Seems like anonymous sources inside the intelligence agencies is how a lot of the news gets generated these days. Anonymous figures don't have to worry about their reputation or credibility and can just leak occasionally true information to keep getting published.
When to grant anonymity is a complex question, but I'm immensely frustrated by how many reporters don't even stop to question why a source might want anonymity. In particular, why a source who's part of the government, making a claim that supports a government narrative, via unclassified data, would have any need for anonymity if they had faith in their claim.
Conor Friedersdorf summarized matters very nicely years ago, and it's a shame so few people seem to have paid attention:
> The very weakest case for withholding a source’s name is when 1) powerful officials 2) with a clear incentive to lie 3) use anonymity to spread a self-serving narrative 4) without accountability 5) on a matter of great consequence.
Agencies always have official spokespeople and anyone making comments to the press about things they shouldn't be talking about (like an active investigation) can get in a lot of trouble if that agency finds out it was them who leaked to the press.
They do have a reputation, to the journalist. It's not as far reaching, but you bet that journalist isn't going to trust that source again if they are caught lying. Or even that agency.
This is certainly how things ought to work, but it's far from clear that it does.
A reporter on an international affairs beat can't possibly dismiss sources as broad as the State Department or CIA - which makes it very possible to rotate through mouthpieces as they're proven unreliable. (And that's usually when clear dishonesty is found, not just plausibly-mistaken claims.) And anonymity is usually protected even when a source is found to having knowingly mislead journalists, which means a dishonest source is only burned for a single reporter or outlet and can go seek out a new audience. Multiply the number of mid-level employees at a major government body by the number of reputable news orgs and this starts to look completely sustainable.
It's something (reputable) news accountability groups have been upset about for years, but no one seems to have solved it. Conventional wisdom appears to be that publications are scared they'll lose source access completely if they start unmasking dishonest USG sources.
> A reporter on an international affairs beat can't possibly dismiss sources as broad as the State Department or CIA
It's actually worse, the power dynamics are completely lopsided: He/she can't disgruntle his governmental sources or else there's the very real possibility of being cut out of the loop/any access at all in the future.
Which isn't a great prospect for any journalist because you can't get any "scoops" when your competitors have privileged access to information.
In-depth interviews, early story tip-offs, and 'approved' leaks with accurate content aren't just a way to distribute information and build connections with reporters, they're a way to cultivate dependence. If 95% of unverified content is accurate, a reporter who can't get pithy 'official' quotes or advance warning on stories will consistently produce worse output than those who can.
It seems like a few particularly famous publications can push back because they're too big to shut out, though their individual reporters often still fold. (e.g. the NYT on Iraqi WMDs.) And there's a bit of room for dedicated 'dissenting' sources like The Intercept and CounterSpin, because they can curate a reputation as leak recipients and then fill out the rest of their schedule with media analysis instead of breaking news. But overall, first-line sources seem to be very effectively trapped by this pattern.
The journalists should lose whatever credibility they have as well as their news org that shamelessly supported the "story". I sure as hell don't trust Bloomberg nearly as much as I used to.
When it comes to information on traded companies, people should always consider that anonymous sources are 99% of the time biased. Nobody goes out giving information about a public company for nothing, and when the information is true they will be open and present documents proving it.
