
Why don’t journalists link to primary sources? - baha_man
http://www.badscience.net/2011/03/why-dont-journalists-link-to-primary-sources/
======
mixmax
Because journalists don't read primary sources. More often than not they're
not even aware of them.

Here's the problem: Almost all media outlets are in crisis mode so they're
cutting down on their staff, meaning that a smaller number of journalists have
to write the same amount of stories as before to fill the paper (or website).
There simply isn't time for proper research if you have to write five articles
a day.

So many journalists resort to "borrowing" from other news sources, which in
turn often have borrowed their article from somewhere else. An article may
start as a published paper in Nature,which is then reported in popular
science, which is then reported by Reuters, which is then reported in The
Times, which is then reported in The Daily Mail.

By the time it reaches The Daily Mail it's been through so many filters of
busy journalists that the meaning has often become distorted. The journalist
from the Daily Mail has no idea that there even is a primary source.

~~~
justinph
That is a pretty sweeping generalization. I work for a public radio station.
Our journalists routinely interview primary sources, sometimes live on the
air. We also transcribe those interviews and put them on the web. We've also
been increasing the size of our news staff, not decreasing. It's not all doom
and gloom, it just depends on the medium and the revenue model.

~~~
tokenadult
_Our journalists routinely interview primary sources_

That would be good journalistic practice, but that is not what Ben Goldacre is
talking about in the blog post submitted here on HN. He is talking about news
stories that purport to report on the result of a research study and what he
is looking for is a citation (or a link, as appropriate to the journalistic
medium) to the published research study. Not doing that doesn't pass the smell
test for Goldacre.

[http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/if-you-dont-link-to-
primary...](http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/if-you-dont-link-to-primary-
sources-you-are-d)

Of course, even if the published study is cited, it still has to be examined
carefully,

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

but there is no reason to hide the published study from the consumer of the
journalistic report. You are referring to persons as "sources," the same way I
did when I was a journalist, while Goldacre is referring to publications as
sources.

~~~
krakensden
If they interviewed one of the scientists whose name was on the paper,
wouldn't that count?

Also, it's hard to publish links on the radio.

Finally, I think you missed his point- not all news organizations are going
the tabloid route.

~~~
tokenadult
_If they interviewed one of the scientists whose name was on the paper,
wouldn't that count?_

My answer, as a former journalist, is that whether or not that would count
would depend on how well the reporter prepared for the interview. Good
preparation for an interview of a scientist who just published a news-making
paper would be reading the paper before the interview.

It's just as easy to cite papers on the radio as in print to make the paper
findable, by saying something along the lines of "a paper by A. Smith and B.
Jones published in the 1 April 2001 issue of Science." That's not a complete
citation format, but Goldacre's complaint in the blog post submitted here is
about mentions of papers where perhaps an author was mentioned, and perhaps a
journal title was mentioned, but the date of the paper was not mentioned, and
a link to the paper found in a press release was not reproduced in the online
version of a print publication that often carries links to other online
content.

After edit: I agree with you that you are responding to an exaggeration in a
comment to the submitted article, with an example of a news organization that
does better at fact-checking than the news organizations mentioned in the
submitted link, and I too think there are happy exceptions to the tendency in
some places for journalism not to cite published research. Here's wishing for
more journalism to emulate the best current examples of careful research and
meticulous citation of sources.

------
jashkenas
This is changing. Many journalists would _love_ to share and link to their
primary source documents, but don't have an easy-enough way to do it.

At DocumentCloud, we're trying to change that. Here is a list of newsrooms
that use DocumentCloud to share their sources -- you'll notice most of the
usual suspects in there:

<http://www.documentcloud.org/public/#search/>

Here's a good example of a major 5-part story that cites its sources heavily.
Take a look at the source documents page, and try reading one of the articles,
and clicking on the links:

<http://www.lasvegassun.com/hospital-care/>

~~~
elehack
Is part of the problem that a lot of professional media is from a print-
oriented perspective, so that in the journalistic/editing mindset and initial
target medium hyperlinking isn't possible?

~~~
kleinmatic
Really, it's that publishing at the scale of a big paper requires separation
of responsibilities. The workflow hasn't caught up to the new medium -- and
neither has the publishing software. Newspapers are notoriously slow to adopt
new tools. The New York Times was composed using linotype machines until 1978
-- about 20 years late -- and when I worked there in the late 1990s the
pagination system (essentially, the CMS) was a green screen application
running on a few rows of PDP-11s.

------
motters
I think one of the main reasons may be that a lot of what appears to be
journalism actually isn't - it's press releases from various companies and
organisations, known as "churnalism". It's surprisingly easy to find
churnalism, even in what appear to be fairly authoritative news sources (see
churnalism.com). If journalists routinely cited their sources they would have
to admit that often large sections have been copied verbatim from the public
relations output of companies.

~~~
halostatue
But the point of the article was that in at least one of the three stories
mentioned, the journalists appear not to have even read the _press release_
for the study in question.

~~~
dspeyer
Journalist are probably even less inclined to be caught doing that.

------
rnadna
In the sciences, most of the _primary_ sources are closed, and so linking
wouldn't be too helpful. The material also tends to be so technical that only
experts in the field can read it.

As for that class of _secondary_ sources (e.g. review articles and editorials)
that is provided for free in a dumbed-down form, then, yes, journalists should
provide links.

A custom of providing links would be very helpful in the "chat about science"
writing industry, so much of which is based on opinion and political view.

~~~
jackvalentine
But would it really be that difficult to give me the citation so I can look up
the paper in my university's database, or pay for it online if I'm that
interested? A proper citation instead of "scientists from the university of
blah" is still an improvement.

~~~
bluekeybox
Absolutely. For someone interested enough to read a 10-page scientific article
to verify a reported fact, $30 fee is usually not a big deal (plus the 5-10%
of the population who are in the universities can get it for free). I am
surprised the science journals themselves are not pushing for this.

------
yaix
The article gives the answer: because quite often it would just be embarrasing
for the "journalist". So many stories get blown up/made bigger then they
actually are, to get more clicks/readers for the story.

~~~
lloeki
I think it goes even deeper than that, even for non-distorted stories the
whole news industry seems to bend backwards to prove they have an added value
up to the point of making itself perceived as being the source. Adding a link
to the source reveals they're just part of the echo chamber.

I sincerely hope this culture of linking to sources, first spurred outside of
research to the general public by Wikipedia and its need for credibility, and
then even more fueled by microblogging habits triggers a revolution in news
outlets, bringing them back towards true journalism.

------
rwmj
Most likely the reason is simple: Journalists[1] are not digital natives. They
don't understand or "get" the web. The tools they use don't understand very
much beyond print and make linking cumbersome.

[1] and obviously here I'm using a very broad brush -- Ben Goldacre is a good
example of a young doctor / writer who really gets the web and there are quite
a few others.

~~~
randlet
The web has very little to do with this in my mind (other than making it even
easier to link to sources). References to primary sources should be included
whether the article is in digital or print form.

Poor science reporting may be worse these days than ever, but it is not unique
to online content.

------
DanielBMarkham
In theory, journalists have jobs that are about _synthesis_ , not information.
You read the story about the local town council meeting mainly because it is
entertaining and engaging, not because it's a summary of the meeting notes.

That's a very difficult thing for technical people to grasp. Sometimes I think
we view everything online as various versions of wikipedia, and it's not like
that at all.

In practice, sure, they do a bad job many times. Sometimes they just copy and
paste Press Releases. Many times they bungle a quote (Although most quotes are
problematic to use verbatim. People don't talk in real life like they do in
movies and books) But reporting is an _art_ , not an algorithm. Reporters and
editors are supposed to be very good at taking multiple sources, including the
reporters own generated research, and mashing it together into something
greater than the sum of the parts.

I don't have an opinion one way or the other about linking to primary sources.
If I had to choose I guess I'd like for them always to be included. But the
idea that somehow it's going to make a big difference doesn't add up for me.
For researchers, sure. But not for the average reader.

~~~
anamax
> Reporters and editors are supposed to be very good at taking multiple
> sources, including the reporters own generated research, and mashing it
> together into something greater than the sum of the parts.

Can you give some examples of "reporters own generated research"?

The only one that comes to mind is Arthur Carlson's "As God is my witness, I
thought turkeys could fly."

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Great line, and still memorable after many years.

An interview is research. As is looking for a good picture, or finding obscure
facts in various offline sources.

------
Rhapso
This. This is why I do not read newspapers or most non-academic journalism. I
have taken journalism courses at grade school, high school, and college levels
and they ALL cover the idea of finding and citing primary and secondary
sources and that all other sources are dubious, yet somehow once you get a
degree in journalism this entire idea goes out the window!

------
Semiapies
Because most "science" reporting is tossed-off shit. It's of no value to those
outlets to make it obvious how inaccurate (or alternately, copy-and-pastey)
their work is.

------
RomanH
There seems to be an unsatisfactory gray area between slack technology and
misguided editorial practice (assuming better guidelines help create more
substantial/enjoyable journalism).

With adequate tools for making the sourcing process as effortless as possible
(see Jeremy Ashkenas' and Scott Klein's comments) it ought to remain an
optional value-add for publishers: those who don't mind having their sourcing
restricted to press releases, effort-obscuring generalizations or PR-driven
3rd party referencing won't encourage technologies that would enable their
newsrooms leverage their in-house professionalism, regardless of its
potential.

Linking/referencing is fundamental to good, original content, whatever the
medium (see randlet's comment). If publishing software won't support easy
source accreditation (particularly in a web-focused, hyper-linking context),
journalists and editors are going to lose out - either by facing a 'keep my
job vs. best practices' drama or by becoming disillusioned with the chance of
success their organization has in maximizing the credibility of the staff
input going into evolving their brand itself.

Taking their access to low cost, more modern publishing tools as a given,
perhaps in more dynamic/educational reporting environments they should exploit
software with prompts - asking authors to confirm that their content is 100%
lacking of any derivative work, sources, or any mere cursory reference to any
other material/commentary out there. This might even help less experienced
journalists off-set some of the responsibility they have in bringing new ideas
to the attention of their demanding readers ('this is my article, but here's
some source curation for you, while I get my story straight'). Of course
software that assumes any kind of pedagogical role is just as likely to become
demonized by journalists who resent tools for their antiquated inefficiency.
There's a fine line.

Services like DocumentCloud are vital in all this. As ilamont points out,
there are also practical hurdles to overcome: even if you have the technology
and inclination towards sourcing best practices, if you're running an online
publication there's still the knee-jerk reaction to want to obscure your
primary source, in case it out-performs your own content and thereby
undermines your credibility. That's a question of quality and self awareness,
though. The credibility loop will eventually hit your property, one way or the
other.

------
asanwal
We've been told by some news sources that have used our data/research that
"they don't link out" as a policy. As a matter of our own policy, we are less
willing to help them in the future and have indicated as such.

That said, we usually followup with journalists and ask for a link and most
usually don't have an issue with providing it until their editor overseers
ixnay the idea.

I think it's often less about malicious intent than being clueless about the
"link economy".

------
beatpanda
This isn't a new observation, and as a few people have pointed out in this
thread, some of the more digitally-aware news organizations are working on
this problem actively.

The Knight News Challenge gave out grants this year for people to tackle the
problem of verification and trust in online news, and I met someone from
Mother Jones who was working on a system for documenting primary sources.

I also gave a talk last year proposing a standards-based solution for this at
a journalism/tech conference in Philadelphia. My thoughts about it are here:
[http://beatpanda.co.cc/blog/2011/01/31/show-your-work-
fillin...](http://beatpanda.co.cc/blog/2011/01/31/show-your-work-filling-in-
the-holes-in-online-news-reporting/)

More importantly though, I'm seeing a lot of potential customers for
disruptive news startups right here in this thread.

Look at how many people don't trust the media. The challenge, if you want to
make paying customers out of these doubters, is to not only deliver the news,
but to give people a reason to trust what you're saying.

Journalists showing their work would be a good first step towards that.

------
jrwoodruff
Honestly I think this has as much to do with the process of news publishing
and the systems and software they have in place to manage it.

I worked at a newspaper for 5 years, and their editorial system - this would
be the software that reporters write their stories in, editors edit the
stories in and proof readers and copy editors lay out pages in, not to mention
ad placement, classified pagination and much more - was pushing 10 years old
when I started. It wasn't integrated with the website content management
system. It was slow, outdated and very annoying.

But it worked, everyone new how to use it, and we knew that we would be able
to publish multiple publications every day, 365 days a year. The fact that the
system wasn't fully integrated with the CMS meant it was difficult to add
links to stories, usually requiring going into the CMS and hand-coding links,
after waiting for the publishing scripts to grab the story and post it, a
process which could take up to 30 minutes, depending. Typically an online
editor or copy editor, far removed from the research and work the reporter had
done, would manage this for the entire website, since it makes more sense for
the reporter to be out on the street doing actual reporting.

So the 'simple' task of adding a link isn't as simple as it seems when placed
in the context of a fast moving newsroom. Typically the battle isn't "why
isn't there a link to that source document?" but rather "what do you mean you
can't get anybody to speak on the record" or "we need a story for the 1A
centerpiece now."

And then the next day the same battles start all over again, the process
repeats and another newspaper is printed. It's difficult to change the process
because the process is so critical to meeting print deadlines to be able to
deliver papers on time.

To add to this, newsrooms are getting cut down at the same time they have to
do more. My newsroom once had ~60 people at a time when all they did was print
the paper. When I left, it was about half that size and we were posting
regular online updates, tweeting, linking to stories from facebook, monitoring
comments online, posting photo galleries, shooting video and creating
interactive flash presentations on top of it all.

So, yea, if the reporter has time, he reads the report. If it's a story about
calf length, it's more likely he'll skim it to be able to bang out a space-
filling (or traffic driving) story. And since it's a light human interest
story, and not something that's likely to get the paper sued, it gets a quick
once-over proofread, then posted to the internet ASAP, then printed, and
everyone is on to the next big story to feed daily monster that is daily
publishing.

I still think some of these organizations will get there. The New York Times
is leading the pack, but the slower publishers will take awhile to replace
their antiquated systems and change the daily process that has been refined
and perfected since the dawn of the printing press. Of the ones that don't,
new organizations that can manage the digital realm will replace them.

~~~
mechazoidal
Did you work at the same place I do now(small-town paper in the Pacific NW)?
Being the sole developer there, I can absolutely confirm this. And since I was
hired to write the website CMS, most of my days resemble the assembly line
segment from Chaplin's Modern Times.

~~~
jrwoodruff
Nope, but I did work at several small papers and one mid-size paper. They all
had pretty much the same working environment :)

------
ilamont
If you asked most reporters whether they used primary sources, they would say
yes, and point to the interviews that they conduct.

But if you were to point out that primary sources also includes published
research, almost to a man or woman they would say A) they don't have the time
to read it B) they don't have access to the journals or C) they are not aware
the research exists. A few might concede D) even if they had access, they
wouldn't be able to understand the research, which points to the fact that
most journalists didn't major in science/technology in college and academic
writing can be difficult to penetrate.

Of the above factors, I think C presents an opportunity for academics and
startup publishers. On the academic side, it's pretty clear that the
traditional method of reaching out to reporters via press releases and
personal contacts is becoming less viable as newsrooms cut staff and the
remaining writers have less time to network/talk with sources (travel budgets
to attend conferences are very restricted these days) and write up stories
based on those encounters.

Some researchers have seized upon blogging as a great way to not only reach
their peers, but also a wider audience, and of course, other media (including
journalists, specialist blogs, etc.). Group blogs written by researchers and
experts are another great way to highlight new research and discuss ideas,
too. Terra Nova ( <http://terranova.blogs.com/> ) is one example focused on
virtual worlds; I am sure the audience here knows of many others.

But the problem with individual and group blogs is they are still largely
unknown outside of a relatively small group of people. In order to make a mass
audience connection, there needs to be a way for these ideas to be presented
in newspapers and television reports (which is how many people still learn
about the world around them), or on media websites.

An arrangement to republish blog content or for the blog authors to prepare
easy-to-understand summary reports for a mass media audience are
possibilities, but the processes and incentives need to be worked out --
preferably in a way that takes the load off of editors, who don't have the
time to find the right bloggers and deal with the freelance contracts and
payment issues. One startup idea would be to create a "marketplace" to match
publishers who are seeking an informed report about a specific scientific
topic (for instance, how a boiled water reactor works). Another avenue for a
startup would be to set up a "science wire service" which prepares timely,
relevant coverage (including blogs, video, and features) about new research
and developments every day. Media companies could subscribe to the service and
editors could browse the service and use as much as they like, just as they do
with Reuters, Bloomberg, AP, etc.

As for the specific issue of not including links, this partly relates to the
awareness and access issues mentioned above, but also to the fact that content
management systems used at many newspapers and magazines are optimized for
print publishing, not online publishing. Inserting links typically has to be
done _after_ the article has been written, often by different editors or
producers who know how to use Wordpress/Drupal/homegrown tools. I think
there's a startup opportunity here as well, but unfortunately it also requires
a rethinking of newsroom processes and control.

~~~
TrevorFancher
> Some researchers have seized upon blogging as a great way to ... reach their
> peers ... I am sure the audience here knows of many ...

Will the audience with such knowledge kindly enlighten the rest of us?

~~~
naa42
Theoretical/mathematical physics: Not Even Wrong
<http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/>

The reference frame <http://motls.blogspot.com/> (not only physics, but also
climate change)

Collective blog on mathematics and mathematical physics: n-Category cafe
<http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/>

------
danielhfrank
Frank Rich (of the NYTimes, although he's moving to NY Mag) has always been
great about linking to sources. Not always necessarily a primary source, but
for an op-ed writer it makes a huge difference to show that you can back up
your claims. Or at least that your sources think they can

