Not quite. The first publication can be a secondary source, for instance if the New York Times publishes an article on a car accident. A primary source is something like a census return or, in this case, a witness statement.
The difference is that you have someone in between the source - the journalist in this case - sifting, analysing, compiling and interpreting the primary sources.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PSTS for more details.
----- "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
From: "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 24 August, 2009 07:48:11 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BB...
On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 11:13 AM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Steve, news articles *in general* are primary sources.
Here is how you can tell: Is what I'm reading the first time someone has published what I'm reading?
"So and so was hit by a car today" -- primary source, first time published.
Oh, for some reason I thought primary source meant the subject themself had published it. Like a blog, autobiography, etc. I was just confused.
Steve
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