Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The New York Times and the Holocaust

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. Point of view and essay-like attributes can be fixed, and the discussion has shown that the topic is moderately notable. Regards, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 03:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The New York Times and the Holocaust (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Rambling essay with dicey citations. PhGustaf (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well sourced? Almost the entire article is sourced to a single book, repeating the claims and opinions of that author as fact. What little else is referenced is cited to a single editorial or something called hnn.us --Loonymonkey (talk) 02:19, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I haven't looked at the quality of the sources myself yet, though I can tell the article needs some improvement. It appears the article was created after it was rejected from inclusion on The New York Times article, see Talk:The_New_York_Times#new_section_on_nytimes_and_holocaust. I deprodded this article because it seemed notable enough to merit a discussion.--Milowent (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. An important subject about the reactions of US mass media to Holocaust.User:Lucifero4
  • Strong Delete. As currently written, it's just an essay (and not a very good one at that). It's plagued with WP:OR and WP:SYNTH problems (as well as clear ax-to-grind WP:NPOV issues) but it's difficult to imagine how this could be corrected through editing. If it were boiled down to the notable and the reliably sourced, it would just be a stub of an article, a paragraph or two in length. Really, the entire article seems to be a summary of a single source, the book by Leff (which also accounts for almost all of the cites in the article). The claims and opinions of that author are repeated as fact, producing ridiculously non-NPOV language like "...Sulzeberger’s firmly held personal beliefs that it was wrong to ever treat Jews as a people" or "The paper of record deliberately hid the Holocaust from the American people." Since this article exists to simply repeat the thesis of a single book (with a little original research thrown in as well) it's not possible for mere editing to make it compliant with Wikipedia policies.--Loonymonkey (talk) 02:19, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I will give improvement a try. There are sources far beyond what is currently cited in the article.--Milowent (talk) 06:58, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The references strongly indicate that this is a notable subject. I do not think it is correct to say that the entire article is sourced to the one book; but the book is over-represented in the article. The article needs some work, but that's no reason to delete it.--Mkativerata (talk) 22:40, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete this is effectively a topic made up one day by a wikipedia editor. It is not treated in any depth by any reliable sources as a topic of its own. Allowing this kind of amateur scholarship to be invented here (and a bad job of it, I agree with loonymonkey) is a constant failing of wikipedia. To take one slanted book and paint the entire sulzeberger family as raging anti-semites who deliberately hid the reality of the holocaust is the sort of rank distortion of the historical record that occurs whenever this kind of invention/OR is allowed to pass.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:50, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You have to be kidding me -- the subject of US Press coverage of the holocaust is covered broadly, just look around. The article needs work, no question, but if you look for press articles about this subject, they are legion.--Milowent (talk) 00:04, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps a broader (better written, better sourced, more neutral) article about US press coverage would be notable. But this article is focused exclusively on one news outlet. Actually, it doesn't even really focus on the Times so much as Sulzeberger personally. It's just one long attack rant against him, based on opinion ("Sulzeberger hated being labeled as Jewish, so much that he was willing to distort New York Time coverage in order to fight recognition of Jewish existence as a people in Hitler’s Europe.") If he were still alive, this would have been speedily deleted some time ago as a WP:BLP violation. So why should we lower our standards just because he's dead? --Loonymonkey (talk) 02:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There have been many changes to the article over the last two days, so I hope that voters will take another look. Racepacket (talk) 05:32, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bali Ultimate has put a lot of effort into removing the most obvious POV and synthesis, but it's still too big an article about too little. Maybe the matter is worth a section in Criticism of The New York Times, though. It's certainly less important to understanding the NYT than the Judith Miller story or other scandals. PhGustaf (talk) 05:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how this controversy is "certainly less important", but I agree that Criticism of The New York Times would be another potential landing place for this content.--Milowent (talk) 03:38, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.