Are newspapers primary sources?

Primary sources are original materials that provide firsthand evidence or direct accounts of an event, object, person, or work of art. Primary sources can include:

• Historical documents like letters, diaries, or speeches
• Creative works like poems, novels, music, or art
• Relics or artifacts like pottery, furniture, tools, or clothing
• Photographs, video recordings, or audio recordings
• Newspaper articles from the time of the event

These are primary sources because they are the first evidence of something happening. They were created by people who directly experienced or witnessed the event being researched.

Firsthand knowledge

An essential part of a primary source is that someone with firsthand knowledge of the event or subject created it. This means the person either participated in the event, observed it as it happened, or was the first to write down or record details about it.

Primary sources differ from secondary sources, which are one step removed from an event. Secondary sources analyze, review, or summarize information from primary sources. For example, a biography is a secondary source because it describes a person’s life using information from primary sources like letters, diaries, photographs, and other firsthand accounts.

Are newspapers primary sources?

Whether a newspaper is a primary source depends significantly on what kind of information you are looking for and what period you are researching.

For current events

Newspapers are often considered primary sources for learning about current events or very recent history. This is because newspaper articles are usually the first published accounts of an event. The reporters either directly observed the event or interviewed people who were there. For example:

• An article about a speech would be a primary source if the reporter attended the speech and wrote about what they heard.
• An article about a crime would be a primary source if the reporter was at the crime scene or interviewed eyewitnesses.

In these cases, the newspaper article is the first published record of the event, making it a primary source.

For historical research

However, newspapers are less useful as primary sources when researching events that happened long ago. There are a few reasons for this:

Less reliable

Older newspapers are not always reliable because the standards for fact-checking and accuracy were not as strict in the past. In the 1800s and early 1900s, many newspapers were more interested in entertaining readers than informing them. They sometimes exaggerate stories or do not check all the facts.

Incomplete information

Newspapers also might not tell the whole story of a historical event. To understand completely, historians must look at many primary sources, like letters, diaries, photographs, government documents, and newspapers. Newspaper articles usually focus on an event’s “who, what, where, and when” but might leave out the “why” or the long-term impacts.

Biased perspective

Like any source, newspapers can also reveal their writers’ biases and limited perspectives. Newspapers reflect the worldview of their reporters and editors, which in the past often meant they left out the experiences of women, minorities, and other groups.

Using newspapers as primary sources

While newspapers have some limits as primary sources, they can still be handy for specific research. Their value depends on what questions you want to answer.

Providing details

Newspapers are good places to find details about an event, like the date it occurred, the location, who was involved, and what happened. You can also get a sense of the order of events by reading articles from the days following the event.

Tracking public opinion

You can also use newspapers to understand public opinion about an event when it occurred. Editorials and opinion pieces show what some people thought about the event. Newspapers also chose what stories to focus on, which gives a sense of what the public cared about during a specific time.

Seeing change over time

Looking at newspapers from different years can show you how opinions have changed over time. For example, reading articles about women’s suffrage from the 1910s and 1920s would reveal how public support increased during the 19th Amendment.

Raising new questions

Newspaper articles often leave out information that historians need, but sometimes, these gaps are helpful, too. They reveal what details were not considered necessary at the time or what voices were silenced. These missing pieces can raise new questions for historians to investigate.