Distillery District was just starting, and, as he remembers, “Bistro 990 was the hottest place in town.” Things have changed. Now there are new restaurants opening weekly, international stars who call Toronto home and an industry of society chroniclers. And, as of this week, Govani, the godfather of Toronto gossip writers, has hung up his bow tie for now and retired his column. After the dinners, openings, premieres, galas and functions, Govani has left the national newspaper. In chronicling celebrity culture in the city, Govani estimates to have attended 6623 events."</li> <li> The article notes: "When Shinan Govani started writing his gossip column for the National Post in 2001, there was no eTalk, there was no TMZ, and Drake was some unknown on the new Degrassi. Since then he has documented the rise of Toronto's ruling classes, attending some 6,623 parties and anointing it girls and hotspots at every turn. Last week Mr. Govani announced his departure from Post (he plans to spend the next few months travelling, writing and maybe even – gasp! – staying in). Here, he dishes on how high society has changed since those early days behind the velvet rope."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Shinan Govani to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 08:15, 1 August 2018 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * WP:GNG also requires secondary sources to establish notability. Interviews or reports of interviews are WP:PRIMARY sources that are sufficient to establish some facts but not sufficient to establish notability. Bakazaka (talk) 19:35, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That some of these articles include quotes from the subject do not make them primary sources. The quotes are interspersed with extensive research and commentary from the journalists. Cunard (talk) 08:33, 2 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.