Why on earth did you put "article" in quotes. Are you questioning whether it is, in fact, an article? Because that seems quite self-evident.
You might disagree with it but be assured TFA is, in fact, an article and putting the word in quotes just makes it look like you don't know what quotes are for. Hint: quoting.
Nowadays anyone can post an article on the internet. That’s great. But because of this, the definition of “article” has become basically meaningless. An article could be entirely fact based, full of falsehoods, or misrepresent facts by mixing them with opinions. There really should be a distinction between different levels of reporting. Most of the problems cropping up these past two years can be traced to the fact that people put the same credibility in a piece by some random person on the internet as they do in one by a career journalist.
Citation needed.
Have you missed the whole “fake news” fiasco? People will upvote and share any article that reinforces their existing beliefs and world view. Rather than approaching articles with a healthy skepticism and critical thinking, many people are consuming content based on what “team” the author seems to be advocating for. Instead of asking questions like, “what is the author’s agenda?” or “does this author have a track record of reliability?”, people are asking “does this author believe the same things I do?” If the answer to that is “yes,” then not even a follow-up article from a Pulitzer Prize winner will be sufficient to discredit it for many people.
People do that with accredited news already. For example, in communist circles there is some groups that believe that no matter what, everything that Stalin did was justified. They will bring up no amount of obscure scholars, and disregard large amounts of citations from modern scholars and new evidence to protect this world view. The same goes for any world view. Look at all the people hoping against all evidence that bitcoin is a fad.
Ultimately, people will do this no matter what quality of the evidence presented is (aside from one or two people who decide that they like X news source, there is a chance they will reverse with a citation from that news source, but no other, even if the quality of the evidence is the same). 'Fake news' existed long before it came to that name.
Which is really a response to how unbalanced the US political process has become. When the facts disagree with your point of view, ignore them. -> Reality now seems biased.
On "article" though it's inappropriate. The other comment notwithstanding, an article is an article, no matter if it's written by a journalist, an amateur, or a monkey banging its head on a keyboard. There is zero credibility implied by the word.
Example:
> The "food" from that restaurant was awful
Correct usage. You are (humorously, snarkily) questioning that what you received was food at all.
> The food from that "restaurant" was awful
Incorrect. No matter what you thought of the food, the fact is that it is a restaurant (ie, a place that dispenses food, with no consideration of quality implied). This usage betrays a lack of sophistication and should be avoided.
An article is an article is an article. What is it if it's not an article? Imaginary? It just doesn't work.
> The "food" from that restaurant was awful
Incorrect. No matter what you thought of the food, the fact is that it is food (ie, something that can be digested as a source of nutrition). This usage betrays a lack of sophistication and should be avoided.
> The food from that "restaurant" was awful
Correct usage. You are (humorously, snarkily) questioning if the establishment you visited qualifies as a restaurant.
If one thinks of a restaurant as a business that accepts money to serve you food then the comparison is the same. No matter what you thought of the restaurant, the fact is they took your money and served you food.
I would personally never use the first usage as it's kind of lazy and déclassé. But it is at least valid.
The second usage is invalid. If you think otherwise be aware you are speaking non-standard English and others, like me, will notice it.
Some of the worst and most inaccurate articles I've ever seen have been written by career journalists. (Admittedly I live in the UK where the majority of newspapers are on a par with Infowars for honesty and fact checking. Maybe you live somewhere where professional journalism is more respectable).
> It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. They will shoot you in the back for walking away.
This is drawing a false equivalence by assuming the actions of a subgroup represent the group as a whole. It’s no different than citing a few brutal murders from black people and then concluding with “this is black people. They will murder your children...”
No editor would ever allow a line like that to make it to publication. It’s needlessly provocative language that reveals the author’s bias and reduces the credibility of what might otherwise be a decent piece of writing.
I'm sorry, but have you ever read an actual newspaper other than the New York Times? That kind of thing makes it into newspapers with editors all the time. Hell, a lot of the time it's the editors writing it! [1]
[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/aishagani/muslim-and-jewish-groups-... to pick one of the more high profile recent examples from the UKs biggest selling newspaper, in a column written by a former editor