And even if one does agree to those conditions and the information one then receives doesn't warrant anonymity, the journalist can attempt to persuade the person to agree to have the comments be on the record (and newspaper anonymity policies not only require that such an effort be made, but also require that those efforts be described when using anonymity -- a "rule" that is ignored far more often than adhered to).
So as a point of reference, we take this much-talked about David Brooks column from last week, in which he said:
On Tuesday, I wrote that the Obama budget is a liberal, big government document that should make moderates nervous. The column generated a large positive response from moderate Obama supporters who are anxious about where the administration is headed. It was not so popular inside the White House. Within a day, I had conversations with four senior members of the administration and in the interest of fairness, I thought I’d share their arguments with you today.If Glenn Greenwald had his way, the following paragraph would be:
For full disclosure: I said "Can I please reveal your name in my piece?" and my source said I could not. I then followed him around the West Wing, repeating -- nay, demanding, that he give me permission. Not upholding my newspaper's code of sources was not an option, I thought. Would my readers rather I write about the conversation I had just had or write about the process by which I came to having the conversation I just had? It wasn't close, in my mind. I asked other people. Aides, secretaries, low level staffers, the Deputy Cafeteria Director -- anyone, just to put a face and a name on these claims. And "unnamed sources" is just such a clunky phrase. It takes up way too much space.
