Sourcing question

It's much better to source your own newspaper. The reader trusts your newspaper, and by citing someone else's report, you're making it look as though you aren't the newspaper of record.

 

Is it a quote from the archived story? I've done something like,

"Johnson saved the day," Jackson told The Podunk Press after the game in 2001.

 

Source it. Another plus is that people's memories are flawed.

So if you can give specific examples from the Podunk Press back in the day, that's better than quoting Coach A as saying he remembers making 15 three-pointers in that 42-38 victory.

 

Is the writer of the original story still alive? Call him and quote him as a witness.

 

I'm certainly NOT going to cite the Podunk Press about a game my paper was at.

I will cite Podunk if it had information that would be really hard to track down on my own. Say your paper doesn't cover the same high school teams Podunk does and one of your area teams plays a Podunk team in the playoffs. If I'm working on a preview/advance of the game, the Podunk paper is probably gonna be pretty useful, especially if there is history mentioned that is not available on Podunk High's website or the state athletic association.

But if there's a good chance other media entitities were at that game (other paper covering other team, TV, radio and now web depending on how recent) or unless you are digging up an old verbatim quote, citing yourself seems wrong.

At least that's the way KYSportsWriter and I are told to do it at our shop in sports.

 

Citing yourself is the best option. You provide the news of record. If you don't, you are doing it wrong.

 

Exactly. You're trying to cite an observed detail that you yourself can't verify anywhere else — so the detail must be sourced.

If that detail turns out to be wrong ... and there's a very good chance, given the circumstances, it might be ... you don't want to just report it as fact without citing where you got the detail from. That's Reporting 101. Attribute, attribute, attribute.

 

I can see both sides of this argument, but I think it's silly to cite your own paper.

 

Why? How else can you verify the detail?

What if one coach calls you up after the story runs and says, "It never happened that way. Where'd you get that from?"

 

This is so true. I've done a lot of flashback stories and discovered people who played in the games had several facts wrong about it. It's interesting to see how memory plays tricks on people about some of the biggest events of their sporting lives.

 

Isn't it still possible you could get that SAME call -- cited or not?

 

No, it's not pompous at all.

It's 2012 Writer saying, "I wasn't around in 2002 and I can't tell you this happened for a fact; I can only rely on what was reported at the time, so here's where I got this detail that is interesting enough for me to include in my story 10 years later."