Attribution is just that: labeling form where we got information. Joe Smith said, according to a county document, police reports indicated, a study by this-and-that stated, etc. It's not just for quotes; it's for pretty much every paragraph that contains information.
Attribution is important. First, it's to let readers know how we know everything we know. That way, we are fully transparent in our reporting. There's no guessing as to how we know that.
Second, it's to build our credibility. Having no attribution makes our credibility questionable. Having attribution to a credible source makes our work more credible because readers can see where it's from and that it's a source that should know what's happening. And it makes it harder for someone to credibly claim we made something up.
Third, it's to keep us from getting lazy and cribbing from other news organizations. We should NOT be using the work of other news organizations in our work. We should be seeing how they got their info, and then going directly to those sources ourselves and getting the info first-hand. Aggregating what other news organizations and Web sites have is fine for a term paper, but journalists can't just copy other journalists. At some point, somebody has to do original work.
And original work is the habit we're trying to build here. Yes, as a professional journalist at times you can cite a competitor or an earlier story. Those journalists have built their credibility and can take a short cut on deadline every now and then. You are not that journalist yet. And a journalist who never leads to do their own reporting and takes such short cuts too frequently won't be a journalist for long. You're hired and fired based on YOUR ability to get your OWN information. Not a competitor's.
Fourth, it;'s for legal reasons. If we are sued for libel attribution gives us the opportunity to say we are citing someone else's words, and that we checked out those facts on our own. If we do not have attribution, in a legal sense IT MEANS WE ARE MAKING THAT CLAIM AND OWNING IT. We can't retroactively say, I got it from the Lansing State Journal or whatever. No attribution means it's YOUR statement and YOUR claim.
Fifth, there is a technical name for offering information gathered from another source (a new sarticle, a Web site) without attribution. And that is plagiarism. That is the literal definition of plagiarism. From the MSU J-School student conduct code:
Plagiarism occurs when you fail to attribute information,
passing it on as your own work.
If there is no attribution, you are officially saying it's info you got first-hand, by yourself. If you got it from another source, then you need to attribute. It doesn't matter if your citation is word-for-word or not; if you only know that MSU dorm cafeterias are open from noon to midnight because you saw it on an MSU Web site, then you need to attribute it to an MSU Web site.
If there is no attribution, you are officially saying it's info you got first-hand, by yourself. If you got it from another source, then you need to attribute. It doesn't matter if your citation is word-for-word or not; if you only know that MSU dorm cafeterias are open from noon to midnight because you saw it on an MSU Web site, then you need to attribute it to an MSU Web site.
We need attribution to show how we know what we know in our story, and it should be first-hand; that is, NOT from other media organizations. Without it, at best readers don't know if we're getting things from credible sources or not and if we're getting stuff first-hand or just borrowing from other news organizations. At worst, we take legal responsibility for these statements, giving up a major libel defense if something is proven wrong. That cannot be allowed to happen.
Basiclaly, after we get past the lede and nut graf pretty much EVERY paragraph should have attribution.
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