Official News page 3

THE SOURCE OF THE SOURCE

by Hazed

You may have noticed that I have recently introduced something new to the real life news stories in the Fed2 Star - I have started to put a link to the source for my story, the original news article from which I took the facts.

The reason for this new inclusion is perfectly summed up in this article about how journalists hardly ever point to the source of their stories, and why this is a problem - particularly for health or science stories: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/19/bad-science-ben-goldacre. It explains that linking to the original source allows readers to get more information if they choose, to check the facts behind the news story, and to tell if the journalist has made a mistake, misinterpreted or exaggerated the facts, or just plain made stuff up.

Which, of course, is why it is not common practice to include links to the source! No journo wants to make it easy for the readers to figure out he's telling lies.

Now, I never make up real life news stories. I reinterpret them, rewrite them into my own words, put my own spin on them, draw my own conclusions, compact them into something briefer or extract just the parts that I think are interesting. In the process, sometimes I do get things wrong, but now that I point you to my source you can always check if you think something I write sounds a bit odd.

If only all journalists would do the same!

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