Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Big Three news anchors

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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. If the sources make the article as viable as the keepist says, then my all means he can recreate the article. Wizardman 01:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Big Three news anchors

Big Three news anchors (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Surprisingly, this phrase gets just 26 non-wiki ghits and no hits on google news. Certainly, each of the anchors is notable individually, but I'm not finding refs for this particular concept. Prod was contested. Fabrictramp (talk) 14:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete in my view, if the Chancellor/Cronkite/??? era isn't mentioned, the article isn't worth keeping. ArcAngel (talk) 17:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I follow this reasoning for deletion. Could you explain why failing to mention the Cronkite et al era means the article should be deleted? BuddingJournalist 18:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I have to agree with Budding Journalist here. This sounds like a reason to expand the article, not to delete.--Fabrictramp (talk) 18:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Well, the reason I contested the prod is because the phrase is widely used in the American journalism community, and almost always in reference to either "Brokaw/Jennings/Rather" (before that era, there was no real "big three") or nowadays "Couric/Gibson/Williams". It's evolved into a standard phrase for the three nightly news anchors of ABC/NBC/CBS. It's definitely notable and certainly not OR. Reliable sources are aplenty (for example, this suggests there are far more than 26 non-wiki ghits; there are plenty of results for the phrase in LexisNexis, and the various books written about the Brokaw/Jennings/Rather era all use some variation of that phrase). That said, I'm not sure if the article will be able to do much more than a dict. def. I'll give a go and see if I can make it more encyclopedic though. BuddingJournalist 17:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Certainly the concept is valid, the name aside. There was a 15-or-so-year period where all three US broadcast networks had a "star" anchor. (Doc, neither of those names was an anchor. Sawyer was considered but did not get the job, IIRC.) But this is probably better discussed in news anchor or television in the United States. --Dhartung | Talk 18:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, no I completely understand. I just wasn't sure what nightly newscasts were we talking about here: the ABC/NBC/CBS news after the local news or newsmagazines like Dateline and 60 Minutes. It didn't go into things and didn't source any of its claims, and besides this information could be covered and expanded in other articles (the ones for the newscasters themselves, the programs, the channels, etc.) Doc StrangeMailboxLogbook 13:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete as inherently redundant with several other articles. Anything that might be covered here could be covered far better elsewhere (in the articles about the news programs.) WillOakland (talk) 02:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - if it is not original research (a Wikipedia no-no), it is either a POV fork or a synthesis (two more no-nos). There seems to be no source indicating "Big Three news anchors" and any definition of the term, explicit or implied. B.Wind (talk) 04:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. The nominator is mistaken and undoubtedly forgot to check the Google News archives when searching for the phrase: There are 21 hits for the phrase in the archives. But "Big Three anchors" gets even more hits: 142 in the archives. Searching for the phrase "Big Three" with all the words "Jennings", "Rather", and "Brokaw" brings up 610 hits, though this conflates instances of the phrase "Big Three" referring to the news anchors themselves with references to the news anchors of the "Big Three television networks". Nevertheless, there is no shortage of reliable sources for the phrase "Big Three" referring to the anchors themselves: The New York Times: "this was the most traveling that the Big Three news anchors had done since the summer of 1997"; The New York Daily News: "The Big Three news anchors are heading to Oklahoma City"; The Washington Post: "Jennings, Rather and Brokaw once dominated the media landscape ... the Big Three anchors were well-established figures"; USA Today: "Jennings was the last of the Big Three anchors in an era of shrinking broadcast audiences"; The Orlando Sentinel: "The big three anchors are well out of the 18-to-49 demographic so dear to advertisers"; Broadcasting & Cable: "ABC's Peter Jennings will be 64 this year, and Dan Rather will be 72. But last week it was the youngest of the Big-Three anchors, Tom Brokaw, at a sprightly 62, who announced plans to ... make way for Brian Williams, just 43, to take over as the face of NBC News"; The New York Times again: "CNN and Court TV, those loyal chroniclers, were upstaged by the Big Three: Jennings, Rather, Brokaw"; and again: "And in contrast to the so-called 'Big Three' — Mr. Brokaw, Mr. Jennings and Dan Rather of CBS, who began their anchor careers in earnest in the early 1980's with little other competition..." Sure, the article needs to be improved but with this many sources there should be no doubt as to notability. DHowell (talk) 23:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment. In addition to news articles, there is at least one book that is entirely and exclusively about the "Big Three" news anchors: Anchors: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and the Evening News. I'm not sure whether it uses the phrase or not, as none of the book's contents are viewable online, but a Google Book search brings up this book and a few more with significant coverage. DHowell (talk) 00:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Question. Have you bothered to put any of this myriad of sources in this two sentence article? That's where they belong... not here. Make sure that one of those sources actually has a definition of the term as the article presents it. Don't forget that the actual title of the article is Big Three (news anchors), not Big Three news anchors - that does make a difference (the latter is a redirect page). B.Wind (talk) 02:39, 29 April 2008 (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.