Popular source
Also called: trade source, general-interest source
A source written for a general audience — journalism, magazines, most websites — rather than for specialists.
Popular sources are edited for readability, usually unreferenced, and often written by someone reporting research rather than doing it. That makes them excellent for current events, public reaction, and industry context, and unreliable as a route to a scientific claim.
When a news article reports a study, cite the study. The reporting frequently drops the caveats, and headline writers are not bound by the paper's conclusions.