Journalism Isn’t One – and That Shapes How We Report Speech in Quotes

Introduction

In the previous issue of Tiro, Andrew Hill (2024) criticised Finnish quotation practices I had described in this very journal some years back (Haapanen, 2020). Rather than preserving a quote’s exact form and meaning, I had explained that “journalists aim primarily to make a good story with good quotes” and modify them as much or as little as needed. Hill wasn’t too happy about this, and his thought-provoking commentary – which emphasised accuracy and minimal intervention in reported speech – made me revisit my dataset and rethink journalistic quoting.

In this article, I argue that the way journalists quote depends on the type of article they are producing. This requires looking beyond the quoting process itself and considering the broader context of interviewing, transcribing, and reporting.

Not all interviews are the same, and neither is quoting

There are information-driven articles, where the journalist focuses on gathering and verifying facts. Interviewees are typically politicians, authorities, or experts accustomed to giving interviews, often on the same topic or even answering the same questions multiple times. They understand media conventions and are skilled at delivering “one-liners” that work well as quotes. Quoting them word for word seems relatively unproblematic.

At least, it appears so at first glance. But since we are discussing this among professionals in both practice and research, on a linguistically aware platform, let me pause. Even in these seemingly straightforward cases, some modification is needed. I call this, somewhat paradoxically, “neutralisation”: journalists change quotes to prevent them from changing. I’ll explain.

Meaning is context-dependent. Leaving a quote untouched when moving from speech to writing can distort it. To prevent this, journalists apply neutralisation on several levels. Verbatim phonetic features may be misinterpreted, while discourse markers, hesitations, and self-repairs are often trimmed to avoid unintended impressions of uncertainty. Deictic expressions – words like “this”, “here”, or “now”, whose meaning depends on context – are adjusted. Journalists also reorganise content to bridge the gap between the fluidity of spoken language and the fixed structure of written discourse.

One more step is to borrow the “magnifying glass” of conversation analysts and interactional linguists (Harjunpää & Kaikkonen, 2020), who study features like intonation, speech tempo, pauses, gaze, and gestures. These are crucial for meaning-making, yet even transcribing them accurately is challenging, let alone incorporating them into journalistic quoting. While verbal modifications for neutralisation are widely accepted, bringing in non-verbal elements may start to feel like hair-splitting.

When the goal isn’t just facts but atmosphere

But what if the task at hand is not hard news but a feature? Here, the process shifts from gathering and verifying facts to co-producing knowledge with the interviewee – highlighting not just what is said but how, and capturing the atmosphere. In such interviews, sidetracks are welcomed as opportunities, and the journalist purrs with delight when stumbling upon a serendipitous discovery (see Haapanen & Perrin, 2024).

The excerpt below is from an interview between a journalist and Petri Luukkainen, who undertook an unconventional project and documented it as a film: he moved all his belongings into storage and, for one year, retrieved only one item per day and made only essential purchases. The transcription of their Finnish-language conversation is fairly precise but omits hair-splitting non-verbal details.

Luukkainen:

1  …harva tulee ja hyökkää mua vastaan siinä vaan kaikki (.) kaikki rupee niinku (1.5 )

     …hardly anyone criticised me, instead, everyone (.) everyone just kind of (1.5)

2  jotenkin heti – (.) ja sitte (.) ja toinen juttu mitä mä huomasin automaattisesti (.)

     immediately starts to – (.) and then (.) and another thing I noticed automatically (.)

3  on se et ihmisethän puhuu – (.) ihmiset ei puhu säästä (.)

     is that people, you know, they talk – (.) people don’t talk about the weather (.)

4  vaan ihmiset puhuu siit – (.) ventovieraat puhuu säästä (.) tutut ihmiset puhuu

     they talk about – (.) strangers talk about the weather (.) familiar people talk about

5  siitä mitä ne on ostanut

     what they’ve bought

Journalist:

6  joo

    yeah

Luukkainen:

7  se on ihan käsittämätöntä (.) en mä tiennyt sitä ennen (.) vaik mä puhun

     it’s totally mind-blowing (.) I didn’t know that before (.) even though I talk

8  ihan samasta asiasta (.) kaikki puhuu siit mitä ne on viimeeks ostanut ja mitä ne on käyttäny

     about the same thing (.) everyone talks about what they last bought and what they’ve used

9  ja kuka – mikäkö on ostanut mitä ja – .hhh ja sit niinku mä huomasin sen ku

     and who – or what – bought what, and – .hhh and then like I noticed it when

10 mä tuun kahvipöytään tai frendien kans tai ihan mihin tahansa työs (.) istun ales (.)

       I came to the coffee table or with friends or at work or wherever (.) I sit down (.)

11 vast sit ku mul oli niinku ostolakko ja ku muut tajus et mul on ostolakko (.) ihmiset on kaikkee

      only when I had this shopping ban and when others realised I was on it (.) people are like

12 @joo mä oon ostanut semmosen tai se on ostanut sitä tai oottekste te nähnyt sitä

      @yeah I bought this or they bought that or have you guys seen that

13 tai mä oon kokeillu sitä@ ja sit jengi tajuu ((napsauttaa sormia)) ai nii tolla on se ostolakko

      or I’ve tried this@ and then people realise ((snaps fingers)) oh right he’s on that shopping ban

14 sit kaikki on silleen @nii kato kun mä oon -@ et se et kuinka paljon puhutaan

      then everyone’s like @well you see, I just -@ just like, how much people talk

15 tavaroiden ostamisesta ja kuluttamisesta ja kaikest nii ni (.) ni onhan se niinku (.)

      about buying stuff and consuming and all that (.) I mean it’s really like (.)

16 se oli tosi häkellyttävää (.) niinku

      it was really startling (.) like

Journalist:

17 ihan varmasti (3.0)

      for sure (3.0)

Luukkainen:

18 ja sit ja sit ja sit (.) seuraava tilanne on sit sit (.) viikko menee eteenpäin    

      and then and then and then the next situation is then (.)a week goes by

19 ni sit ni sit ni sit mun ystävät kertoo mulle että (.) kuinka ne ei menny ostoksille (.)

      and then and then and then my friends tell me that (.) how they didn’t go shopping (.)

20 tai kuinka ne meni ostoksille mutta ne osti vaan tän tai sit ne mietti tosi pitkää

      or how they did go but they only bought this one thing or they thought for a long time

21 ja sitten ne osti- et et tavallaan se (.) et se on (.)

      and then bought- so like kind of that (.) that it’s (.)

Journalist:

22 joo mä oon huomannu –

      yeah I’ve noticed –

Luukkainen:

23 kyllähän se kertoo niinku (.) meidän ajasta et et niinku (.) ja mä oon ite paljon miettinyt sitä

      It really says a lot, you know (.) about our time, I mean (.) and I’ve thought a lot about it myself

24 et et miten mä oon tavallaan päätynyt tollai – (.) niin kyllähän se on sitä et suurin osa mun

      like how I ended up like that – (.) so it really is that most of my

25 itseilmaisusta on tullu (.) niinku (.) ostamisen ja (.)

      self-expression has come (.) like (.) through buying and (.)

Journalist:

26 mm mm (.) se on se meille tarjottu tapa

      mm mm (.) that’s the way offered to us

Luukkainen:

27 kulutusvalintojen kautta ja tavallaan ehkä siitä se ahdistus on tavallaan mulle

      through consumption choices and maybe that’s where the anxiety has kind of

28 ehkä tullukki (.) et tavallaan sitten sit jos jos se ei oo tarjonnutkaan sit semmost (.)

      come from too (.) like then if it hasn’t actually provided that kind of (.)

29 kestävää onnellisuutta (1.0) ja mä oon ahdistuneena siellä mun tavaroideni keskellä (.)

      lasting happiness (1.0) and I’m there anxious in the middle of all my stuff (.)

30 niin (.) ketä mä syytän (.) no niitä tavaroita tietenkin

      so then (.) who do I blame (.) well, the stuff, obviously

Journalist:

31 nii nii

      yeah yeah

[For the explanation of symbols, see the end of the article.]

A freely speaking interviewee, perhaps verbalising ideas for the first time, offers rich material for quotes. At the same time, quoting such a stream of thought is far from straightforward. Verbatim reproduction often leads to overly long and messy quotes with distracting padding, making the speaker seem hesitant, unpolished, or even lacking in expertise. For example, a bunch of niinku (“like”) may go unnoticed in speech but stand out in writing.

The gold standard of British journalism, as described by Andrew Hill, would be to avoid quoting in such cases. “If I do have to break up a larger quote,” Hill wrote, “I will indicate the gap with an ellipsis – three dots or period marks – or square brackets around words not directly spoken. Otherwise, I would always use indirect speech.”

Let me state this plainly: in feature stories, that simply is not an option. Features live and breathe through direct quotes and the subject’s own voice. Quotes bring the story to life, reveal the speaker’s unique expression, and shape their portrayal.

The journalist, whose work we examined above, responded to the challenge by crafting the following excerpt from the dialogue featured in her published article. Originally in Finnish, I have translated it into English here.

During the year, Luukkainen noticed that people talk a lot about their stuff – especially the new things they’ve bought.

“A few times, the conversation turned to people justifying their purchases to me. Or they’d tell me how they’d decided not to go shopping after all. Through these conversations, I came to understand that we express ourselves through our consumption choices. And if that doesn’t bring happiness, it’s easy to blame the stuff around us for making us feel bad.”

There is no need to dwell on a word-for-word comparison; I examined the transcript and could not find even two consecutive words that appear together in the quote. However, while verbatimness also refers to preserving the original meaning (Eugeni, 2021), we can agree that the journalist has distilled (some of) the core ideas into a few clear sentences. The key question is: can this be presented as direct speech – a quote – especially in the context of journalism?

My answer is yes, and the reason lies in the diversity of journalism.

Different approaches, different expectations

We need to break down the monolithic concept of “journalism” into multiple journalisms and recognise that different types of journalism come with different expectations for interviewing and quoting. Whether the goal is to investigate wrongdoing, portray an atmosphere, or provide a service to readers, these objectives shape whom journalists choose to interview, how they prepare, how the interviews unfold, and ultimately how the interaction is rendered in writing.

In this light, Andrew Hill’s preference for strict quoting practices may serve certain genres well, but applying the same standard across the board risks flattening the varied realities of journalistic practice. If quoting is indeed shaped by the purpose of the article, adapting quotes is not just acceptable – it is essential, necessary, and unavoidable.

Lauri Haapanen is a University Lecturer and Adjunct Professor of Journalism at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He previously worked as a journalist.

References

Eugeni, C. ( 2021). What does “verbatim” mean? – Tiro 2/2021.URL: https://tiro.intersteno.org/2021/12/what-does-verbatim-mean/

Haapanen, L. (2020). Reporting spoken interviews in journalistic quotes. –  Tiro 1/2020. URL: https://tiro.intersteno.org/2020/05/reporting-spoken-interviews-in-journalistic-quotes/

Haapanen, L., & D. Perrin (2025). Embracing the unexpected: Exploring the role of serendipity in newswriting. –  Discourse & Communication 19(1), 25-45. URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813241281709

Harjunpää, K. & S. Kaikkonen (2020). Conversation analytic transcription – uncovering resources of social interaction. –  Tiro 2/2020. URL: https://tiro.intersteno.org/2020/11/conversation-analytic-transcription-uncovering-resources-of-social-interaction/

Hill, A. (2024). Shorthand in Journalism: A Dying Art? – Tiro 2/2024. URL: https://tiro.intersteno.org/2024/12/shorthand-in-journalism-a-dying-art/

Explanation of symbols

(.) = short pause

(2.0) = longer pause, in seconds

xx – = interrupted utterance

.hhh = an audible in-breath

@change in tone of voice@