14 News as a Source

News sources can provide insights that scholarly sources may not or that will take a long time to get into scholarly sources. For instance, news sources are excellent for finding out people’s reactions, opinions, and prevailing attitudes around the time of an event.

So whether news sources are good for your assignment depends on what your research question is. (You’ll find other relevant information at Sources and Information Needs.)

News is a strange term, because even when the information is old, it’s still news. Some sources are great for breaking news, some are great for aggregated (or compiled) news, and others are great for historical news.

While news was transmitted for centuries only in newspapers, news is now transmitted in all formats: via radio, television, and the Internet, in addition to print. Most newspapers have Internet websites today.

News must be brief because much of it gets reported only moments after an event happens. News reports occur early in the Information Lifecycle. See Publication Formats and the Information Lifecycle for more information.

When Are News Sources Helpful?

• You need breaking news or historical perspectives on a topic (what people were saying at the time).
• You need to learn more about a culture, place, or time period from its own sources.
• You want to keep up with what is going in the world today.

When Are News Sources of Limited Use?

• You need very detailed analysis by experts.
• You need sources that must be scholarly or modern views on a historical topic.

Mainstream and Non-Mainstream News Sources

Mainstream Canadian news outlets stick with the tradition of trying to report the news as objectively as possibly. That doesn’t mean their reports are perfectly objective, but they are typically more objective than the non-mainstream sources due to established editorial policies and processes.  Some examples of mainline Canadian news outlets: CTV News, CBC News, Global News.

News from non-mainstream news outlets can vary widely in the strength of their editorial processes and the clear delineation of news from opinion. Some non-mainstream news outlets mix opinion and reporting in ways that are not immediately identifiable as in mainstream outlets, which clearly identify editorial pieces. Some questions you can ask yourself to determine the credibility of both mainstream and non-mainstream news sources include:

• Is the reporting leaving out pertinent facts?
• Is the reporting focused on only one perspective, and if so, why?
• Is the reporting attempting to inform or to persuade the audience? If the goal is persuasion, why?

Types of News Sources

Press Services—News outlets (print, broadcast, and online) get a lot of their news from these services, such as Reuters or Associated Press (AP), which make it unnecessary for individual outlets to send their own reporters everywhere. Services are so broadly used that you may have to look at several news outlets to get a different take on an event or situation.

News aggregators—Aggregators don’t have reporters of their own but simply collect and transmit the news reported by others. Some sources pull news from a variety of places and provide a single place to search for and view multiple stories. You can browse stories or search for a topic. Aggregators tend to have current, but not archival news. Google news and Yahoo News are examples.

Newspaper sites – Many print newspapers also have their own websites. They vary as to how much news they provide for free. Take a look at these examples.

• The Globe & Mail
• The Times of London
• The New York Times

News Databases – Many libraries subscribe to historical news databases, such as the Globe & Mail Archives, and databases with both historical and current content like the New York Times. In addition, some historical and current newspapers are available to read in full for free:

• Nova Scotia Historical Newspapers
• Canada Gazette [1998 – present]
• Canada Gazette archives [1841 – 1997]
• Independent Voices

Broadcast News Sites – Although broadcast news (from radio and television) is generally consumed in real time, such organizations also offer archives of news stories on their web sites. However, not all of their articles are provided by their own reporters: some originate from the press services, Reuters and AP. Here are some examples of broadcast new sites:

• CBC News
• BBC
• CNN
• NPR News

Social Media – Most of the news outlets listed above contribute to Twitter and Facebook. It’s customary for highly condensed announcements in this venue to lead you back to the news outlet’s website for more information. However, tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google lost credibility with their news services after those company’s lawyers testified to the U.S. Congress that more than 100 million users may have seen content actually created by Russian operatives on the tech companies’ platforms leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  Read more about their testimony at NPR.

Blogs – Sometimes these are good sources for breaking news, as well as commentary on current events and scholarship. Authors who write more objectively elsewhere can share more insights and opinions, more initial questions and findings about a study before they are ready to release definitive data and conclusions about their research. Be careful about examining the author’s credibility, experience, and authority in writing about a topic.

Citizen Journalism – A growing number of sites cater to those members of the general public who want to report breaking news and submit their own photos and videos on a wide range of topics. The people who do this are often referred to as citizen journalists.

For more details on the history and development of citizen journalism, including addressing some of the pros and cons, read Your Guide to Citizen Journalism. For an example of how citizen journalism went wrong, read about the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 from Vice.

News Feeds – You can get updates on specific topics or a list of major headlines regularly sent to you so you don’t have to visit sites or hunt for new content on a topic. Look for links that contain headings such as these to sign up for news feeds:

• RSS feeds
• News Feeds
• News Alerts
• Table of Contents Alerts