Voices
Thus American presidents used
major newspaper columnists like
James Reston, Arthur Krock, Walter
Lippmann and the Alsops to release
important information, and these
columnists did not necessarily attribute their source to the president.
Often there is no reason not to
identify a source and if he or she insists on anonymity, the story should
be written without quotations. An
exception can be made if attribution
would put someone’s life in danger—and, in addition, whistle-blowers and national security need to be
protected—but the media should be
careful not to provide too large an
umbrella. I need not remind New
York Times readers that this is how
Judith Miller, who claimed access to
high-level sources, reported on the
existence of WMDs in Iraq, a story
that had no foundation in fact.
As the third Public Editor of the
Times, Clark Hoyt, told me:
I think there have been... notable
occasions when the Times has
been less than properly skeptical
of official government information, and the most famous, relatively recent example is the war
in Iraq... You always have to fear
that there is a degree of [a reporter’s] self-correction [that] goes
on out of fear of compromising
DANIEL R.
SCHWARZ
that access in some way.
Indeed, Bill Keller wrote in a
June 23, 2005 memo that the use
of anonymous sources “is not routine but an exception,” and that
reporters need to know “how the
sources know what they know,
what motivated them to share information, and why they are entitled to anonymity.” And of course
the same standard should apply to
submitting quotes for review. The
reporter should also make clear
when he is skeptical about the reason for editing quotations if he
agrees to this procedure at all.
Put baldly, those sources who do
not want to speak for attribution
and/ or edit their own quotations often speak for their own purposes and
deliberately try to mislead the media. As Lord Northcliffe, owner of the
London Times and Daily Mail once
remarked, “News is what someone,
somewhere is trying to suppress.
The rest is advertising,” and these
anonymous sources and those who
want to take back what they said
are usually simply advertising their
point of view, often out of self-interest. Without sources hiding behind
vague titles and taking back what
they said, we would have less advertising and more informative
and truthful news.
HUFFINGTON
09.30.12