VOICES
A Librarian's Plea to Journalists: Give Us A Clue!
In one of his classic comedy routines, George Carlin plays the “Hippy Dippy Weatherman” proffering much information that invariably is useless. At one point, he gives some “quick temperature readings”: “68, 74, 79, 83” — without bothering to connect them to any location.
Librarians — particularly government-document librarians — can well appreciate his routine. An earnest patron comes to the Reference Desk looking for “a government publication.” Which government? Federal, state, or local? Who wrote the report? What was the title and on what date was it issued? The library user shrugs.
“How did you hear about it?” you ask the patron, who then presents you with the newspaper or magazine article about the report. More often than not, the article doesn’t offer a clue to any of your questions.
Take the following lead paragraph in a Reuters article with a Washington dateline, published in The Boston Globe on September 14, 1999:
The United States, seeking to maintain pressure on President Saddam Hussein as major powers try to draw up a new policy on Iraq, issued a report yesterday accusing him of deliberately starving his own people.
Sounds like a very important report but the article doesn’t provide you with basic information on how to find it. It will be two hours before an intrepid government documents librarian is finally able to track it down.
Or take this AP wire service story datelined London and published in the January 31, 2001, issue of The New York Times. It begins like this:
Doctors at a prominent children’s hospital took hearts, brains, eyes and heads from thousands of dead children without the consent of their parents, a government report said today, calling the findings grotesque and appalling.
The article gives only the names of a British hospital and one accused doctor. Knowledgeable librarians will no doubt be able to retrieve this report, but not without a substantial investment of time. (A Google or other general Internet search, for example, would not have helped.)
Searching for official reports certainly doesn’t have to be so time-consuming. While many of us love the thrill of the document hunt, reporters could make it easier for the newspaper reader, the librarian, and indeed other journalists by providing more information.
An Associated Press report dated July 9, 1999, may serve as a useful model. It announces:
The disparity between the number of whites and the number of blacks and Hispanics using the Internet is growing toward a “racial ravine,” a new government report said yesterday . . .
The article then goes on to include the title of the report and the specific agency that issued it. The 239-word article also notes that it is the “third such survey by the government since 1995.”
Thank you, AP writer Ted Bridis, for making it so much easier to locate this document.
If journalism is the first draft of history, reporters can assist the revisers by dutifully noting their sources. May I offer the following simple suggestions:
• With apologies to the real estate business, keep in mind what really counts: citation, citation, citation. If you know the name of the report or the agency that issued it, make sure to include that information. It takes only a few extra words, but these often make an enormous difference in tracking down the document.
• When editing an article, cut descriptions of the document’s content before deleting citation information.
• Since many documents are now posted on the Internet, please include the URL.
• If you are covering a congressional hearing, make sure to note whether it was held in the Senate or House, the specific committee, and, if possible, the legislators conducting the hearing. For pending legislation, include the names of the major sponsors and the title of the bill.
• If you are reporting on a medical or scientific study, mention the exact title of the journal and the specific date of the issue. “A study in a medical journal recently reported” will hardly help the reader wanting to find the actual article.
• Since television and radio reporters use even fewer words than print journalists, it is particularly important for these non-print reporters to state the source of the document. Many national newscasts regularly feature major new scientific and medical studies yet neglect to provide the interested viewer with the opportunity to find quickly the actual report. This information also could easily by cited on the network’s Web site.
Your reports do pique the interest of your audience; these readers,
viewers, and listeners, as well as fellow journalists, really
do want to know more. By helping your friendly librarian find
the full texts of the documents you report on, you will better
serve us all.
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