Deconstructing Associated Press Quotes
A look at several examples
Quotes are the hot sauce of journalism: You always want to use a little, but you should be careful not to use too much.
There are three major sources of quotes: onlookers, participants and experts.
Onlookers are basically just witnesses. Their quotes serve as a secondary description of what something looked like, and they are a sort of proxy for how the reader might have reacted.
Some examples of onlookers: People who witnessed a crime, audience members at a concert, residents at a city council meeting.
Participants are the main characters in your story. Their quotes explain their motivations at key moments and share their opinions on the action and other main characters.
Some examples of participants: Professional athletes who played in a game, prosecutors at a trial, political candidates.
Experts are there to give the moral of the story. They serve as a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on the action and explaining why it matters or what it all means.
Some examples of experts: Industry analysts explaining an earnings report, political science professors discussing an election, a person from another organization who has a similar job but is not involved, a person who previously held a job.
Here’s a look at how some sample quotes of each kind were used in Associated Press stories.
Charlottesville Covers Confederate Statutes with Black Shroud
Some of the crowd cheered as the cover was put in place.
“It’s great. It’s a good start,” said Jamie Dyer, who spoke a short time later from nearby Justice Park, where workers covered a statue of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. “They do have to go, but it is a start, and I’m glad the city has finally recognized it has to happen on some level.”
The brief sentence before sets up the quote, telling us that we’re about to hear from someone who watched and cheered—a classic onlooker source. The quote conveys Dyer’s thoughts on the statue and what she thinks should happen to it. The story doesn’t give any identifying information, such as her age, hometown or occupation.
‘A Primal Experience’: Americans Dazzled by Solar Eclipse
More than one parent was amazed to see teenagers actually look up from their cellphones.
Patrick Schueck, a construction company president from Little Rock, Arkansas, brought his 10-year-old twin daughters Ava and Hayden to Bald Knob Cross of Peace in Alto Pass, Illinois, a more than 100-foot cross atop a mountain. Schueck said at first his girls weren’t very interested in the eclipse. One sat looking at her iPhone.
“Quickly that changed,” he said. “It went from them being aloof to being in total amazement.” Schueck called it a chance to “do something with my daughters that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”
This is a good example of a participant source. Since he’s not just an onlooker, he gets more description — “a construction company president from Little Rock, Arkansas” — and the author summarizes a bit of action involving his daughters looking at their iPhones before the quote. The quote is pithy, but was probably trimmed from a more rambling recounting.
Walmart Joins Forces With Google on Voice-Activated Shopping
Internet analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali praised the partnership, but believes voice-ordering is still in its nascent stages and not likely to drive a lot of business in the short term.
“I like that Walmart and Google are partnering,” she said. “That is the sort of complementary relationship that Walmart needs to have any hope in winning in online retail.” She believes relatively few people have even tried voice ordering for e-commerce, though, and beyond being early it’s “quite an imperfect experience at that.”
A classic example of an expert source. Since there are a number of analysts available, it’s nice that the author includes a woman of color to bring more diversity to news coverage. The source is introduced with a brief two-word description—“Internet analyst”—and a summary of her view. The first line of the quote is pithy, though not very colorful.
“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
