These resources can be valuable to portray opposing points of view on social issues. Popular periodicals, newspapers and magazines do not include articles considered to be scholarly. Instead, they record events and capture the spirit of public opinion and interests. You will not find sections on methods or literature surveys demonstrating that research is both replicable and significant. For problem-based disciplines such as environmental studies, however, newspapers, statistics, and reports of government agencies, research or lobbying organizations are especially valuable when set into the appropriate context.
Currency is a driving factor.
Years ago only publication in journals would meet the needs for currency and for peer validation. Listservs and servers hosting article or conference paper preprints now are critical in some fields for their timeliness, although their contents may not be validated. Scholarly monographs, encyclopedias, and data collections have become even less credible because they contain information that is obsolete by the day of publication. It is a medium with no inherent level of quality. It is your responsibility to validate each site you want to use in your assignment.