Exam 9: Using Quotations and Sources in News Stories

Whenever possible, lead a speech story with a direct quotation because it is rare that an indirect quotation summary lead can adequately capsulize what was said in the speech.

When covering a speech or a news conference, concentrate on reporting what the speaker said and don't be distracted by side issues such as audience reaction or anything unusual.

Begin a new paragraph every time you change speakers.

The essence of journalism is the trust readers have that what they are reading, seeing or hearing in your writing is the truth. You must honor that trust if you want to have resspect as a journalist.

Differentiate between an indirect quote and a summary statement quote:

What are two drawbacks of Q&A interviews?

How is the concept/quote format used in writing speech stories?

How is the interview story structured? What information is included?

How do you decide what should be quoted directly, indirectly or not at all?

An essential problem in writing any news story is finding a way to present statements that people make and documents supply.

Survey stories are easy to write because the science of measuring public opinion is now so precise. Thus, surveys represent absolute truth, unlike the momentary snapshots provided by surveys years ago.

Information quoted from documents uses the standard "said" or "according to."

The he/she said speech tag, while somewhat boring because it is used repetitively, enables readers to focus on the content of the quoted material rather than its attribution.

Experienced news sources have learned to be particularly careful about what they say during a journalistic interview because they know reporters are not forgiving of grammatical slips of the tongue or misstatements of facts.

Generally, the preferred attribution in print journalism is the present tense he/she says, because it gives immediacy to the story. In broadcasting, attribution is in the past tense he/she said since it is obvious the event has already taken place.

Common knowledge is information your readers could find in a number of general sources because it is commonly known.

The speech coverage story is one of the easiest to write because it is told chronologically.

In assembling a news story, you're editing as well as writing. Thus, it is permissible to reorder phrases or sentences so that they better reflect what the speaker said, even though it may not have been said them exactly that way.

One advantage of using direct quotes is that they eliminate the possibility of you or your newspaper being sued for libel.

While anything that appears in quotation marks should ideally be word for word what the person said, it's all right to clean up grammar or tighten the phrasing a bit to make the quotation "read better."