When I was at uni our Prof said that the quality newspapers were the first brush of history. If you are doing political history, things like Mandelson's biographies would be the second brush and then you wait for the archives etc.
I must declare an interest - we do www.SloughHistoryOnline.org.uk which has put online the Slough, Windsor & Eton Observer from 1883-1929 (indexed 1887-1910 and more indexes to follow).
I think there are a number of points I would like to put forward:
- Newspapers give you a great flavour of what life was like and the priorities of life. The adverts, type of articles covered etc
- Some information is much better in our local newspapers than in more traditional sources. The inquest and council meeting reports are generally much fuller in the newspapers than in the official records.
- You have to choose how much weight to put on each journalist/column/newspaper to believe. If you were reading the 1970s cricket reports, surely you would give a great deal of weight to EW Swanton and not so much to what Geoff Boy...... a player might say in their biography. I guess this is the same with all of history.
- Newspapers are also a great recorder of the world around you and, from the comfort of your computer chair, can give you great dates and names which you can use more traditional sources to follow-up.
You have to be careful with using the Times. I seem to remember that the Time Digital Archive (free online through most public library catalogues) is based on a very old OCR package so it does not bring up everything you search for. Even the BL's cutting edge 19th century newspaper database (also free through lots of public libraries) old claims to bring up 70% of the text. If you think something should be there I would always spend the time to read the paper cover-to-cover to double-check it. If you have access to a man-made index, use it! I never use the Times Digi's keyword searches - I always use the text function. www.SloughHistoryOnline.org.uk has a great team of volunteers doing our indexing, so the final product should be much, much better than other online newspapers.
Tony
Tony Pilmer
Local Studies Librarian
Slough Borough Council
Tel 01753 787511
Fax 01753 825050
www.slough.gov.uk/libraries
Please don't print this email unless you really need to - think of the environment.
-----Original Message-----
From: From: Local-History list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Humphrey Southall
Sent: 17 August 2010 09:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LOCAL-HISTORY] Query re over-dependence on The Times as historical source
In the 18th century, the Times of London was very much "a synthesis of primary sources, an account
filtered through an intermediary", at least as far as events outside London were concerned. They selectively copied stories from other newspapers.
That is why Dobson's study of strikes that I mentioned earlier was unsound: a strike in London was much more likely to be reported in the London Times than a strike in the north of England.
Humphrey
>>> Gill Cookson <[log in to unmask]> 17/08/2010 09:18 >>>
OK, so if a newspaper isn't a primary source, what is it?
A secondary source is a synthesis of primary sources, an account
filtered through an intermediary, an historian. This clearly does not
describe a contemporary document such as a newpaper. Just because
something is printed, doesn't define it as a secondary source.
If you check the bibliography of any reputable published work or
thesis in history, you will find newspapers listed as printed primary
sources. (There's also such a thing as an unpublished secondary
source, but I've never in many years working in this field heard any
historian talk about tertiary sources.)
I don't think any of this is remotely controversial. It's just the way
it is, and something any first-year history undergraduate is taught.
Gill
On 16 Aug 2010, at 18:22, Nick Hudd wrote:
> I would have thought that there is really little to discuss, as
> everyone on this list would (I hope) agree that all academic
> disciplines must check the accuracy of sources and material,
> primary, secondary (tertiary etc) and be seen to evaluate that
> accuracy, if necessary reaching (and publishing) a conclusion about
> reliability. This is true as much of the measurements used in
> scientific disciplines as it is of the sources used in the
> "humanities" (for lack of a better term).
>
> All "news" sources, in all ages, are secondary (though they may
> include verbatim primary accounts of course), but none the less of
> immense value, and one would think that The Times probably has a
> demonstrably better record of objectivity than many (most?). The
> press is a pretty unobjective medium at all times and in all places,
> but very few documents used in historical research are unimpeachably
> objective anyway.
>
> All that being the case, what will the proposed research actually
> add to the historiographical corpus of knowledge? That applies
> whether it is The Times being researched, or the Much-Binding-in-the-
> Marsh Gazette. I don't think the research will tell us anything that
> is not already known, though there may be those who do not know that
> it is known!!
>
> Nick Hudd
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