Ever play telephone? You sit with a bunch of friends and whisper a phrase in the ear of the person next to you. That person whispers it to the next person. So, it goes until the phrase reaches the last person.
More times than not, the initial phrase became so convoluted as it is passed from person to person that it is funny. The phrase “80% of success is showing up” might end up as “an Asian person senses a growing pup.”
That’s often the case with information on the internet. The more sources through which an article has been published through a syndicate or aggregated source, the more likely that article will change. Sometimes important context or nuance is lost.
In journalism, the goal is to be as close as possible to the publication making that initial “phone” call.
“The closer you can get to the source, the better,” said Dan Evon, senior manager of education design at the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit that provides students with media literacy tools. “It’s important for people to know how to find those sources.”
How to know if info has been rehashed
Sometimes it is difficult to tell an original source from one that has been republished and rehashed. Media consumers often think they got their information from an original source, when they had found it on what is called an aggregator or syndicator.
An aggregator compiles data from many sources into one. Many institutions host aggregated databases with publications from various sources, including the scientific and medical communities.
One such example of an aggregated source is the National Library of Medicine PubMed, the world’s largest biomedical library that hosts more than 37 million citations. Publications hosted by the database span institutions, journals and online books but always include the name of the original publication.
These are shown at the top of the webpage near the title; the page should display the original journal or book that the research appeared in. In addition, research studies include a unique code known as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and a search of this configuration of numbers and letters will also lead to the original publication.
Other aggregators include the Harvard Web of Science, a database that indexes the world’s leading scholarly literature, and Science.gov, an online U.S. government database of millions of scientific research across U.S. federal agencies.
Syndicators and news wires
Syndicators are networks of media organizations that share content. Snopes, a U.S.-based fact-checking website, publishes original content. This content can then be republished by its syndicated partners, which include MSN and Yahoo.
But just as in that game of telephone, important information can be lost or confused when a story is republished. For example, a syndicate publication may adjust a headline or alter the story’s content, leading to a story being factually incorrect or lacking crucial context.
Many news publications, for example, use content from newswire services like the Associated Press or Reuters, but each publication might alter the story or reword photo captions.
“If you have a correction or an article is withdrawn, or there’s an editor’s note, that might not make it into the sites aggregating it,” said Evon. “When outlets republish articles, sometimes they change headlines, which can sometimes change their meaning — especially when people don’t read past the headlines.”
In other words, an update, editor or correction note issued to the original article may not be reflected in a syndicated article published before these additions.
Who wrote the story?
Look to the writer’s byline to find an article’s original publication source. Information about the reporter, original publication outlet, date and location should be included here. Sometimes, that information is at the bottom of the article.
Perhaps the most well-known syndicated news source in journalism is The Associated Press, a wire service that covers global news. This independent news source publishes original reporting that websites, newspapers and broadcasts worldwide can republish. AP syndicated stories can appear in various news outlets, including local newspapers.
To identify an AP style, look for the “AP” and original publication location in the byline.
If this information isn’t readily available or apparent, a Google search of the article headline and reporter name may sometimes reveal the original source. In a seemingly endless world of information, how does one determine whether a news source is reputable? Evon advises readers to take their time.
“Slow down. There is so much information that comes at you so fast, and you don’t have to look at everything,” Evon said. “The internet is awesome. It has all the information that you need. You just have to slow down and learn how to use it properly. Take a few seconds to look at an account name, who is publishing it, where it’s coming from — there are many basic questions that can be answered in 30 seconds that can really weed about the false information that goes around.”
Credibility can’t be rushed.
A credible media outlet or news publication will be transparent in its editorial strategies, correction policies, staff, funding and any conflicts of interest. This information should be easy to find and is often listed on a website’s “About” page.
“Once you know that’s a source that you can trust, you don’t have to do that work every time. It’s more about when you come across new and unfamiliar sources,” said Evon. “If you do not recognize the account or the outlet, that should give you pause to do a bit of research.”
Understanding the different source types can also help determine whether information comes from an aggregated or syndicated source. Sources of information often fall into three categories — primary, secondary and tertiary — based on how close they are to the source. Primary sources are considered original materials or official sources of information, such as a research journal that published a study or a press release issued by a law official.
Tracking down the primary source is the best way to track down the first time this information was made available and hasn’t yet been distorted by varying degrees of reporting, interpretations or users who copy and paste text without context.
For scientific or social science studies, the primary source will be the study itself and the researchers who conducted it and the university where the research took place. Moreover, once you identify the researchers, you can contact them and interview them for original research of your own.
Secondary sources reprint, restate or analyze primary sources. These might include textbooks, articles, biographies, political analyses or commentaries that add value to the primary source but don’t necessarily represent its original context.
Tertiary sources compile, index and organize different pieces of information to create a broader understanding of a topic. These include dictionaries or encyclopedias, almanacs and manuals that usually do not credit a particular author.
“Journalists play a role of an intermediary between sources, so there is this desire or inclination to go to the primary source,” Evon said. “What we hope journalists can do is look at that primary source, parse that data into easily understandable tidbits that they can then put out to the general readership.”
Questions to consider:
1. What is meant by a news aggregator?
2. How do you tell who conducted the research when you find a scientific or social science study on the Internet?
3. Why is it important to tell if information has been republished and altered?
