A dangerous tool in the wrong hands

Following Newsweek's publication of the mishandling of the Koran in Guantanamo, Conor Brady writes about the use and misuse of anonymous sources

In the weekly tally of dead and wounded from around the world's trouble-spots, the 15 – perhaps 20 – that died in Afghanistan last month because of a Newsweek story hardly stand out. But the fallout from the Newsweek report continues to be felt in US newsrooms and has refuelled the debate over the use of anonymous sources in news journalism. Just when editors, journalists and programme-makers thought they could start putting the issues raised in the Jayson Blair scandal behind them, Newsweek, long considered a paragon of good journalistic practice, has put them back on the public agenda.

It did so with the publication of a report that American military personnel at the Guantanamo Bay interrogation centre had desecrated the Koran by flushing it down a toilet with the object of humiliating Muslim prisoners. When the news magazine's allegations appeared in print they were picked up by Muslim world media, including the Al Jazeera network and widely publicised.

The result was anti-American protests in a number of Muslim countries. In Afghanistan, the protests developed into rioting and shooting, leaving as many as a score of men and women dead. In Washington, the US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, promised that any military personnel involved in the alleged desecration would be brought to account.

It now appears that the Koran incident probably did not occur at all. Or if an incident did occur, that it was of a much less offensive order than reported. The problem with trying to establish the exact veracity of the Newsweek report, however, was that it was based on an anonymous source. Senior editors took the information at face value. The identity of the "source" was not known at top supervisory level. Newsweek had walked into the same credibility trap as the New York Times where it was discovered in 2003 that reporter Jayson Blair had built a fine reputation reporting fiction, usually based on unnamed sources.

In the wake of the Blair revelations, a number of other leading US news media were similarly embarrassed and had to admit to extensive use of unchecked, uncorroborated and un-named "sources."

The Blair scandal sparked off a process of self-examination and debate among US news professionals that extended right through last year. Editorial boards and journalism faculties across the country advanced new guidelines and ground-rules, aimed at restricting the use of un-named sources.

Some news media considered banning their use completely but none are known to have done so. Others put supervisory or back-check systems in place, in which senior editors are supposed to challenge copy based on un-named sources and, where necessary, to have reporters divulge the sources' identities to them.

The results quickly became apparent in some of the bigger media. USA Today, the largest-circulating newspaper across the country, is estimated to have reduced its use of un-named sources in news reports by as much as 75 per cent. The Christian Science Monitor, a publication that has always been noted for its careful processes of self-scrutiny, did likewise.

Newsweek executives galloped to man the breach in their corporate reputation when it became clear that the magazine could not stand up the report from Guantanamo Bay. Chairman and editor-in-chief, Richard Smith, announced that in future two senior editors would have sole responsibility for evaluating and approving the use of anonymous sources. The magazine announced that it would no longer use the phrase "sources said" when attributing information.

In an ideal world, news professionals would be able to attribute everything to named sources. But in reality, much valuable and important information that is purveyed through the news media can only be put into the public domain anonymously. The issues of credibility and responsibility then come back to the integrity, reputation and professionalism of individual news practitioners and the organisations for which they work. Some journalists and media organisations can be trusted and relied upon. Others can not. It is when those with a high reputation begin to play fast and loose with the rules that the real damage is done.

There are few echoes of the American debate on sources on this side of the Atlantic. The use of anonymous and un-attributable sources is widespread in European news media – and probably nowhere more-so than in Ireland. Indeed, most news sources, whether in politics, business or any other sector, happily work with media professionals on the basis that stories will be broadcast or printed without a supervising editor querying the authenticity of anonymous quotes or other information.

That most of our news professionals are scrupulously correct in the use of unnamed sources, I have no doubt. But I am equally in no doubt that there are many instances where quotes are simply invented or "sources" are conjured up in the journalist's imagination to add verisimilitude to an otherwise thin narrative.

One reporter, writing recently in the NUJ's magazine The Journalist, wondered ruefully about the ubiquitous "bystander," who always seems to be on hand to give suitable quotes at the scene of an incident. I have a clear recollection myself of a reporter in Belfast in the early years of the Troubles, describing a downtown bombing, writing about "women, doing their shopping" who said "it was terrible – there was blood everywhere." The fact was that the reporter had not left the office because he was tight up against his deadline.

Good journalism sometimes needs the anonymous or un-named source. But it is a device that is open to abuse and exploitation. Its use needs to be challenged, supervised and applied sparingly. Unhappily, one has the sense that it is increasingly employed to compensate for the lack of properly-conducted research, for limitations in editorial resources and for time-pressures in a 24/7 news environment.

Conor Brady is Emeritus Editor of The Irish Times. He is a senior teaching fellow at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, UCD, where he lectures in modern media