Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Foxification of News


 * 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. Drmies (talk) 22:49, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The Foxification of News

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Well cited but nevertheless clear original research, relying on a synthesis of published sources to develop an original line of social and political science research. While some may find it to be an interesting and well-written academic paper, it is not appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia. causa sui (talk) 21:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note Canada_Education_Program/Courses/The_Newspaper_in_Canadian_Society_(Michael_Valpy) causa sui (talk) 21:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete, clearly an essay, not encyclopedic. The extent of the OR and POV issues is such that little is salvageable. CharlieEchoTango  ( contact ) 21:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It isn't original research to organize information from multiple sources in a thematically coherent and linguistically pleasing way. A argues X[ref], but B argues Y[ref] isn't OR because the facts appear in the same article, or are conjoined by a "but". Reading NOR so strictly reduces articles about social and political issues to useless quote farming. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep This concept (putative bias of Fox News and similar media) is discussed in reliable sources, cited in abundance, such as The Economist editorial entitled "Impartiality: The Foxification of news"! Rename the article if necessary, but it isn't as though the author were presenting their own views. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 21:33, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge Clearly OR/Synthesis, and a POV essay to boot. Some of the content could be merged into the 'Assertions of Conservative Bias' section of the Fox News article, provided it was written in an NPOV tone. Nwlaw63 (talk) 21:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but the credit for originating this concept goes to The Economist, not the author. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 21:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Half-hearted Keep: Although the original draft of the article seems to contain quite a bit of synthesis, I disagree with the statement that it relies on synthesis to develop an original line of research. Following the Google links above clearly shows the existence of the concept of news "Foxification" long before this article was added. Trimming the "Books" search to "Foxification" +news yields enough results to establish notability of the subject; poor compliance with sourcing and MoS guidelines by a new editor is a reason to help fix the article, not a reason to delete it. (As for "half-hearted", I can't say we need another Fox News Channel controversies fork to serve as a coatrack, but the "Keep" is an attempt to WP:AGF and a belief that the scope is broader than the title implies.) Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 22:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * So... you think it's a coatrack, and an unnecessary POV-fork, but you want to keep it because of WP:AGF? I don't want to disrupt the class project either, and as sympathetic as I am to such things, I can't believe the closing admin will consider that a convincing rationale to keep the article. This is about making editorial decisions about what content will be in Wikipedia, full stop. causa sui (talk) 23:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I think it could easily become a coatrack and the title might suggest a POV fork. That's where the AGF comes in. The overall subject of the article is, as I pointed out, hardly original to this author. If the professor who assigned the topics for this project had placed more emphasis on being NPOV and encyclopedic, and less emphasis on the potential of a title to grab attention, something like "Politicization of news" could have been produced with far less outcry while keeping much of the existing, sourced content and adding a broader set of examples. Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 23:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, delete per nomination. causa sui (talk) 23:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - (1) A huge amount of well-done work here by a new content contributor. Kudos for that and I hope your time at Wikipedia is lengthy, productive, fun, and fulfilling. (2) This title is pretty obviously that of an original essay — and, it could reasonably argued, a POV essay at that. "Foxification" is a non-notable neologism, for starters. Encyclopedia entries should generally be constructed around nouns for twosies. While "The Foxification of News" would make a swell topic for an essay in The Progressive or The Nation or In These Times, say, and something that I would personally like to read, it 's not an encyclopedic presentation of an encyclopedic topic. Fox News and the 24 hour news cycle are already covered; the impact of hyperpartisanship upon television news is a subject for empirical research or polemic — neither of which has a place at WP, for better or worse. (3) Since this started in a sandbox hopefully it is still there. In the event this closes as a delete, will the closing administrator please make sure that the content creator still has the info okay, as there is doubtlessly content that would be suitable at either of the two standing articles that I mention, or other standing articles that I do not mention. I hope the content creator dusts himself off and gives it another go, slicing the bread differently next time. Carrite (talk) 00:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The discussion of the articles in this project at ANI seems to be deciding/have decided (it's archived already) to "re-userfy" pretty much all of the articles, with only a couple of exceptions to be merged to existing topics. Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 00:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Per Fat&Happy above, a rewrite into an essay on Politicization of news might be able to be done dispassionately. It seems, however, that a standing piece on Sun News Network is another likely place where some of this material may be adapted and put into play encyclopedically. The content creator is cautioned to carefully read, reflect upon, and accept the essential Wikipedia doctrine of NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW before embarking upon that. This is sensitive ground... Carrite (talk) 00:14, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 22:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete per nominating editor. Points made are identical to those I brought forth on the talk page.  An interesting article, but unfortunately original research at one of its best examples.  A perfect example of a college essay.  Arzel (talk) 02:34, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note Other articles related to this project such as Newspaper commercialism also suffer from the same problems of original research and synthesis of material. The latter is of particular interest as it has a conclusion section completely void of sources.  Arzel (talk) 06:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I've deleted that section as inherently inappropriate for a WP article. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 14:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it seems pretty clear by now that this particular project is not destined to go down in Wikipedia history as a shining example to be emulated.
 * Who takes action based on the ANI discussion? It seems to have finished on the 15th with all sorts of apologies and mea culpas from coordinators and such, promising to fix the problem by returning the articles to user sandboxes, yet here we are a week later still looking at individual articles. What's the procedure for waking someone to do the follow-up? Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 07:07, 22 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: well sourced original research. – Lionel (talk) 11:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: Much of this article depends on the opinion piece "The Foxification of News". The Economist. 9 July 2011". Editorials and opinion pieces are not considered reliable sources, and the remainder is definately original research. SeanNovack (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Well sourced summary of stuff that has been around for years.  Not original research by the usual and customary definitions here.Nofatlandshark (talk) 22:07, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Seems to be a sourced attack article, aimed at trying to influence readers with opinions and synthesis of others, as well as the articles creator. Not much could be salvaged from this diatribe.-- JOJ Hutton  00:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, synthesis and opinion I get...but "attack" and "diatribe"? You're going to need to justify that one a bit more. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * One person's "attack" is another person's "pointed critique". The difference is meaningless for the purposes of this discussion. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 14:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete It's simply out of scope and no level of sourcing can alter that fact. Merge/redirect is only needed if you can use a non-trivial amount of text in another article, without completely rewriting it.  But, if anything in this article were used elsewhere, it would need to be fully rewritten to satisfy NPOV.  Sources can be reused elsewhere without a merge/redirect.  We already have ample space provided for criticism of Fox News in the main article, and in Fox News Channel controversies.  People can also add to Sun News Network, and I'm sure there will soon be a Sun News Network controversies.  Having this article under any name, means there's one extra place where people can sneak in POV that they hope fewer eyes will see.  Also, much of the "sourcing" of this article is actually worthless.  The author writes about things that are entirely beside the point, such as CBC funding, and provides a citation for the irrelevant point.  And, I would actually say this is an attack piece.  The article states "Fox News has commercialized and mainstreamed a style of discourse identified by political historian Richard Hofstadter as the paranoid style.[47]".  Notice, how the description of Fox is given as a definitive fact, not an attributed opinion.  Footnote 47 is to a 1964 source, which obviously predated Fox News, so can't possibly support the full sentence.  Using a single citation at the end of the sentence was a sly way of implying the whole sentence was supported, when it just supported a fragment.  It's kind of like saying "John Smith is a homosexual, which is a man who has sex with men[1]" and using a source[1] that confirms the meaning of homosexual, but doesn't mention John Smith.  That is an attack.   A smart attack.  A typical stupid attack, is deleted in 5 seconds.      --Rob (talk) 05:49, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks to me like this concept has some notability, probably enough to justify an article. In addition to the piece in the Economist, I found these on Google Books and Scholar pretty easily: . I don't see any of these cited in the article though, which surprises me. In fact, I tend to agree with the opinions above that this page, as it is, is unsuitable for Wikipedia. (Though it may be fine as an essay.) So I guess my !vote is Delete as is, but I'm willing to reconsider if this is rewritten. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:15, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete – A well-written, well-sourced analysis that does not belong in Wikipedia. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 14:17, 26 December 2011 (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.