This appears to have moved on from undermining the validity of the singers reputations as 'tradition bearers' to attacking the work carried out by 'revival' collectors
I have noted in other arguments that the trend in today's research scholarship has become largely based on tearing down the work of pioneers and replacing it with modern paper-chasing
This began seriously with the publication of David Harker's somewhat depressingly distasteful 'Fakelore', a sort of 'assassin's handbook' which was dedicated to 'taking out' all the earlier collectors by taking their work out of the contexts of the times they were living in - giants like Child, Sharp, Kidson, Broadwood.... whose work was based on face-to-face conversations with the singers
The attention now seems to have switched to modern collectors like Reg Hall, Mike Yates, Roy Palmer, Bob Thomson and Pat and I (must remember to get the locks changed)

I've never been part of the academic side of folk song - I found it far too Ivory Towerish and self absorbed - a club that had evolved its own language to keep outsiders out
I have always believed that one of the greatest gaps in our knowledge of folk music and song is the absence of the voices of the singers and musicians down the ages who gave us our songs and music - and a lifetime of enjoyment
The revivalist collectors have, to some small degree, managed to fill part of that gap   
Reg Hall, melodeon, fiddle and piano player and dancer, spent many, many hours talking to the older generations of folk musicians and singers in London and elsewhere - he even helped set up a magazine based on what they had to say, 'Ethnic'
Mike Yates took the songs and voices of Travellers, Mary Ann Haynes, Jasper and Levi Smith, Joe Jones and great East Anglian, Walter Pardon.... and made their voices accessible to a wider audience
Roy Palmer, a member of the Grey Cock Folk Club, spent hours talking to Cecila Costello and George Dunn
One of the great experts on broadsides, a giant we lost to the US, Bob Thomson, caught Harry Cox's last years on tape and interviewed singers from North Norfolk and Cambridgeshire adding vastly to our knowledge and enjoyment of folk song - Bob first appeared on the scene singing folk songs with his friend, Mike Herring

I don't know if Newcastle University based Matthew Ord ever met a traditional singer or ever sang a song, but somehow I doubt it
Jim Carroll