Bloggers and journalists on how best to credit the work of other reporters
By Joe Ayres
It has become common practice for any story that runs online to hyperlink to the work of other journalists. The LJR asked digital news-media platforms; without ruining the readers experience, what is the best way to credit the work of other journalists?
Co-host, Politicoast Podcast
“We try to mention the story we’ve read, who wrote it, and what source it was in. So even just something as natural as saying, “I read this story by Justin McElroy, CBC,” and so forth. We also provide links to all the stories we reference in the show notes. So people can view that either on their podcast app or on the website and click through the original sources for most of our content.”
Editor in chief, DailyHive
“We won’t source anything without actually going out and getting it ourselves. To give an example, if you’re looking at Trudeau blackface brownface kind of thing where Time Magazine wrote it, everyone is going to be sourcing Time Magazine because that’s something nobody else could get. But if it’s something like a police incident or restaurant opening or an announcement of some kind or anything to do with a company if we’ve seen it reported somewhere else then we’re going to contact the organization, we’re going to have to confirm it ourselves.”
Managing editor, Vancouver is Awesome
“Well, I guess you would have to back up and assume you were making an appropriate choice in using other journalist’s work. So not using it gratuitously like some places where they don’t do any of their own interviewing or research and then they don’t credit sources, that’s problematic to begin with. But, if you mean grammatically, sentence wise, I take a very academic approach to it and just work it in, especially if it’s online, using hyperlinks and making it flow in the sentence structure.”
Editor-in-chief, HuffPost Canada
“Directly, clearly, and transparently, is the most direct answer. I don’t think crediting another journalist or another outlet ruins anyone’s experience. It’s very easy to incorporate it into the flow of a story and our own reporting. It really is not only serving our colleagues in the industry but it also serves the reader…Whenever we are sourcing another outlet or journalist our rule is that we say what outlet it’s from, we hyperlink it in a very easy to find way.”
For an infographic analysing how often publications source the work of other publications, click here.
Langara Journalism Review 