Anonymous sources, trust and the media

The ombudsman for The Washington Post had this article Sunday about the haphazard use of anonymous sources at that newspaper.

Andrew Alexander writes:

In the run-up to last week's Virginia gubernatorial election, The Post published a front-page story quoting unnamed White House officials dumping on Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds.

"Senior administration officials" said they were frustrated with how Deeds was handling his campaign. A "senior administration official" said Deeds had "badly erred on several fronts." And "administration officials" predicted he would lose on Tuesday ...

Anonymous sources often are necessary. And too many of them appear in The Post.

But there's another problem. When they must be used, The Post doesn't do a good enough job of explaining why.

Alexander goes on to document how Post reporters not only don't follow internal policies about the use of anonymous sources -- "Of roughly 100 Post news stories using unnamed sources, fully a third provided no meaningful description" -- but also:

A few months ago in this space, I criticized The Post for routinely ignoring its strict rules on anonymous sources. Many staffers confessed they hadn't read them in years. And about two-thirds of the nearly 30 reporters I questioned said editors never or rarely demanded to know the identity of an anonymous source, which is required under Post policies.

Read that again: Staffers hadn't read the rules governing the use of anonymous sources in YEARS, and editors RARELY OR NEVER questioned them about the identity of those sources.

Wow.

Ever wonder how Jayson Blair was able to do what he did?

This sort of take-your-word-for-it attitude is how.

I agree with Alexander that the provision of sufficient supporting information is critical to the reader's ability to trust an anonymous source. But let's back up a minute. Here's the sentence that preceded his accounting of the "roughly 100 Post news stories using unnamed sources":

A review of anonymous-source usage over the past month shows that readers often got only bare-bones attribution.

So ... that's roughly 100 stories with anonymous sources in one month.

You can do the math and get the daily average.

I have commented here before -- and often -- about the media's growing reliance on anonymous sources. Once reserved only for sensitive topics like national security, anonymous sources have become so ubiquitous that they are part of journalists' daily course of work.

That is not OK.

Alexander seems rather unconcerned about the frequency of anonymous sources creeping into copy:

Readers write me constantly to complain about the overuse of anonymous sources. Some are troubled that they appear at all.

They're often essential. Without them, readers would be deprived of important disclosures about official corruption, misconduct, high-level policy debates or diplomatic disputes.

That is true. But it used to be that reporters would use anonymous sources to develop on-the-record sources; they would be directed to documents to seek and examine. They would build on the whispers until they could write their stories in full voice.

So the issue, then, isn't just whether readers should trust a reporter's anonymous sources: It is also whether the reader should trust a reporter who relies on those shadows so often.

Alexander concludes his piece this way:

The Post must be relentless is trying to keep anonymous sources to a minimum.

If they must be used, The Post can at least strengthen the bond of trust with its readers by explaining why the sources should be believed.

If journalists will focus on the former, they won't have so much trouble with the latter.

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