Anonymity vs. Accountability
Big news last week was the revelation that former FBI agent Mark Felt was also Deep Throat, the unnamed source who was crucial to Bob Woodward's investigation into Watergate and the Nixon administration. While the news was interesting from a historical perspective, it also brought the subject of anonymous sources back into the forefront of journalists' minds.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the Leader staff rarely encounters situations or potential stories when we would rely solely on an anonymous source. There are specific situations where that might be appropriate, but they are rare, and doing so can have costly consequences.
Nowhere was this better highlighted than in the recent flap over Newsweek's reporting that U.S. soldiers had flushed copies of the Koran down the toilet, sparking anger from Muslim groups around the world. The anonymous source who provided the information, a high-level military official, later backed off, saying he was wrong to provide Newsweek with that information. Of course, Newsweek was left with a lot of egg on its face, and some would say that's what you get when you use anonymous sources.
About the only anonymous sources we run into around here are people who call us with gossip and the occasional complaint. We field phone calls from people who have a "tip" about something, and want us to do a story. Often these people have an ax to grind against a public official or someone they don't like, and they decline to give their name, but have no qualms about bad-mouthing other people.
Too chicken to tell us their name, they fully expect us to use our paper to further their own agenda.
Paying attention to these "sources" is usually a waste of time, and using our paper to further their personal agenda is just plain unethical. However, a far bigger headache are people who call in with a complaint who don't leave their name and number for us to follow up with them.
Several times I've returned from covering a story to find an angry voicemail waiting for me, with someone upset about something — but no phone number to respond to their concern. We received a letter last week complaining about our story on Rep. Joey Jayne's efforts to meet with teenagers regarding the graduated driver's license bill — politicians are always easy targets — with no name, address or phone number.
The writer criticized us and claimed we were just helping Jayne advance her political career. We would have been happy to address his or her specific concerns, some of which might have been worth looking into but most of which were outside the scope of the article. However, the letter was signed "a concerned citizen," with only a Missoula postmark to go on. So concerned you couldn't leave us a phone number to respond to your concerns?
Our sports editor, Craig Moore, once returned from covering a winter sports event, only to find an angry voicemail awaiting him in which a woman demanded that we stop publishing a picture of a certain student athlete. Because we try to use pictures of as many different players as possible, we rushed to check past issues. Sure enough, the kid in question had only appeared in our paper once.
Because the caller didn't leave a phone number, we were unable to call her back to explain that we had only run one photo of the athlete (the athlete in question had been featured in the Missoulian, among other places, leading us to wonder if she was just sick of hearing about him, or just sour grapes that it wasn't her kid).
It's very frustrating when people expect us to be accountable but don't allow us the opportunity to do so.
I would imagine that public figures experience the same frustration when an anonymous source is quoted in a paper, providing details of an ongoing investigation or other "negative" information — all with no accountability to the individual.
If I ever get some information that might topple a Presidential administration, rest assured, I'll at least follow up on it. But the fact of the matter is, anonymity rarely benefits anyone.