Quote Approval
The practice of letting a source review and revise their quotations before publication.
Quote approval is an arrangement in which an interviewee — or their press office — is shown their quotations before publication and permitted to change them. It became a widespread condition of political access in the 2000s and remains common in corporate communications.
Newsrooms are divided. Critics argue that a revised quotation is no longer a record of what was said, and that approval hands editorial control to the subject. Defenders say technical or high-stakes subjects deserve a chance to correct genuine misstatements.
Several major outlets restricted the practice after public controversy in 2012, typically drawing a line between accuracy checks — did I hear you correctly? — and rewriting, which is refused.
Common mistake for readers: assuming a printed quotation is a verbatim record. Where approval was granted, ethical outlets disclose it; where quotations are unusually polished, the phrasing may have been negotiated.
“"This quotation was reviewed by the subject's office prior to publication."”
Keep reading the glossary
The graded conventions governing how an unnamed source may be quoted.
Word-for-word — quoting exactly as the original was spoken or written.
The act of naming the original speaker or writer of a quote.
Reproducing a quote with the wording changed — even if the source is correct.