In a Prepared Statement, Media Orchard Asks: "Are Attribution Rules Changing?"
Matt Duffy, a college journalism instructor, has noticed that pubs as esteemed as the Wall Street Journal are running quotes directly from press releases without citing the source.
The WSJ quote in question:
“The U.S. housing market has continued to deteriorate,” said Stuart Miller, Lennar’s chief executive.
Duffy teaches his students to attribute such a quote this way:
“The U.S. housing market has continued to deteriorate,” Stuart Miller, Lennar’s chief executive, said in a prepared statement.
Is this the print equivalent of the so-called VNR scandal? Pretty much. And yet, we’re guessing certain hubbub-creators could care less. Not sexy enough.
My news-ed and copyreading class teaches that writers should attribute the way the WSJ arranged it, with said before the name if the person has a long title.
But yeah, not mentioning where you got the quote from is a problem.