Immediately after W. Mark Felt revealed that he was the anonymous source known as "Deep Throat", many other people spoke up as well.
Some were former journalists while others had worked for Richard Nixon and accused Felt of betraying their president and the FBI. Then there were the regular citizens, amazed that The Washington Post was able to keep the source nameless for so long.
Regardless of their political affiliation, all of these people have one thing in common: they understand the importance of anonymous sources to journalism. This is the greatest lesson of Watergate, and one which has fallen by the wayside recently.
The most important thing that journalists do is spread facts to as many people as possible. It happens through newspapers, television, radio, and the internet, and it will surely take other forms over time. But one thing that will not change is that there will always be people who know the truth and want to help with its dissemination, but know that if they attach their name to their work they will suffer some kind of consequence.
Obviously, it happens the most often in politics. Stories regularly appear on the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post in which "sources in the Bush administration" or elsewhere have confirmed things that reporters have heard.
In sports journalism anonymous sourcing is a regular practice as well, even though that section of the paper is the most reliant on the box score and the post-game press conference. If a team is about to hire or fire a coach, it is a common practice for someone either with or close to that team to confirm "on background," as it is known, that a rumored event is really happening.
Just because anonymous sourcing is a common practice, however, does not mean that those who engage in it do not carry tremendous responsibilities. Anonymous sourcing is not a crutch; it is always better to get someone to speak "on the record" and give their name. A reporter must be sure that what he or she is being told is true, which has led to the widely used rule that investigative stories should have at least two sources.
Anonymous sourcing is often most important -- and most dangerous -- when the repercussions for the source are truly serious, such as losing one's job or even physical punishment. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia understand the importance of disseminating the facts that these sources possess, and they have passed so-called "shield laws" that allow journalists to avoid punishment for keeping their sources anonymous.
But there is no federal shield law, which is why Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine were sentenced to jail for 18 months after refusing to say how they learned that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent. Representatives Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Rick Boucher, D-Va., introduced federal shield law legislation in the House this past February, but it remains stuck in the House Judiciary Committee four months later. I am not at all optimistic that the bill will ever reach the House floor.
What is even worse than the lack of a federal-level shield law is that the current political climate has led politicians to care much more about staying in office than doing the right things for the American people. This has led to efforts to keep controversial stories out of the media, but some people have been brave enough to speak up and tell the truth. Stories based on anonymous sources have been crucial in reporting on such issues as the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and the relationship between the nation's energy companies and the government.
When anonymous sourcing works, the results are good for everyone with the exception of those who have done wrong and have been called out on it. Throughout the mid-1970s, my parents sat at the breakfast table, reading Woodward and Bernstein's excellent reporting. Hundreds of thousands of other Washingtonians did the same thing, while millions more heard about it in their own local papers or on television. They all saw the importance of anonymous sourcing, which in this case was so great that it forced the only resignation of a President in American history.
Whether in the Nixon administration or the Bush administration, the practice of anonymous sourcing has been a key part of journalism. It must be allowed to continue, and all of us who practice the craft should remember Woodward, Bernstein and Felt as models of how to do it right.
