Lesson 22 — Activity 4: Sources for a News Story


Warm Up


As journalists begin gathering and organizing the facts of a news event, they often rely on others to help them understand or clarify what happened. These people are called sources.

In this activity, you will learn about the kinds of sources journalists may use. 


     
Source: Image by yanky pollak from Pixabay



Often, reporters will interview or talk to people who were involved in the event. This is an interview of a primary source. Primary sources are the firsthand accounts that record or recall an event as it is taking place. Primary sources expose individuals to multiple perspectives on great issues of the past and present. History, for example, deals with matters that were furiously debated by the participants. It can be very helpful to hear about the different opinions people have about a situation. For example, ordinary citizens may see an event differently than a politician or a historian.

A secondary source is people who were not present when the event occurred. Their information may add to or clarify what happened. Secondary sources are not as reliable as primary sources, because they are not as directly related to the story.


Here is a sample news story. You will see the primary sources highlighted in pink and the secondary sources highlighted in blue.


Would you pay $394,000 for the chair where Harry Potter was born?

 
Source: Flickr, CC BY 2.0 Hogwarts Express by HarshLight

By Ula Ilnytzky
New York City, New York

The humble chair J.K. Rowling sat on while writing the first two books of the Harry Potter series has been auctioned in New York City. The price was $394,000. The sale was announced April 6.
 
 An anonymous private collector made the winning bid. This is according to Heritage Auctions. The chair is one of four mismatched chairs given to the then little-known writer for her apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland. She used the chair while writing "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."


The seller was Gerald Gray of Worsley, England. He said the winning bid far exceeded his expectations. "I plan to donate 10 percent to J.K. Rowling's charity, Lumos. Because that's what she did in the first place," said Gray.

"The characters that Rowling created are the superheroes of the millennials as Batman and Superman were for the Sixties," said Rick Rounick, owner of the Soho Contemporary Art gallery, which specializes in pop culture. "The chair that Rowling claims gave her the magic to create the world of Harry Potter is a singularly significant object of her art and creative energy."

(Adapted from http://tweentribune.com/article/tween78/would-you-pay-394000-chair-where-harry-potter-was-born/)

Self-check!


Try This!


Rescuers Spot “Help” on the Beach


 photo provided by U.S. Navy released April 7, 2016



     

In a scene straight from Hollywood, a US Navy plane spotted the word "help" spelled out in palm fronds. The word could be seen on a beach. The beach was on a deserted island in the remote Pacific Ocean.
 
 The three men had been missing for three days. A wave had overtaken the small boat they were travelling in. The men were found waving their orange life jackets on the tiny Micronesian island of Fanadik. It is several hundred miles north of Papua New Guinea, officials said April 9.
 
 The men's families reported them missing April 5. The men had failed to show up at the Micronesian island of Weno. They were travelling there from their home island, Pulap.
 
1. "Fortunately for them, they were all wearing life jackets and were able to swim to the deserted island," US Coast Guard spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said.
 
 A boat picked the men up and took them to a hospital. 2. Officials told The Washington Post that the men were not injured.
 
 Two cargo ships searched a combined 17 hours for the men as part of AMVER. It is a Coast Guard voluntary search and rescue program. With AMVER, rescue coordinators can identify participating ships in the area of distress and ask them to help.
 
 3. In the last two weeks, 15 people have been rescued in the Pacific with the help of 10 AMVER vessels and six aircrews, the Coast Guard said.


1. primary source

2. primary source

3. secondary source