Attribution in the press

Quotation and attribution

Reporting language

• Language is content, tool, and expression of media messages. In politics and in the reporting of politics, language is constantly being reworked and adapted from other speech events:

• reports, opinions, announcements, reactions, discussions, and what have been called news performatives and performative documents (Bell 1991; Fishman 1980). Such documents have been created not just as part of the political process but also as part of the communication of that process to the public.

• Fishman (1980:99) noted, ‘Journalists love performative documents because they are the hardest facts they can get their hands on.’

• Bell (1991:207) stated, ‘Journalists love the performatives of politics where something happens through someone saying it. The fusion of word and act is ideal for news-reporting. No other facts have to be verified. The only fact is that somebody said something.’

manipulation

• Speech events can of course be reported in a variety of ways. Distance or endorsement, stance signals, signals of interactional resistance, time frames, and values can all be altered to fit a particular political or journalistic purpose.

• Similar effects can be obtained in interactional situations.

• Questions can frame utterances in a particular way and a witness or spokesperson’s response can be crafted to answer or evade. All involve different ways of presenting ‘voice’ in texts.

Attribution, evidentiality and intertextuality

• There are many types of input material for news stories

• The producers transform this materiel into a news story through processes of selection, reproduction, summarization etc

• News can be considered ‘embedded talk’• The way it is integrated is an important topic

of research

Integrating speech input

• It can remain unattributed• It can be attributed without mentioning the

specific source ( e.g. allegedly, is expected to, is said to)

• It can be attributed to specific sources whihc can be individuals, groups, institutions, written material etc.

• N.B: Named sources are valued more highly

Quotes

• A quote is the written form of the words which people have spoken. Occasionally it will also apply to words they have written down, perhaps in a book or a press release.

• Attribution is stating who made the quote or gave the information. The most common form of attribution uses the verb to say.

• A quote is separated from the writer’s own text by punctuation and quotation marks

• In print journalism, quotes are shown surrounded by quotation marks, either single (‘) or double (").

• These are sometimes called inverted commas. The alternative to using a quote is to rewrite the sentence into what we call reported speech.

Why quotes?

• Why use quotes?• There are three main reasons why quotes are used in

print journalism:• repeating the exact words which people themselves

used reduces the risk of misreporting what they say.• When giving a person's exact words the readers can

see both the ideas and the way they were presented. • People often use lively language when they speak.

Quotes allow journalists to put that lively language directly into their story.

From The News Manual

• “Never start a news story with a quote• The most important reason for not starting a story

with a quote is that a quote itself seldom shows the news value of your story. It is your task as a journalist to tell the reader what is news. You should tell them what is new, unusual, interesting or significant about the information you present. Only when you have told them what is news should you use a quote to support your intro.”

From The News Manual

• Starting a news story with a quote produces awkward punctuation. By putting words inside quotation marks, you give readers an extra obstacle to overcome just at the time when you are trying to grab their attention.

• Beginning with a quote also means that your readers see the quote before they know who has said it. How can they judge the importance of the quote without knowing the speaker?

From The News Manual

• There is, of course, no excuse for making up a quote. That is one of the greatest sins a journalist can commit. It destroys your integrity and risks landing both you and your employer in an expensive action for defamation. Don't do it.

Legal difficulties

• Some journalists use quotation marks around words or phrases which they think might be defamatory. They mistakenly believe that, by showing that the words were said by someone else, they themselves will not be sued for defamation.

• This is not so. If you use defamatory words, you can be sued, whether they were your words or someone else's, whether or not they were in quotes

Scare quotes

• Scare quotes are words or short phrases which are placed between quotation marks when they really do not belong. Usually, the writer is trying to add stress to the words or to suggest something other than their obvious meaning.

• Scare quotes are usually unnecessary and should only be used if you are confident they are required. As discussed above, there are usually better ways of using partial quotes.

• The simplest reason for scare quotes is to add emphasis, which in literature is normally done by the use of italics. In news reporting, however, this usage can cause confusion or be misleading. Unless the words are actually quotes which can be attributed to a person, avoid scare quotes for emphasis.

• A more common use of the scare quote is to suggest that the word or phrase should not be taken at face value. It is often used to suggest disbelief or actual disagreement with the words as they are being used.

• Someone who does not believe in global warming might put the phrase in scare quotes to signify that disbelief.

• The Opposition Leader, Mr Tony Abbott, said people should not be alarmed by the threat of "global warming".

• The problem with using a scare quote in this way is that it is now unclear whether the disbelief is in the mind of Mr Abbott or the writer of the sentence.

Attribution: stating who said something

• Attribution is essential in all the media, including radio and television. Journalists do it so that readers or listeners can know who is speaking or where the information in the story comes from. attribution can be used for both spoken and written information, so that information gathered from interviews, speeches, reports, books, films or even other newspapers, radio or television stations can be attributed.

Reported speech

• in reported speech the attribution is still part of the sentence, although it is not as distinct as when you use a direct quote. In both of the following sentences, we attribute the words to Ms Mar. In the first, her words are in quotes; in the second they are put into reported speech. The attribution is in italics:

• QUOTE:Ms Mar said: "Students can expect no special treatment if they go on strike."

• REPORTED SPEECH:Ms Mar said that students could expect no special treatment if they went on strike.

Tense changes

• although quotes must be word-for-word, reported speech is a report of something which was said in the past, so the tenses have to be changed.

• The use of the linking word "that" is usually optional in reported speech. It is often left out to reduce the length of the sentence, but should be included whenever it makes the meaning of a sentence clearer.

Types of reported speech

• Direct quote• Partial direct/mixed quote• Indirect• Free indirect• Summary/paraphrase of speech act• Nested/embedded reports

Reporting signals and endorsement

• From the news Manual

• The phrase "according to" can be used in attributing reported speech, but do not use it more than once with any single speaker. Although it is usually a neutral term, not suggesting either belief or disbelief, if you use it too often it can give the impression that you doubt the information the speaker has given.

From the News Manual

• Words such as "stated" and "pointed out" both imply that what the speaker said is an undisputed fact.

• You can, for example, point out that the world is round, but you cannot point out that this cake is delicious, because that is an opinion.

• Also avoid the word "claimed", which suggests that you do not believe what is being said.

• Be especially careful when reporting court cases. Lawyers and the police like to use the word "claimed" to throw doubt on opposition statements. You must not do the same.

From the news manual

• You can use alternative words to "said", but beware that they may have distinct meanings and may imply support or disbelief.

• E.g. allege = asserire senza prove• claim = sostiene• rumour = gossip, voci di corridoio

Reporting signals

• Neutral : say, tell, according to• The reporting signal does not give any

additional information other than identifying something as hearsay

• Illocutionary: demand, promise• The reporting signal gives information on the

speaker’s purpose

Reporting signals

• Declarative: acquit, plead guilty, annouce• The reporting signal refers to an insitutionalised

linguistic act• Discourse signalling: add, conclude, • The reporting signal makes explitic reference to

the previous or following discuorse• Paralinguistic : whisper, mumble, scream• the reporting expression gives informtation on

the quality of the speech

From the News Manual

• Attributing facts and opinions• Just because someone tells you that something is a

fact does not make it so.• There are some things which are universally accepted

as true, for example that the world is round, that Tuesday follows Monday, that Fiji is in the Pacific.

• But there are also things which people want you to believe are true but which are either not provable or are lies. These people may not knowingly tell a lie, but many people are careless with the truth.

From the News Manual

• situations may change, so that the truth at one moment may be wrong the next. Attribution helps you to overcome some of these problems. Attribution is the act of specifying who said what.

• If you attribute the words to the person who said them, you do not have to prove or disprove the truth of their words; you simply report them.

• Also, people judge what is said by the person who says it. Statements made by people in authority carry more weight than statements made by other people.

Opinions

• There is no alternative to attribution when statements made are opinions. If the journalist does not attribute an opinion to an individual, the audience will assume that it is his/her own opinion

• The problem may come in deciding what is a verifiable fact and what is only opinion.