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By Root 1620 0

when it repeats what someone told the reporter, or said at some event; you might then have to use the newspaper account. Keep in mind, though, the risk that the newspaper may have erred or quoted someone out of context. For instance, in early 2003, several op-eds ridiculed former Representative Cynthia McKinney for saying that “In no other country on the planet do so many people have so little as they do in this country”—a patently false claim. Listening to the CSPAN video of the speech, however, reveals that McKinney actually said “In no other rich democracy on this planet do so many people have so little” (emphasis added), a very different and more plausible assertion.32

Therefore, if you can, e-mail the quoted speaker to verify the quote. You can often find e-mail addresses through search engines, especially when you're looking for the address of an academic or a lawyer. You can also find many lawyers' phone numbers and e-mail addresses through the Westlaw WLD directory, the Lexis MARHUB library, or the Web sites of state bars. And if the quote was from a publicly broadcast speech, check whether a video of the program might exist online.

e. Acknowledging possible reliability problems

If your only source for a proposition is a newspaper article, or some person quoted (or misquoted) in the article, acknowledge in the text the possibility that this is not a highly reliable source (e.g., by using a phrase such as “press accounts report that”). And if there is reason to doubt the quoted source's accuracy, for instance if the source is an interested party, or is talking about something that he might have misperceived or misunderstood, you should note that explicitly.

f. Expressly describing the newspaper article's limitations

In any event, if you are citing a newspaper article for a proposition, make clear—either in the footnote, or, if this is important, in the text—

i. the nature of the article (is it an opinion piece or supposedly objective reporting?),

ii. the nature of the source (whom does the article quote for the proposition, and what are the source's possible biases?), and

iii. any other reasons why the source might be inaccurate.

Here's an example: According to one history book,

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with this view that citizens have a constitutionally protected right to own machine guns.

Seems like a reliable claim, written by a history professor. We're all set to say “Justice Scalia takes the view that citizens have a constitutional right to own machine guns,” citing the book.

But have a look at the source on which the book relies, the Baltimore Sun, April 30, 1999, at 27A. (The citation in the endnote contains only this, with no further information.) Here's how the article—which turns out to be an opinion column entitled Scalia Is Wrong on Guns—begins; all the relevant material is in these paragraphs:

Five days before two teen-agers went on a murderous shooting rampage in a Colorado high school, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a group of students at the Park School in Baltimore County that if he had his way, people would have more—not less—access to deadly weapons.

At a small luncheon following his speech to 300 students there, Justice Scalia said that citizens have a right to own machine guns, said ... a 17-year-old Park senior.

Pressing the outer limits of his thinking on this matter, [the student]—who has earned early admission to Princeton University—said she asked Justice Scalia if he thought people should also “be allowed to have hand-held rockets that can bring down airplanes.”

After a moment of contemplation, Justice Scalia told [the student] he didn't like that idea. Justice Scalia fancies himself an “originalist”—someone who thinks the Constitution means today exactly what it meant when it was adopted two centuries ago.

So not surprisingly, Justice Scalia says the language of the Second Amendment, which gives citizens the right to bear arms, is a license for people to amass a nearly limitless arsenal of weapons.

The book, then, was indirectly