Newsweek Changes Standards For Anonymous Sources
I think this is a move in the right direction.
Too often I think both journalists and the readers/viewers of news tend to take information from anonymous sources to heart when they should really be more speculative. A lot of times I think that when we see a new bit of information is from some sort of high-falutin' official who is speaking on condition of anonymity we tend to take it as gospel when really we should be considering the anonymous sources motives.
Why are they releasing this information? Why are they afraid to put their name to what they're saying in public? If they're not allowed to release this information, why are they releasing it? What is their agenda? Do they have an axe to grind?
We don't often know the answers to any of these questions, which is why just about everything that is sourced anonymously in the media should be taken with a bucket of salt. And the journalists should be better at making this clear as well. When they publish information from an unidentified source they should make it clear that the information has not and/or cannot be substantiated by other sources thus should be taken for what it is: A rumor heard from a person not willing to identify themselves.
NEW YORK --ť Newsweek has adopted new policies for the use of anonymous sources, a week after retracting a report that claimed investigators had found evidence the Koran was desecrated by interrogators at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay.
In a letter to readers appearing in Monday's edition, Newsweek Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Richard Smith apologized for the report and said the magazine will raise standards for anonymous sourcing.
"We got an important story wrong, and honor requires us to admit our mistake and redouble our efforts to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again," he wrote.
Two of the magazine's top editors will be assigned sole responsibility for approving the use of anonymous sources, and the magazine will stop using the phrase "sources said" to attribute information in stories, Smith said.
Too often I think both journalists and the readers/viewers of news tend to take information from anonymous sources to heart when they should really be more speculative. A lot of times I think that when we see a new bit of information is from some sort of high-falutin' official who is speaking on condition of anonymity we tend to take it as gospel when really we should be considering the anonymous sources motives.
Why are they releasing this information? Why are they afraid to put their name to what they're saying in public? If they're not allowed to release this information, why are they releasing it? What is their agenda? Do they have an axe to grind?
We don't often know the answers to any of these questions, which is why just about everything that is sourced anonymously in the media should be taken with a bucket of salt. And the journalists should be better at making this clear as well. When they publish information from an unidentified source they should make it clear that the information has not and/or cannot be substantiated by other sources thus should be taken for what it is: A rumor heard from a person not willing to identify themselves.
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