Respected Washington Post national security reporter Walter Pincus writes this simple and elegant guide for using anonymous sources:
How do I decide when to publish such information provided by a confidential source?
There are at least three issues involved, and they include:
- Determining whether the information is credible and verifiable. Themost important issue involves my analysis of why the source providedthe information in the first place and, of course, verifying itsaccuracy. Many times during the past 40 years, a source wanting confidentiality has provided information and sometimes even documentsthat have proven to be untrue or taken out of context. Information thatis to be attributed to anonymous sources has to be checked more closelythan any other type of material.
- Determining whether the material is newsworthy. Just because it appears to be a secret and the source wants anonymity doesn?t mean it is worth printing. [!]
- Determining whether in the case of classified information it truly harms national security. And based on that analysis, there have been times at The Washington Post when we have decided not to publish such information. [!!!!]
…But no matter what legal protections exist, journalists should pausebefore handling information received from people who demand anonymity.Reporters should avoid promising anonymity to sources if it is beingoffered simply to encourage the source to say something in a dramaticor damaging way that the source would not say on the record. This useof anonymity harms the profession and diminishes the value of the confidentiality given to those who are whistleblowers?people who risktheir jobs and jail for what they may believe is a higher cause.
Pincus makes it pretty clear that reporters have some responsibility for their actions in agreeing to anonymity. Moving forward from this debacle, these guidlelines would be helpful in maintaining the lines of communication between whistle-blowers and the press.
Here’s another guideline, from Justice Potter Stewart in the Pentagon Papers case. Substitute "anonymous" or "privileged" for "classified", and "press" for "government", and see if the standard works:
For the government to decide how to keeps its ownsecrets secure, said Stewart, "I should suppose that moralpolitical and practical considerations would dictate a few veryfirst principle of that wisdom would be an insistence upon avoidingsecrecy for its own sake. For when everything is classified, thennothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregardedby the cynical or the careless and to be manipulated by thoseintent on self-protection or self-promotion. I should suppose, inshort, that the hall mark of a truly effective internal securitysystem would be the maximum possible disclosure."
