When reporting news about an event that has taken place it is crucial to have pieces of information relating to the story continually validated. Sources that provide journalists with the context material for their piece also help establish a belief from readers in what is being written. However, at times reporters will craft stories around only small parts of sources or will merely refer to a resource rather than accessing the full potential of roots of information. Articles in the Guardian, New York Times, and the Washington Post all require sources to back up the content of the stories. Although, the writers for each these three papers obtain roots for the information in news pieces, different correspondents have unique ways of utilizing sources.
Charlie Savage wrote, "Even Those Cleared of Crimes Can Stay on F.B.I's Watch List," for the New York Times. Savage reports on how official government documentation states that even acquitted terrorists will always hold a place on the F.B.I's watch list for active terror threats. Within the lede of the online article a direct link to the F.B.I. document is included. By directly allowing readers to view the primary source for the articles context, Savage has given readers the opportunity to interpret the main root of the piece for themselves. Savage dissects the contents of the document in his report by appropriating information that has other sources and people reacting in response to specific rules and regulations presented in the testimony. One of the interpreters of the document includes Timothy J. Healy, the head of the F.B.I.'s Terrorist Screening Center. Healy is quoted as stating that the FBI has a detailed based method for choosing who will be put onto the watch list. However, when Savage provides direct information directly from the document which shows that, "reasonable suspicion," from an accused terrorist or non citizen is enough to put a person on a watch lists, it allows readers make their own sense of officially stated information rather than relying on one of the creators of the document being scrutinized.
In Owen Bowcott's, "Palestinian activist wins compensation over detention in UK," the imprisonment of Palestinian activists Shieikh Raed Salah is covered. Bowcott uses minimal direct references to a source at the start of the article and only recounts how Salah was arrested and moral sentiments surrounding the issue. The only direct statements in the piece are small segments of much longer longer accounts. The brief quotes were taken from Salah himself and statements from the home secretary and Border patrol officials and only used in the context of a paragraph to enhance the persuasiveness of the article. Bowcutt, took words such as, "not conductive to the public good," from the home secretary and " confined without lawful authority," and "false imprisonment," from Salah for the purpose of coating his own notions on the news with direct small bits of information from those who have created the news and were affected by it. This use of sources is effective for the purpose of having those involved with the news help enhance notions that the writers is suggesting about how the British government deals with whom they perceive as threats.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/30/palestinian-activist-compensation-detention-uk
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/us/even-those-cleared-of-crimes-can-stay-on-fbis-terrorist-watch-list.html?_r=1&hp
Some good points here - i especially like your point right at the top that reporters use sources to validate their points. That exactly the way to think about it.
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