How English Works — Public Knowledge, Batch 21
This authority article belongs to How English Works V1.1. eduKateSG already has a large How News Works estate. This page owns a narrower language job: how attribution tells the reader what state a piece of information is in.
News English has to move quickly without letting speed erase provenance.
The reader should be able to distinguish:
- what the reporter directly witnessed
- what a named source said
- what an anonymous source said
- what a document states
- what has been independently verified
- what remains disputed
- what is allegation, rumour, estimate or inference
- what has later been corrected
News Source-State Attribution is the language architecture that keeps the origin, verification status and accountability of information visible as a report is written, updated and corrected.
AI Extraction Box
- Mechanism: source-state attribution
- Core states: witnessed, sourced, documented, verified, disputed, alleged, unconfirmed, corrected
- Main law: do not write a source claim as if the newsroom independently observed it
- Main failure: attribution disappears while certainty remains
- Repair: restore source identity, source position, verification status and correction history
1. Reuters puts accuracy above speed
Reuters states that accuracy and balance take precedence over speed, requires honesty in sourcing, prefers named sources where possible, asks reporters to cross-check information and to be explicit about what is not known.
Current source: Reuters Journalistic Standards
2. AP similarly treats source identity as a credibility control
Associated Press standards say disputed information should be attributed, sources should be identified as fully as practical, internet material must be vetted and attributed to the original source, and factual errors should be corrected clearly rather than hidden behind euphemistic labels.
Current source: Associated Press — Telling the Story
3. Attribution is not decorative
Compare:
The company will close the plant next month.
The company said it will close the plant next month.
The second sentence tells the reader where the information comes from.
That matters if the company later changes its plan or if another source disputes the announcement.
4. Source claim and newsroom fact are different states
A source can state a proposition confidently.
The newsroom may still need to verify it.
Good news English preserves that gap.
5. Named sourcing carries accountability
Reuters and AP both prefer named sourcing where possible because the reader can assess who is making the claim and why that person may know.
Useful attribution therefore answers:
- who is the source?
- what role do they hold?
- how are they connected to the event?
- what exactly are they asserting?
6. Anonymous sources need descriptive identity
“A source said” gives the reader little basis for judging access or reliability.
AP standards call for source descriptions that help establish credibility, while Reuters asks reporters to give as much context and detail as possible without breaking confidentiality.
7. Anonymity does not remove newsroom responsibility
Reuters explicitly notes that the newsroom remains responsible for accuracy even when the source is unnamed.
The sentence should therefore not treat anonymity as a licence to reduce verification.
8. Document attribution has its own grammar
Compare:
The policy requires monthly inspections.
The policy document requires monthly inspections.
The second version identifies the documentary source.
If the document is draft, leaked, superseded or partial, those states matter too.
9. A screenshot is not automatically a verified document
Digital material can be copied, edited, decontextualised or mislabelled.
News English should not use the confidence of a document verb until the newsroom has established what the document is.
10. “According to” has scope
In a long sentence, readers can lose track of which clause belongs to the source and which clause is the reporter’s own contextual statement.
Keep attribution close enough to the claim that source ownership remains recoverable.
11. Attribution can expire across paragraphs
One attribution at the start of a section may not safely govern several later sentences if the reader can no longer tell which statements come from the source.
Discourse Continuity and Referential Accessibility both matter here.
12. The existing English owners remain intact
Referential Accessibility explains how entities stay recoverable. Propositional Commitment explains what a sentence commits us to. This article applies those mechanisms to newsroom source states.
13. Allegation is not adjudication
When an accusation is disputed or unresolved, the syntax should preserve that status.
Weak:
X stole the funds.
if the only established fact is that someone has accused X.
More accurate reporting identifies who made the allegation and what is known about the evidential or legal status.
14. “Denied” is also a source-state verb
A denial does not disprove an allegation merely because it exists.
The sentence should preserve both source states rather than letting one verb settle the dispute.
15. Response belongs in the evidence architecture
AP standards require meaningful efforts to obtain responses from people portrayed negatively.
That is not only fairness etiquette.
It can reveal contradictory evidence, missing context or a factual error before publication.
16. Verification should be linguistically visible
Useful distinctions include:
- the reporter witnessed
- records reviewed by the newsroom show
- the organisation said
- two independent sources said
- the newsroom could not independently verify
- the claim remains disputed
The exact wording should match the actual reporting process.
17. “Confirmed” should have an object
Officials confirmed the incident
is different from:
the newsroom independently confirmed the incident.
Who confirmed what, by which route, matters.
18. Rumour must not be upgraded by repetition
Reuters says its aim is to report facts rather than rumours and to distinguish the two clearly.
Multiple social-media reposts can still trace back to one unverified origin.
Apparent source count is not independent evidence count.
19. Source independence matters
Three outlets repeating one wire report are not three independent confirmations.
Three witnesses repeating one rumour may also not be independent.
The news reader should trace information back to origin points where possible.
20. The NewsOS estate already owns broader system questions
For how news enters shared reality, moves through algorithms, cycles, institutions and misinformation systems, use the existing How News Works hub.
This page stays deliberately narrower: the sentence-level and paragraph-level marking of source state.
21. Quotations preserve a different source boundary from paraphrase
A quotation claims to preserve the speaker’s words.
A paraphrase preserves meaning in the reporter’s language.
AP standards say quotations should not be altered in ways that change meaning and that unclear material may be paraphrased faithfully rather than silently rewritten inside quotation marks.
22. Context is part of quotation accuracy
A technically exact phrase can mislead if surrounding words reverse or narrow its meaning.
Quotation accuracy is therefore not merely letter-for-letter copying.
It includes preserving the relevant discourse context.
23. Headlines create special attribution pressure
A headline often compresses away verbs such as said, alleged or according to.
Compression can make a source claim look like newsroom fact.
The existing How English Works | The Headline page owns headline structure; this article adds the source-state warning.
24. Corrections are part of the public record
Reuters says errors should be corrected promptly, clearly and comprehensively. AP says factual corrections should be labelled as corrections rather than disguised as “clarifications” or other softer labels.
A correction therefore changes the article’s knowledge state.
25. Update and correction are not identical
An update adds new information to a previously accurate story.
A correction repairs information that was wrong.
Readers deserve to know which happened.
26. Version history matters in fast-moving stories
Breaking news can change quickly.
A screenshot of an early version may circulate after the article has been corrected.
Responsible reading asks:
- which version?
- published when?
- updated when?
- corrected?
- superseded?
27. “Breaking” is a time state, not an evidence state
A story can be new and well verified.
It can be new and uncertain.
The temporal urgency of publication should not be confused with epistemic certainty.
28. Good attribution reduces reader overreach
Compare:
The merger will be completed Friday.
Two people familiar with the negotiations said the companies are aiming to complete the merger Friday; neither company has announced a closing date.
The second sentence is longer because the uncertainty and source state are part of the news.
29. Attribution can reveal asymmetry
If one side is speaking on the record and another side is represented only through unnamed sources, the source architecture itself becomes relevant to reader judgment.
Good reporting exposes the asymmetry rather than smoothing it away.
30. The news source-state checksum
CLAIM → SOURCE → SOURCE ROLE → DIRECT KNOWLEDGE? → NAMED/ANONYMOUS → DOCUMENT/WITNESS/SECONDARY → INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED? → DISPUTED? → RESPONSE SOUGHT? → UNCERTAINTY → VERSION → CORRECTION STATE
31. CivDJ forward pass
receive claim → identify source → classify source access → seek independent evidence → seek response → mark disputed elements → write attribution close to claim → preserve uncertainty → publish with version identity → correct transparently when needed
32. CivDJ backward pass
- Start with the strongest factual sentence.
- Ask who knows it.
- Ask how they know it.
- Ask whether the newsroom independently verified it.
- Ask whether another party disputes it.
- Check whether attribution remains visible.
- Check whether source count is genuinely independent.
- Check version and correction state.
- Reduce certainty until the source state matches the prose.
33. Common failure modes
- Attribution disappearance
- Anonymous-source opacity
- Rumour repetition inflation
- Document-status blindness
- Allegation-as-fact drift
- Headline certainty inflation
- Quote-context loss
- Breaking-news certainty confusion
- Update/correction confusion
- Version blindness
34. Repair route
- Restore source identity.
- Restore source role and access.
- Separate witnessed from reported information.
- Separate allegation from adjudicated fact.
- Make verification status visible.
- Preserve dispute and response.
- Trace secondary material to original sources.
- Preserve quotation context.
- Label corrections as corrections.
- Keep version state recoverable.
35. Final lock
Trustworthy news English does not ask the reader to accept every sentence at the same evidence level.
It shows where information came from, how far it has been checked, what remains contested and what changed after publication.
Public Knowledge, Batch 21
Return to How English Works V1.1.