Angry in the Great White North

The word anonymous has many shades of meaning, but it is best used to describe something that doesn't have a name.

For me, an anonymous source is one who has no known identity.  Not known to anyone, even thee reporter.

This is a shade different from an unnamed source.  If a reporter provides information from an unnamed source, I take it to mean that the reporter knows who it is, but declines publishing this person's name.

I don't like anonymous sources.  If someone feeds me something without telling me who he is, I'm not likely to use it.  I'm happy to protect a source's identity, and leave a source unnamed on my blog.

So lets look at Jason's complaint about anonymous sources.  He concludes with this:

I do not deny that the Liberal Party has some problems that need fixing, but I cannot stand it when media constantly use anonymous sources without any useful description of who they are or why we should care what they think. In the future, I hope you will take that consideration in mind when publishing such articles and, at the very least, let your readers know what a “senior Liberal” actually is.

OK, so are these anonymous sources?  Well, certainly there is no indication that either Jason Cherniak or the reporters that upset him make the fine distinction between anonymous and unnamed sources, that is, in the use of the terms as I've defined them.

But conceptually, I'd be surprised if any serious reporter used anonymous sources in the sense that I've defined it.  Who would print controversial material based on a phone call with no caller ID and a disguised voice?  If that was the case, what stops me from calling up the Globe and Mail, doing my best Darth Vader, and declaring that Michael Ignatieff told a friend who told a friend who told me that Ignatieff overheard someone mentioning that he had heard Bob Rae call Stephane Dion weak.

Well, with that sort of concrete information, we've got a front page story about the tension between Bob Rae and Stephane Dion hitting the boiling point!  That was sarcasm, in case it wasn't obvious.

Jason helpfully lists the sort of sources being used:

I went back through the article and counted the Liberal sources. They included “one senior Liberal”, “a senior Liberal”, “party insiders”, “many anglophone Liberal delegates”, “Influential Saskatchewan Liberal Tony Merchant” and “The senior party member who has described Mr. Dion's leadership as a 'frightening litany of errors'”.

None the sources are truly anonymous.  Clearly the reporters or columnists knew who they were talking to.

Jason's point is not about anonymity, it is about whether readers can accurately judge the credibility of the information being presented if they don't know the source.  On that he has a point.  We are depending on the reporter or columnist and his editor being a good judge of the quality of the information and of the credibility of the source.

But seriously, what else can we do?  Stephane Dion is this boss.  If the identity of a source of information critical of Stephane Dion was revealed, that source would be out of a job.  Arguably, that is the right result from Stephane Dion's point of view, but reporters aren't here to help Stephane Dion keep his organization in check.  The media has to make a judgment call on whether the source is credible (but understandably worried for his job) or whether the source is using the media to pursue his own agenda by fabricating lies, knowing he'll never have to answer to those statements.

Actually the two are not exclusive.  Credible sources could still be weaving falsehoods knowing their names would never be publicly attached to the lies.

None of this makes it easy for the journalists, but then the good ones are the ones who have figured out how to navigate through this confusing interplay of truth and lies and motivations and hidden agendas consistently well.

And when it comes down to it, that's what the readers depend on.  The successful media organizations are run by publishers and editors who can pick the good reporters and columnists, that is, the ones who can write credible stories and opinion pieces based on material that is as much about opinion and goals as it is about objective fact.  That credibility flows to those unnamed sources.

On one level, I understand Jason Cherniak's desire for more transparency.  As he says, without knowing who these sources are, how can we judge whether "we should care what they think".   He wants Canadians to have the opportunity to judge for themselves...hey...wait a second.

Is that what this is really about?

I mean, is there any other reason why Jason Cherniak would like the media to publish the names of the people critical of Stephane Dion?

What would Jason Cherniak do if he had a list of Liberal insiders who were being critical of Stephane Dion to the press?  Start up a Facebook group to have them all fired?  Probably, and just for a start.

There are reasons why the media can't be more open about their unnamed sources.  One of those reasons is Jason Cherniak.

You know, Jason Cherniak's desire for less use of unnamed sources would itself be more credible if he hadn't hoped "STUPID FUCKING IDIOT" was engraved on the tombstone of the unnamed Liberal source who burned Jamie Carroll.

If the media is using unnamed sources, Jason, it's because the media is protecting their sources from you.  If their comments are quoted and not yours, maybe it's because the media thinks those unnamed Liberal sources are more honest about their motivations than you are.