News Sense: The Building Blocks of News
III. Gathering the News
Verify the facts using good sources and following solid leads. Verifying information means you should be employing all of the source types listed below.
A. Direct Observation: You are there at the scene, observing, listening, digesting, discerning, looking for details to help make the story fresh
B. Interviews: Good news stories fully identify people being quoted. They clearly attribute facts or quotes so readers can see where information comes from. Reporters double-check facts to be sure they are right.
1. Identify
2. Attribute
3. Double-check
C. Documents, Databases and other Primary Sources: Thousands of public documents are just within reach. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find what you need. Other times you have to fight for it.
-classes offered by the Investigative Reporters and Editors (www.IRE.org) can how you how to turn an ordinary home computer into a gold mine of public information
D. Leaders, Experts and Officials: They’re everywhere, offering up the official word on everything. Our challenge: to use them judiciously, not to overuse them at the expense of other sources.
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