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Citing Newspapers in APA Style (6th Edition) | Format & Examples

Published on November 5, 2020 by Jack Caulfield.

This article reflects the APA 6th edition guidelines. Click here for APA 7th edition guidelines.

Newspaper articles are cited much like other periodical sources in APA style, with the specific publication date included if available, and the name of the newspaper written in italics.

Print newspaper citations include a page number or range; online newspaper citations include a URL.

Using the buttons below, you can explore how to cite an online newspaper article with one or more authors.

With the APA Citation Generator, you can automatically create citations for print or online newspaper articles and build your reference list.

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Citing newspapers in print

Printed newspapers are sometimes divided into sections, which are identified by a letter before the page number (e.g. A1, B4). Always include the letters when page numbers are formatted in this way.

Newspaper articles may also appear on discontinuous pages (for example, an article which begins on the front page but continues on page 20). Make sure to only cite the relevant pages, separating different pages and page ranges with commas:

Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social status. The Washington Post, pp. A1, A4.

Note that with newspapers, unlike with other source types, APA requires you to write “p.” (for a single page) or “pp.” (for multiple pages) before page numbers in your reference list entry.

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Citing newspaper articles accessed online

If you accessed the article on the newspaper’s website, include a URL instead of page numbers. APA recommends linking to the homepage rather than the specific article, because article links can stop working:

Schwartz, F., & McBride, C. (2019, November 18). Trump administration says Israeli settlements aren’t illegal. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://wsj.com

Online-only news sites

Don’t use the newspaper citation format for articles on news sites that are not linked to a print newspaper, such as Reuters or BBC News.

Instead, use the format of a website citation. The URL links directly to the article, and the name of the site is not included:

Ahmad, J., & Shalizi, H. (2019, November 19). U.S., Australian hostages freed by Afghan Taliban in swap. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-taliban/u-s-australian-hostages-freed-by-afghan-taliban-in-swap-idUSKBN1XT0GF

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Caulfield, J. (2020, November 05). Citing Newspapers in APA Style (6th Edition) | Format & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved November 28, 2023, from https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/6th-edition/archived-newspaper-article/

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Jack Caulfield

Jack is a Brit based in Amsterdam, with an MA in comparative literature. He writes for Scribbr about his specialist topics: grammar, linguistics, citations, and plagiarism. In his spare time, he reads a lot of books.