Anonymous sources sometimes essential

Newspapers can be categorized as an editor’s newspaper or a reporter’s newspaper. In an editor’s newspaper, the editors exercise almost dictatorial control. In a reporter’s newspaper, the reporters are given their head, have much greater leeway.
Inevitably, a reporter’s newspaper is a better newspaper. It is more innovative, more dynamic. An editor’s newspaper stifles creativity. It is cautious and conservative in both a sense of judgment and a political sense.
With an editor’s newspaper you often have third-rate minds at the helm. You cannot have a good newspaper run by third-raters. Indeed, one of the many problems of the newspaper business is editors. Case in point: the Reno Gazette-Journal. It is a bad newspaper.
The RGJ sports page recently led with a story headlined: “Pack pitcher in serious condition.” Why? Read another newspaper.
I know. There is no other daily newspaper in Reno. It’s a sad example of monopoly journalism. No competition leads in most cases to bad newspapering.
The first-day story in the RGJ quoted the athletic director as saying that the pitcher was in the hospital after “an unfortunate incident.” The AD would not elaborate, citing the “family’s request for privacy.”
But there is no privacy when a university athlete is involved in a news story. The public is entitled to details of “the unfortunate incident.” The family is naturally grieved but it is not a private matter. Every reader of the story asks plaintively: what happened?
Which leads to another question: who is the sports writer working for, the reader or the families and athletic department? If the reason for the serious condition is left out of the story, it leaves a gaping hole. Reporters should never leave an unanswered question in a story if possible.
Oh, well. Maybe we would get the answer the next day. Nope. The headline on the second-day story: “Wolf Pack freshman dies.” Why? Read, listen or see another media outlet.
Finally, on the third day of the story we read that a memorial service was scheduled for the pitcher. In the second paragraph we read that he died. Not till the sixth paragraph did the reader learn that the pitcher shot himself.
I sent an email to Chad Hartley, veteran sports writer who wrote the stories, asking why he did not give the cause of death sooner. He replied that the sheriff’s office and the coroner’s office refused to comment. Hartley added: “I had it as suicide from a number of sources. But none would go on the record and my paper does not allow unnamed sources.”
Et voila: an editor’s newspaper. Hartley, as the good reporter he is, had cultivated sources. He found out why but was not allowed to inform readers.
Note to editors of the RGJ: if you don’t tell the cause of death you omit an extremely important fact.
Yes, anonymous sourcing is a concern. It allows newspapers to be used and the readers abused. Anonymous sources can push their own agendas. They can undermine credibility. Reporters can be co-opted, becoming a PR flack for that source. And, yes, some newspaper reporters have used anonymous sources to write fiction in the guise of news.
But whistleblowers, for example, must be protected or they will not talk to the media. The public good is not being served if such sources are barred. Good newspapers like the New York Times use anonymous sources constantly--to the great benefit of readers.
Recent examples from Times stories: a Republican senator’s aide was granted anonymity “to openly discuss” a gas rebate plan. A Special Forces officer “was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publically on military matters.” Federal investigators of influence-peddling “were granted anonymity so they could speak more candidly.”
In short, if reporters have cultivated sources as Chad Hartley did and they know the source is credible, they can give the readers valuable information by promising anonymity. Example from a sports story in the San Francisco Chronicle: “The Oakland Tribune cited anonymous sources in the clubhouse,” calling a player, who was named in the story, a team cancer.
Anonymous-source reporting illuminates situations. But city side reporters at the Gazette-Journal are restricted in use of anonymous sources. They must get approval of editors—and that approval is extremely rare.
Anonymous sourcing requires cultivating sources, developing rapport and getting people to like and trust reporters. And it requires that the reporter knows, repects and trusts sources. Media outlets that won’t report stories if people do not speak on the record are doing themselves and their readers a gross disservice.