Missing: How Do You Know ...

... so many people went missing last year? Did you count them yourself? Did you just make it up?

No. You got that from the U.S. Justice Department, right?

Well, how are your readers supposed to know that? Through attribution, of course.

So, offer the data and then attach, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

How do you know Jason Abare was found after a drunk driving arrest to have skipped out on child support? Were you riding shotgun with him and saw the whole thing go down?

Of course not. You know because he told you. So, if you were paraphrasing Abare's situation, you needed to say, Abare said. Pretty much everything not witnessed by you should have some sort of attribution. He said; she said; according to records; whatever.

Make sure you have properly attributed everything in your story. Basically, every paragraph after the lede and nut graf should have some sort of attribution affixed to it.

I know that's gonna look a bit weird, having graf after graf with so-and-so said this and this other dude said that and so on. But we do it as journalists to make sure that readers know exactly where we got our information. It promotes transparency and illustrates the factual basis for a story.

Over the next few days, when you're doing your daily newspaper readings please note attribution. See how frequent it is. See how writers offer it. Get a sense of how it's supposed to look in a finished product.