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May 17, 2005

There is a rush of commentary in the wake of the Newsweek flap about the use of anonymous sources in reporting.

If I remember right (from when he edited some of my articles), my friend Jack Shafer is very big on pushing much harder than we sometimes do to get people to go on the record with what they tell us as reporters. And that's certainly a good idea, at least in the abstract and as a general matter. It makes people be more accountable. It gives readers a more precise sense of the reputability and credibility of the sources of information they're relying on. And it's certainly good practice when it comes to using the veil of anonymity to shield sources who are providing little more than snide comment or petty digs.

But make no mistake about it: were it not for the use of unnamed sources, we would know virtually none of what we currently know about the inner workings of our government. The same goes for almost any powerful institution in our society. And, as you might imagine, that's a result some find quite attractive.

I doubt very much that any working journalist with experience covering politics, government or national security issues -- particularly one doing anything remotely like investigative journalism -- would dispute that assertion.

What you would have would be news produced by press secretaries and the powerful, with the occasional addition of snippets from folks happy to lose their jobs to make a given story see the light of day.

Can anonymous sources spread lies or misinformation without having to answer for it to the public they deceive? Of course they can. [emphasis added by sysprog] But that's what makes a good journalist such a good thing and a bad one such a disaster. Society needs journalists as a conduit of information. That makes the use of anonymous sources essential -- often, in fact particularly, on those stories which have the greatest public consequences. And it is the work of journalists to evaluate the credibility of those sources and what they say before bringing them to public light.

That almost always means independently verifying what you've been told. But sometimes that's simply not possible. On a particularly sensitive issue, you'll try to get multiple sources confirming the same point. But any experienced journalist knows that it's often easy to get half a dozen people to confirm something they probably have no way of knowing is true. That's one of many reasons why the so-called 'two source' rule isn't nearly as clear a guide to action as its sometimes portrayed as being.

The simple fact is that a lot of it simply comes down to the experience and good judgment of the journalist, knowing a certain source is knowledgable, evaluating the agendas of their sources, thinking through alternative scenarios that could explain the facts they're seeing. Like I said, that's what makes a rock-solid journalist a great thing and a great asset to society.

The simple fact is that there'd be no 'news' without anonymous sources. Those who want to make the use of such sources illegitimate are, almost without exception, the leaders or officers of powerful institutions (particularly those in government like Scott McClellan and Larry Di Rita) who want to control information and keep it out of the hands of the public.

Late Update: It probably goes without saying. But in each case above when I refer to the 'journalist' this almost always means the journalist working in some degree of collaboration with an editor.

-- Josh Marshall, May 17, 2005

One can argue that the contractual agreement of anonymity is voided when the source lies, but selling that argument to reporters, even to ethical ones, will be a long, hard slog. In their culture, even when a source burns them, they just don't burn a source. And one might even lose that argument in court, if the Supreme Court extended the grasp of Cohen v. Cowles -- a terrible decision which held that reporters and newspapers can't revoke a grant of anonymity, even though the grant was obviously improper. (In that case, the identity of the source was the only newsworthy thing about the story, so the editor decided that the reporter's grant of anonymity was void, and the newspaper revealed the source's identity, but then the sleazy source sued. The source, Cohen, was sleazy, but he did tell the truth, and the Supreme Court held that the grant of anonymity was part of a valid contract, and the Supreme Court found in Cohen's favor.) Ever since that case, legal departments have instructed editors and reporters to religiously stick with their old commandment, THOU SHALT NOT BURN AN ANONYMOUS SOURCE.

Can that culture be influenced? Can they be convinced to break that commandment? There's some logic and moral force in the argument that if a source burns you, then you may and should burn the source. But framing an argument that way makes it harder for journalists to see it. Their cultural framework makes it much easier for them to see Josh Marshall's argument that what's needed to deal with bad sources is hard work, experience, and good judgment -- basic journalistic competence (obviously lacking in Sue Schmidt & Co. in this case).

I'm not saying that one should use frames to dishonestly spin an argument about ethics. I'm saying that, if one is going to talk to journalists about ethics, then it's useful to recognize the cultural frames within which THEY live and work, as illustrated by the text I bolded in Josh Marshall's blog posting. Changing their culture may be possible, but it's a huge undertaking.