Defining the News

Today everything from TMZ gossip to ProPublica investigative reporting answers the question “What’s new?” However, to cite news, you’ll need to decide if your source is considered “news” by the MLA, APA or Chicago handbooks, which still tie their definitions to print newspaper publication. Here are some ways to determine if your database article, online newspaper, blog or general webpage qualifies as a news source in the style guide you’re using.

Rule of Thumb: Check the Title

Adding Friction: Investigate

If you are still not sure or if our database has stripped out the physical cues and calls all magazines, journals, newsletters, and newspapers “periodicals,” you’ll want to investigate further.

1. Scan the About, Subscribe or Advertise page to determine how the publisher describes the source.
2. Search a newspaper directory (www.listofnewspapers.com) to see if your source is listed.
3. Search Ulrichsweb, a serials directory available to college and university students, to determine if your publication is a newspaper.
4. Scan the search engine result snippet to find language cues associated with your source type.

Citing a Newspaper Article

In MLA style the original print newspaper article and the digital duplicate of that content are cited as periodicals. Here are examples, first of a print citation and then its online replica:

Liptak, Adam. “Corporations Take First Amendment and Apply It Liberally.” New York Times 24 Mar. 2015, natl. ed.: A14. Print.

Database vendors such as EBSCO, ProQuest, and Gale supply libraries with the full text of the print newspaper article without the photographs or typographic features. In MLA citations these database articles are cited as digital duplicates of print. The citations below are for the same source in two different databases. They are not identical because the vendors have supplied slightly different information:

Liptak, Adam. “Corporations Take First Amendment and Apply It Liberally.” New YorkTimes 24 Mar. 2015, late East Coast ed., National: A14. ProQuest Newsstand. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Liptak, Adam. “Corporations Take First Amendment and Apply It Liberally.” New York Times 24 Mar. 2015: A14. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Non-periodical News on a Newspaper’s Website (5.6.2b)

In contrast, non-periodical online news is either digital content written for the web or print content that is revised for the web. Online non-periodical news is revised as needed to report the most current information. Web editors also make changes in the article in order to draw new readers to the news site. They experiment with alternative headlines, photographs, layout and even change the content’s focus to increase click-throughs. An online revised version of the print New York Times article from March 24, 2015 is cited as a web page in MLA because it is considered non-periodical news:

Liptak, Adam. “First Amendment, ‘Patron Saint’ of Protesters, Is Embraced by Corporations.” New York Times. New York Times, 23 Mar. 2015. Web. 24 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/us/first-amendment-patron-saint-of-protesters-is-embraced-by-corporations.html>.

Since currency is important when you are using news sources, all styles include the full date of publication.  However, with online news being revised continually, it becomes important to pinpoint the version you actually use.   We have suggested to the style editors that they add the hour and minute to news citations when they next revise their handbooks.

Adding Friction: Investigate Versions

NewsDiffs (http://newsdiffs.org) is a journalist’s tool that exposes changes and preserves deleted content in online articles from the New York Times and other news websites. When you type the full URL to your article, it will show all versions of the news article and compare them.

By analyzing different versions of the same news article, you’ll become more attentive to citation accuracy and source credibility—essential to evaluating sources for your specific research needs.