The folk process works fine.

If authentic means sounding like A L Lloyd or McColl cupping your finger in your ear... I put it to you that when Dave Burland many years ago sang The Boomtown Rats "I dont like Mondays" he started a huge debate by saying it ticked every box for a folk song, including being written by an Irish dude with an attitude and describing a high profile event the other side of the pond. The only difference between that and The Ballad of Springhill being err....

If I write a song about wanting to shag someone I have a crush on and sing it in a folk club, or write a song about the demise of steelworks in Scunthorpe and sing it in a working mens club, are either folk songs?

I reckon they both are, but thats because a) folk is a genre and b) I wasn't around to vote in 1954 so can dismiss it. Nobody owns the genre. Nobody at all.

If I sing a song in a folk club and people clap, then I can assume it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.