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Getting and using information

Source

Also: sources

A person or document that gives a journalist information for a story. The whole trade runs on finding and protecting them.

A source is anyone who tells you something: a minister, a whistleblower, a court file, a press release. The skill is in cultivating them, weighing them, and protecting the ones who need it. A good reporter has a contacts book full of sources who trust them. Simon's ethics factsheet covers the duty you owe in return.

Simon on this

Where Simon Townsend teaches this in the archive:

Related terms

On the record

Information a source agrees you can publish and attribute to them by name. The default you should always aim for.

Off the record

Information a source gives you on the understanding you will not publish it or name them. Often misunderstood, so pin it down.

Leak

Confidential information passed to a journalist by someone not authorised to release it, often the seed of a big story.