"How do you use an anonymous source? The mysteries of journalism everyone should know."
A PSA on journalism by Whell's favorite newspaper.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...=.6c7c9b8f9bf1
"When Houston Chronicle reporters want to use information from an unnamed source in a news story, they have to jump through a few hoops first.
A senior editor has to approve it, and know who the source is. A single unnamed source is rarely enough to go ahead with a story — there must be two sources with the same firsthand knowledge. And one of a handful of top editors must sign off on its use before publication.
“The one exception to the two-source rule is when we have a ‘golden source’ — for example, the police chief talking about an investigation,” said Nancy Barnes, the Chronicle’s executive editor.****
The vetting process is similar at many large news organizations — and it’s just one of the practices that journalists assume, perhaps incorrectly, that news consumers understand.
Anonymous sourcing is one of the least-understood of the mysteries.
“A lot of people seem to think that when we use anonymous sources, we don’t even know who they are — that they’re anonymous to us,” said Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery.
That’s definitely not the case. Anonymity is granted to known sources under tightly controlled circumstances because they can’t speak on the record with their names attached for a variety of reasons." WaPo