How to Cite a Newspaper Article

News articles document events, carry expert comment, and — for historical work — are primary sources. The elements are the same everywhere; what differs is small punctuation rules that markers notice.

Print vs. Online

• Print: author, date, article title, newspaper name, page numbers.
• Online: author, date, article title, newspaper name, URL.

Cite the version you actually read.

Quick Reference by Major Style

APA (7th Edition):

Online:

An example verified against the paper's own site:

APA's own published examples of the same format, including print and database cases:

Three APA rules are visible there, and all three are easy to get wrong:

1. The newspaper name goes in italic title case.
2. For a print article, the page or pages follow the newspaper title — and APA says: "Do not include the abbreviations 'p.' or 'pp.' before the page(s)." (Some university guides teach the opposite; Murdoch University Library's APA guide, for instance, tells students to precede newspaper page numbers with "p." or "pp.". Where a local guide and the style authority differ, ask your department which it marks to.)
3. For an article from a research database, give the newspaper and any volume, issue or page numbers available, and then stop: "Do not include database information in the reference." That is why APA's Stobbe example ends at the paper's name.

MLA (9th Edition):

MLA assembles this from its template of core elements, the same way it handles any article in a container:

Chicago (18th Edition, Notes–Bibliography):

Chicago's Citation Quick Guide says page numbers "can be cited in a note but are omitted from a bibliography entry", and that for articles consulted online you include a URL or the name of the database. Its own published examples:

Bibliography:

Articles Without an Author

Many news articles have no byline. Move the title into the author position.

APA:

MLA:

Chicago:

In-text, APA uses a shortened title in quotation marks where the author's name would go, with major words capitalized — James Cook University Library's APA guide sets this out and shows the paired reference and in-text forms.

Wire Service Articles

When a story comes from a news agency, the agency's own site is usually the most stable place to cite, and the reporter keeps the byline:

Where you read the agency's copy in a newspaper and no reporter is named, the agency goes in the author position and the paper is where you read it:

Newspaper Names

Use the name as the paper gives it. Where the name does not identify the paper's city and your reader would need it, styles add the city in parentheses:

Two cautions. First, papers change their names — the Star Tribune of Minneapolis now presents itself as The Minnesota Star Tribune — so take the name from the issue or page you cited, not from memory. Second, don't add a city to a paper that already carries one.

Page Numbers for Print

• APA: give the page or pages after the newspaper name, with no "p." or "pp." — as in its Harlan example, "A1, A4".
• Chicago: page numbers may appear in a note and are omitted from the bibliography.
• MLA: uses "p."/"pp." in the location element.

Include section letters where the paper uses them; they are part of the page number.

Editions

Papers print several editions a day, and for historical research the edition can matter because the content differs. Where the issue you used names an edition, record it:

Take the edition wording off the masthead of the copy you consulted rather than assuming one.

Historical Newspapers

Older articles usually come through a digitized archive — ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Newspapers.com, a national library's newspaper portal. The format is the print format, because the print page is what you read:

APA:

Remember APA's database rule: the archive you searched does not go in the reference. Chicago's rule is the opposite — name the database when there is no URL. Record the page and section carefully from the scan; these are the details a reader needs to find the original microfilm or physical issue.

Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor

Opinion pieces carry a byline and are cited like articles; the paper's own section label tells you what you are looking at. Verified against the paper's site (its section is "Opinion"):

Add a bracketed descriptor when the genre is not obvious from the title and matters to your argument — APA's bracketed descriptions are flexible and exist for exactly this. For a letters page collected under one headline, the paper credits the page itself rather than a person: The Guardian labels the example below "Letters", with the individual correspondents signed underneath each letter. With no individual author to name, the title moves into the author position:

Editorials

Unsigned editorials are the paper speaking, and papers usually credit them to the editorial board rather than a person:

If the paper gives no author at all, move the title into the author position as above.

Reviews

Chicago publishes a review example, which shows where the reviewed work goes:

Bibliography:

Comments on Articles

APA credits the commenter, gives the comment's title or first 20 words, then "Comment on the article" and the article title in square brackets. Its own published example:

Chicago cites reader comments in the text or a note only, never in the bibliography:

Newspaper vs. News Website

This is a real distinction with a citation consequence. APA's rule: "If the article is from a news website (e.g., CNN, HuffPost)—one that does not have an associated daily or weekly newspaper—use the format for a webpage on a news website instead." Chicago groups them: "Articles from newspapers or news sites, magazines, blogs, and the like are cited similarly."

So under APA, ask whether the outlet publishes a newspaper. Under Chicago, the question barely arises.

Paywalled Articles

Cite the article with its own URL. A reader hitting a paywall can still identify the article, request it through a library, or find it in a database. Don't substitute a workaround URL that strips the article from its source.

Where These Rules Come From

• APA: the "Newspaper Article References" page on the APA Style site (apastyle.apa.org), citing Publication Manual Section 10.1, plus its "Database Information" page. APA's site refuses automated requests, so these were read through Internet Archive captures; the Carey, Harlan, Stobbe and sidneyf examples and every quoted APA sentence come from them.
• APA, corroborated (and one point of difference): Murdoch University Library's APA 7th guide, "News Articles" (libguides.murdoch.edu.au/APA/newspaper), and James Cook University Library's APA guide, "Newspaper Articles" with its separate "Newspaper articles with no author" page (libguides.jcu.edu.au/apa/articles/newspapers). Both read live. Murdoch's guide instructs students to "precede page numbers for newspapers with p. or pp.", which is the opposite of APA's own published rule; this page follows APA and flags the difference.
• Chicago: the free Chicago Manual of Style 18th-edition Citation Quick Guide, "News or magazine article" (which points to CMOS 14.87–88 for magazines and 14.89–98 for newspapers and news sites) and "Book review", read live — the Blum, Pegoraro, Michelle (Reno) and Jacobs entries are quoted from it.
• MLA: the MLA Style Center's template of core elements and "Citations by Format" (style.mla.org), read live.
• The four Guardian items were checked against each article's own page today, which confirmed headline, byline, section and publication date: Sally Weale (Education, 14 September 2026), Ted Widmer (Opinion, 21 September 2026), the "Letters" page (Education, 17 September 2026) and the editorial credited to "Editorial" (Opinion, 20 September 2026). The AP article could not be fetched from apnews.com, which returns 403 to automated requests, so it was verified through an Internet Archive capture giving the headline, the byline "Lauran Neergaard" and a publication date of 12 September 2026. The Minnesota Star Tribune renaming was read from the paper's own home page, which titles itself "Minnesota Star Tribune" and carries "The Minnesota Star Tribune" on the page; startribune.com answers scripted requests with a security checkpoint rather than the site, so this was read through an Internet Archive capture of that home page.