News Report

Namita Kohli talked about the usage of quotes in the class. Quotes are considered to be one of the basics of journalism. Kohli stressed that it is the other person’s voice that counts and not the reporter’s.

In the case of news reporting, quotes are extremely important. While researching a story, a reporter may get a lot of opinions and quotes but he/she has to see what is important and what will have the most impact. Quotes can’t constitute three paragraphs of the story. The reporter has to create a sense of narrative by interspersing the quotes with the facts.

While writing quotes, attribution is imperative. The reporter has to give the person’s name, age and profession. It lends a sense of credibility and authenticity to the story.

An indiscriminate use of quotes is tedious and shows the reporter’s lackadaisical attitude. Quotes have to be edited but at the same time the essence can’t be changed. The reporter has to be very careful to not misquote a person. Sometimes people aren’t articulate enough to express themselves fluently so the reporter has to be prudent to not distort their meaning. Kohli advised that it is best to run your finished story by the source to avoid any misinterpretation. 

The reporter has to have a command over his/her writing. Some very good writing uses quotes sparingly, for example The Economist.  It does a lot of research on the ground and collects its own data so it doesn’t really need to quote a person.

If somebody says “No Comments”, then that is also useful as it shows apprehension on their part. Writing “No Comments” in the story also gives credibility to the story. The reporter should be able to weave a story around the main story just because a victim, for example, is hesitant to say anything.