Wikipedia:News coverage does not decrease notability

Every day, countless non-notable events with zero lasting impact attract the attention of the global media for a day or two.

When nominating an article that has received significant news coverage for deletion for violating WP:NOTNEWS, it is important to consider whether the article meets notability requirements. If the article fails the requirements, a deletion or merge is an appropriate response. However, if it does meet notability requirements, the article should not be nominated for deletion.

What is notnews?

In an average year, countless non-notable events with zero lasting impact attract the attention of the global media for a day or two. Unfortunately, this coverage creates thousands of sources from a variety of countries that can be used to create articles for the events. Notnews is a policy that exists to prevent the creation of non-notable articles about events that receive a single day of news coverage and ensure that event articles meet the general notability requirements.

What do notnews articles look like?

Notnews articles are nothing more than summaries of an event. Something happens and then everything is successfully resolved and forgotten. Nothing happens in reaction to the event, no one significant reacts, no changes occur and no impact is demonstrated. When determining if something is a notnews article, another sign is the sources: they will almost always occur within two days of each other. These articles do in fact violate the notnews policy, so they should be deleted, merged or redirected as appropriate.

When notnews does not apply

Most events that receive extended coverage, have an impact over a reasonably large area and otherwise meet notability requirements will be notable enough for an article. An article is not non-notable per notnews solely because it is about a current event, nor does news coverage about an article’s subject make it non-notable. To the contrary, news coverage can only serve to increase the notability of an article. The following is a list of generally notable subjects that should not be nominated for deletion per notnews.

Current events

Notnews does not prohibit the creation of articles about current events that receives extended and in-depth news coverage. If an event has some demonstrable effect or impact (such as political controversy, troop movements, economic changes, etc.) and otherwise meets Wikipedia's criteria for events, then it is almost certainly notable enough to warrant an article, even if most of the sources proving notability are news sources. Better sources can always be added to replace the news sources as they are released. Likewise, it is often not appropriate to avoid creating articles about clearly notable subjects until these better sources are available.

Sometimes the exact long-lasting impact of a current event in the news will not be apparent, but common sense dictates that there will be an impact. Examples of this include military invasions, major disasters and the deaths of major world leaders. In these cases, deletion is counter-productive as the subject will almost certainly become notable (often days after the article is deleted). Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, so there is no reason to delete articles that will need to be recreated in the near future. Remember, most notable events were in fact news at one point in time.

Articles that read like news reports

Many articles about notable current events will give a blow-by-blow account about every single update to an ongoing event. Articles should not in fact read like news reports per notability requirements for events and the notnews policy, but it is nearly impossible to prevent this from occurring short of locking a page. Fortunately, this is a problem that can be fixed by editing, so deletion is generally not necessary. Generally, it is best to wait until an event is resolved and interest in it dies down, at which point a small group of editors should go back and edit the event’s article so it is more encyclopedic.

The "reads-like-a-newspaper" issue can be particularly problematic on timelines of events (which should generally be split off from the main article about the event when the article becomes too large to comfortably read). The timeline articles will often have hour by hour updates of ongoing events, as confirmed by frequent news updates. So long as the subject article is too large for a comfortable merge, these timelines should stay. However, the timelines should still receive a clean-up after interest in the event dies down and the event can be examined with some level of hindsight.

Otherwise notable articles that go through a notnews event

Many notable people, places and organizations become involved in an event that receives a day or two of media coverage. This event is not enough to establish notability per notnews. However, if the article’s subject is already notable, then the article should not be deleted as its notability was not decreased by the news coverage. To the contrary, sometimes a notnews event will justify the creation of a sub-section on a subject's page (assuming that the notnews event does not consist of routine coverage or non-encyclopedic sensationalism).

This section also applies to articles that are created when the article's subject is receiving its coverage for a notnews event. So long as the subject is actually notable, it does not matter when its article is created.