Anonymous sources as “methodology”
June 16, 2005Interesting point about the use of anonymous sources across disciplines, from a post-deep-throat analysis by the Houston Chronicle’s Craig Hines:
At a recent National Press Club forum on the use of anonymous sources, Mark Feldstein, a former investigative reporter who is now director of the journalism program at George Washington University, pointed out journalists are not unique in sometimes relying on anonymous sources. He cited police and anthropologists.
“Transparency is always better,” Feldstein said. That desired condition reaches its journalistic apogee when an accurate source is named and fully identified. But use of anonymous sources is “a perfectly legitimate methodology,” Feldstein said. The question is, he added, how are such sources used.
