f. FAULTY SOURCES

Journalism is supposed to complete the primary questions of what, where, who, when, how, and most importantly, why for the reader. These selected words encompass any article. They are answered so the reader has no difficulty in understanding the story and are what allow the story to read and make sense. This also works to narrow the issues. However problems occur when one or more of these keywords are left out of the article, whether it be intentional or inadvertent. Inadvertent comes from or human errors, which do happen, or it could be just bad journalism. However intentionally leaving out of these words is more intriguing, as it is a direct result of intention to spin a story. Sometimes, they whole story is not intentionally told. Leaving out these selected words can put a different spin on a story. Spin is just that, a device utilized by authors to cast a different light on the story. Lots of time though it is not wrong, it is just not as correct as it should be.

It is also important to look at the sources. Is the source a credible person, or is it just from the bum on the street corner talking a bunch of trash, rambling to anyone willing to pretend they are listening? How many different sources does the author use? It is important to make sure that the writer didn’t just misquote the person, either the writer or the quoted person had an off moment, or what have you.

This assignment was tough to complete. I had quite a difficult time finding stories that did not abide by these basic guidelines. Unquestionably, the improper sourcing will be easier to find than uninformative stories, but I believe they are because of two major things: one, these are professional writers that probably have written a few stories in their life, and since they want to keep their job, unintended errors are uncommon. Intentional ones aren't common either. It is the writer’s job to make sure the sources are not incorrectly supplied in the first place. Two, their editors are not new at this either. It is their job to make sure that stories come without these errors. For these two ideas, errors are discrete if there at all.

-Jesse Ferguson