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The Washington Post, citing two anonymous sources, scored an incredible scoop last weekend.
It reported that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” aboard a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, including the survivors of the initial strike as they clung helplessly to the sinking wreck.
Or maybe he didn’t.
On Monday, the New York Times, citing five anonymous sources, published a counter-scoop, claiming Hegseth never said anything about killing survivors. In fact, the outlet’s sources said, Hegseth has never specified what should happen if a target survives a missile strike.
Which version of events is true? It’s impossible to say, as both accounts rely solely on the say-so of anonymous sources. Yes, we are still doing “sources say” Trump-era “bombshells,” even after everything that has gone horribly wrong in news media over the past 10-plus years. (See: the multiyear news cycle in which it was asserted that the Kremlin installed President Donald Trump in the White House.)
The only relevant on-the-record quotes included in the outlets’ coverage are the White House’s denials, which don’t help us get any closer to the truth because they could mean either innocence or guilt. (That said, when it comes to judging which news outlet has the better-sourced information, Hegseth might have given a clue on Nov. 28, when he said on X that the “fake news” media “fabricated” the story. Notably, he did not specify which parts were “fabricated.” This is called a nondenial.)
As for on-the-record statements from the sources driving the outlets’ coverage, there’s nothing. Nada. It’s one newspaper’s anonymous sources versus another newspaper’s anonymous sources. It’s not even “he said/she said,” it’s “question mark/question mark.” Only the outlets’ reporters can say which sources are more reliable, and even then, their judgment is not beyond questioning. After all, we know journalists are not immune from being played for saps by members of the national security and intelligence communities.
As for the rest of us, we have no idea who’s speaking, whether they are reliable, whether they understand what they are talking about, or whether their information is firsthand, secondhand, or further removed.
This gets to the heart of the problem of anonymously sourced reporting. It demands a significant and, frankly, unreasonable amount of faith from the public. This has always been an unlikely ask. But now? In this era of record-low faith in media? Good luck.
Anonymous sources are great for pointing journalists in the right direction and putting big stories on the radar. Anonymous whistleblowers are crucial for revealing previously unknown crimes and scandals. Anonymous sources have even played a heroic role in driving important reforms and removing corrupt officials from office. They do not, by virtue of being granted anonymity, “always lie,” as FBI Director Kash Patel recently said.
Still, nameless persons have to be paired with some form of secondary confirmation beyond mere verbal assurances. It can be a paper document or a digital file. It can be a photo or a video. It can also be an on-the-record comment from an at least tangentially in-the-know person — a retired military officer who served in that exact role, an inspector general who investigated that exact crime, etc. (It can’t be some far-removed academic with big opinions and a bigger axe to grind. Nice try.)
Just as long as it’s secondary corroboration to the primary source, whose name, position, reliability, and judgment we can’t possibly know, let alone evaluate.
It’s unreasonable and unwise to present a major scandal to the public, such as one claiming the secretary of war ordered the killing of noncombatant survivors, armed with nothing more than a “trust me, bro,” especially if there’s no evidence beyond the assurances of anonymous sources. This is why ethical and responsible journalism has long held that anonymous sources should only be used as a last resort, and only if secondary, on-the-record confirmation or corroboration can be obtained. If you fail to do this, you risk publishing something that could turn out to be very false, possibly even defamatory and legally actionable. These guidelines are not new; they are old, and they exist for a reason.
Yet, here we are, more than a decade into the Trump era. And despite numerous botched, anonymously sourced “scoops,” our largest and most powerful newsrooms evidently have no intention of weaning themselves of their newfound addiction to nameless sources. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this has not been a healthy development for an industry already facing a credibility crisis.
Anonymous sourcing is how you get the trust-depleting spectacle of separate newsrooms “independently confirming” the same falsehoods. Anonymous sourcing is how you get entirely pointless, weekslong news cycles, such as the one where audiences tried to identify which “senior” Trump official wrote an anonymous opinion piece in the New York Times announcing a plan to sabotage the president, only to discover that the so-called high-ranking official was just an obscure middle-management dweeb with no real power or influence. Anonymous sourcing is also how you get the Associated Press saying Russia launched missiles into Poland, even when Russia did no such thing.
Yes, this is the Trump era, and most of the usual rules regarding ethical journalism have been tossed out the window, including the ones designed to protect the privacy of minors. But we have to have some standards. A general lack of standards is why we are nearly a week into an anonymously sourced news cycle that claims on one hand Hegseth committed a war crime, while presupposing on the other that maybe he didn’t?
In the highly fictionalized 1976 film All the President’s Men, Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards) becomes annoyed after two reporters admit they have not locked down a knowledgeable source willing to use his name for a scoop they are pursuing.
“Goddammit,” Bradlee barks at the reporters, “when is somebody going to go on the record in this story?”
WILL TRUMP GIVE ALBANIA’S EDI RAMA A FREE PASS ON DRUG CARTEL LINKS?
Good question.
An even better question: Do these conversations still happen in our major newsrooms? Because the way things have been going for the past 10-plus years, one might be forgiven for believing these discussions are, at the very least, few and far between, if nonexistent.
