Question

How is the information that historians get from old newspapers is different from that found in police reports?

Answer 1

Hint: A police report may give a version of information that was suited to the ruler of that particular time whereas a newspaper may have a different version of the same story.

Complete answer: For writing about any time period a historian is expected to do a vast research and he or she needs to gather all the valuable information from various sources so that he or she can get the whole information and also a clearer picture of the time period concerned. The archived official documents provide the picture from the perspective of the people who are in power during that time. A police report can be called as one such official document. Archived police reports help the historian in having a better understanding of the police, its functions, the relations of the police with the people who are in power. The nature of the police records restricts the amount or the kind of information one can derive from them. Another problem with the official recordings is they only present a certain censored amount of information which the authorities want them to present. Therefore, for getting a wider balanced view of the data the historians go through the unofficial records relating to the period like the diaries of people, accounts of pilgrims, travellers, autobiographies of important personalities, books newspapers etc. Unlike the restricted information that a police report gives, the newspapers give full varied information to the historian. However, we cannot be fully sure that the whole information is correct.

Note: As mentioned earlier, the police reports may be influenced by power and authority, a newspaper report also may be influenced by the biases and interests of the person writing the report.