Wikipedia:Peer review/Nick Robinson/archive1

Nick Robinson

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I'm looking to turn this into a Good Article, so I'd appreciate any feedback.

Thanks, Aiken ♫ 15:38, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Sarastro1
General

• Lots of sentences start with "In XXXX," or with "Robinson". It would be better to have some more variety.
• Many details are sparse in the article, and it needs quite a lot of expansion: there are several very short sections and short paragraphs.
• Refs seem fine except ref 8 is a dead link and 11 and 19 are redirects.

Early life

• Why is the Bullingdon Club notorious?
• The crash needs a reference and some more details would be good.
• "severely burned" seems to be a quote, so it needs attribution.
• "Brian Redhead later encouraged Robinson's career in political journalism, giving him a copy of Tony Benn's Arguments for Socialism for his birthday.[1]": I'm not too sure that this is important enough to include.
• "however, in an interview with David Rowan, the UK editor of Wired News, he insisted "that his involvement (with the Conservatives) ceased 20 years ago"." When did he give this interview? It may be better to simply state that he later said he ended his involvement in XXXX.

Early career

• Is there no better word than "gofer" (even though it's linked)?
• Could his role be expanded further: what would he have done as producer or deputy editor?
• "he wrote an internal BBC memorandum suggesting lines of defence over an interview with Prime Minister John Major": What does this mean? What are "lines of defence" in this context?
• "who perceived it as the legitimised denial of equal time in the run up to local elections" Ditto: what is the context here, it needs some background and Robinson's role needs spelling out more.

In front of the camera

• Given that some of this is on the radio, is the heading not misleading?
• Again, could his role be spelt out? What did he do as political correspondent? What did he do when he covered the election?
• Is the blog important enough to include here? Any references to it being influential or widely read?

ITN political editor

• Three years are covered by two sentences. Are there no more details, for example press comments on his performance or reputation? I think this needs much more coverage.
• "caused a major stir": This is POV if not referenced. As it reads, it sounds like Blair was attacked by journalists, of whom Robinson was just one. Is there any detail on his specific role?

Return to the BBC

• No details about his job, role, reputation or performance here. There is too much trivia and just a list of unrelated facts.
• There are seven sentences about his encounters with Bush which seems extreme given the amount written about his actual jobs.
• The information reads as a selection of anecdotes, which is not encyclopedic.

Criticism

• Not sure how relevant this is. It is not criticism of Robinson himself, and if merely there to give his views, it does not need it's own section.

Personal life

• "However" is not necessary here. And "sails and enjoys the theatre" is simply likes and dislikes which does not seem important.
• This is very short and needs expanding. It should be merged with another paragraph if there is no more info. --Sarastro1 (talk) 10:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! I've edited the article quite a bit. Some of your suggestions I have implemented, some I haven't as I don't really agree. One point you have raised is lack of detail - the issue here is that none of the references I have go into that much detail on his early career. It can probably be safely assumed he did what all producers do, and produced programmes without much issue - other than the Panorama incident.

Re. the personal life section: you've stated some bits don't seem important, and yet you think it's too short. There's only so much personal life information out there. Let's face it - he's famous in Britain, but not really anywhere else. He's not a famous actor, he's just a TV journalist. As for merging, I don't know what section they should be merged into - they don't really fit anywhere. Bye for now. Aiken ♫ 18:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)