Direct quotes (overquoted)
1) "There are lots of things we could have done better," Orpik said. (Pittsburgh Post Gazette) - Players tend to show a lot of emotion during postgame press conferences, but this displays none, and could have been paraphrased easily.
2) "We had some guys hurt this year (i.e. Hakeem Nicks, Chris Snee, Ahmad Bradshaw) and that was a problem," Mara said. (ESPN) - The writer should have put "Mara acknowledged that injuries were a reoccuring problem during the season."
Direct quotes (humanized)
1) "I got a text from one of the actresses," says Maura. "She said she walked into her bank and the people there were like, ‘Didn't we just see you in that Public Enemy video?'" (The City Paper) - The writer includes this quote to show how widely-recognized the music video is, and in the process, humanizes the actress as a normal Pittsburgher running errands.
2) “I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews,” she said. “I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.” (New York Times) - This quote shows the respect and compassion Hilary Clinton has for the men and women who serve for our country. Very emotional.
Not for attribution
The NRA wanted the government to change the way it deemed someone "mentally defective," excluding people, for example, who were no longer under any psychiatric supervision or monitoring. (ProPublica) - Clearly, a source from the NRA, probably a high ranking official, wanted to say this as his/her personal view, but decided to hide behind the shield of the company. To see, replace 'the NRA' with someone's name. It works.
Background
A source close to Te'o gave ESPN's Jeremy Schaap documents that the source says are Te'o's AT&T phone records from May 11 to Sept. 12, the date that Kekua was supposed to have died of leukemia. (ESPN) - The person who handed over these documents would have been fired for doing so, especially in a case with this much national recognition. But if Schaap didn't indicate where he got the documents from, he most likely wouldn't be able to use them in his research.
Deep background
In some cases, the recruits were ordered by instructors to go to a closet, where they were then molested by the instructors. (New York Times) - This reporter would have no idea practices like this were going unless he was hinted towards it. The person who revealed this information wanted this to be revealed, but not in any way linked back to him/her.
