The Importance of Using Dependable Sources

As a journalist, an important takeaway from the 2016 presidential election was reinforcing the importance of having trusted, reliable and accurate sources of information.

I don’t like the term “fake news” because it implies that reporters are putting out stories that they know to be false. They’re telling lies. I don’t believe this is happening in daily journalism.

Where false information has been proven to come from, however, is from the president and websites that promote conspiracy theories that aren’t based in facts.

Finding original sources

As a freelance writer for all kinds of clients, I provide links to sources that are dependable for their accuracy. I always try to find the original source for a fact I’m citing in a story instead of relying on second-hand sources or websites or news organizations that are reporting on something.

For example, if the New York Times writes about the wealth gap and how the top 1 percent owns 20 percent of the world’s income, and the bottom 50 percent own 9.7 percent of it, that should be data that stands on its own. The Times did its research and is reporting the data it found.

If I link to the New York Times in a story, that’s a reliable source that readers can go to for more information.

But as a journalist, I want to go one step deeper for my clients. I want to find the source that the Times is referring to so that readers can get the information first-hand if they want it and not rely on the Times, or me, to read the facts behind the story.

In the story above, the Times looked at the “World Inequality Report” from a database run in part by economists. If you don’t want to rely on the Times to summarize and find the nuggets of news in the report, you can read it yourself.

That’s part of finding an original source, and it’s something I strive to do for my clients every day.