Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Another black eye for the news media
Newsweek’s retraction of their story alleging prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay raises new questions about credibility of the press and the use of unnamed sources. This time 14 lives were lost because of a lapse of judgment. From Jayson Blair to Jack Kelley to CBS and now Newsweek, journalism is under fire for not getting it right. The erosion of trust in the media continues to grow as new scandals come to light. A recent survey reported in Editor & Publisher says that 53% of the American public believes that stories with unnamed sources should not be published at all. For those of us who remember Watergate, that is a frightening statistic. However, recent history has revealed abuses of the practice of using unnamed sources…with little “ends” to justify the “means.” In response, major news operations are currently rewriting the rules for unnamed sources in an attempt to restore credibility. Is it too little too late? What do you think?
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6 comments:
Certainly reporters need to be ever vigilant in their use of anonymous sources, and perhaps new, professionally established standards and guidelines would help prevent further debacles like the recent Newsweek incident. But I don't think a policy of "absolutely no anonymous sources ever" is the answer. What will happen to the valuable information provided by the anonymous whistleblower who sees injustice or wrongdoing and has the public's interest at heart?
In this continuing era of government secrecy and cover-ups, anonymous sources still are needed to bring the truth to the public.
Anonymous sources are crucial to good journalism, but the key word here is "sources", as in plural. The Newsweek story apparently relied on ONE anonyous source, which I find to be highly risky considering the content that was disseminated.
And certainly the Bush administration has strategically made a big noise about this messy situation, when some would argue that Bush administration policies have injured or killed many more people than the Newsweek mess.
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter has been interviewed a number of times since this episode came to light, and his comment confirms Leticia's point: Some anonymous sources are critical to getting stories "out there" for public discussion. Individuals like Deep Throat aside, many folks who have access to information would not speak out if anonymity were not available, and important issues would not be in (or have reached)the public domain without those risk takers on both sides of the story. TO
Now that the identity of "Deep Throat" has been revealed, pundits are revisiting the events and policies that led up to the fall of the Nixon Whitehouse. Confirming the Vanity Fair story, Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said in a statement: "W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate." So even in this instance...the one that is most often sited in support of using unnamed sources...it appears that the unnamed source was only one of many sources. Lots of questions remain. Could the story have been reported without Felt? Were Felt's "tips" corroborated by other sources? In this case, did the ends justify the means? And finally, is Felt a hero?
I believe that the ability to spread news and ideas anonymously keeps things in perspective. If this site itself did not give the option of remaining anonymous, I'm not sure that I would allow any thoughts, ideas or information to leak out onto it. My anonymous blog allows me to give a fully heart-felt response without worrying about that response recieving a bad rep and attatching that rep to my name. I understand that anonymity is dangerous to the news world and I rarely, if ever, will use an anonymous source in any of my writing, but as the others before me stated...sometimes it is the only way to bring an underlying message or idea into the light. I am not sure that completely abolishing any anonymous sources is the best way of solving the problem, but several sited sources should also be given when talking about the subject covered by the anonymous source. Something needs to be done, but I think that needlessly dramatic steps are being taken.
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