Nationals Fail at Attribution & Linking

Adam Tinworth
Adam Tinworth

Why are national media outlets so awful at giving credit?

The (e)Grommet documents a case of the BBC crediting the hosting service, and not the creator. And the Daily Mirror has republished something provided to them by a Travel Weekly journalist as an “exclusive”, without a hint of attribution.

It seems to be one of the major fault lines between traditional media outlets and online publishing – and one that’s only going to get worse.

As Kevin puts it:

*As an internet reader, I’m increasingly suspicious of journalists who
don’t link. Yes, if they quote an official that gives me a sense of the
source. But why not link to original source material? It also allows me
to dig more deeply into the story if I want without having to turn to
Google.
*

If many national journalists can’t even handle attributing sources properly, how the hell are they going to get their heads around linking? The answer, based on the current evidence, is that they won’t.
 
Is there anyone in the traditional media who is actually good at this?

attributionJournalismlinkingnational newspapers

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Adam is a digital journalism lecturer, trainer and writer. He's been a blogger for over 20 years, a journalist for 30 and teaches audience strategy and engagement at City St George’s, London.

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