Should journalists always link to primary sources?
A writer for The Guardian argues that journalistic errors can be avoided by always linking to primary sources.
Last week, The Telegraph ran the headline, “Wind farms blamed for stranding of whales.” According to The Guardian, the open-access academic paper that the article referred to—and didn’t link to—covered sonar and didn’t mention wind farms at all.
“If we had a culture of linking to primary sources [such as interview transcripts, press releases or journal articles] if they were a click away, then any sensible journalist would be too embarrassed to see this article go online,” said author Ben Goldacre.
Do you link to primary sources in your articles?
Why or why not?
Do you think this practice helps prevent errors in journalism?
Photo by Marc Falardeau, Creative Commons Attribution License
I like to See Primary Link
Yes I like to see primary source link when read some news articles, as per my experience primary links improves the reader interest because many read like to see the source of information and on the basis of primary source they the percentage of believe will increase.
Yes, I do link to primary
Yes, I do link to primary links in my blogs, so would expect the same in news stories. More importantly, giving the direct link gives credibility to the news piece. Once I know what the reporter claims in his/her news report is true via the source, I have more reason to read that publication.
link journalism
it's called that for a reason, right? I mean, I'm not sure there's another side to this argument -- why wouldn't journalists add links? This sounds more like a provincial fight between two newspapers to me...
where are the editors?
Reading this, it makes me wonder where the editors are and whether the publications have rules about linking.
Most decent bloggers -- not necessarily journalists -- add a link somewhere to the primary source of their information, it only makes sense that online newspaper writers would do the same. If they don't and the editors don't check, then you have a problem.
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