WASHINGTON – At a Pentagon briefing last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked about anonymous sources, on the heels of the revelation that the legendary “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame was the FBI’s No. 2 man in the early 1970s, W. Mark Felt.
Rumsfeld, who held several top posts under then-President Richard Nixon and who is known to detest leaks, wrestled with the question of whether Felt did the right thing in secretly helping expose the administration’s criminal wrongdoing.
Normally quick as lightning to offer an opinion on every issue he’s asked about and on some he’s not, Rumsfeld stumbled before finally offering that he hasn’t followed the recent developments and was “not in a judgmental mood.”
He also noted that he was in Belgium as ambassador to NATO during the Watergate period. When reporters shouted out that he wasn’t going to get off that easy, Rumsfeld replied to laughter, “Purty near.”
Clearly unhappy with his own responses, Rumsfeld later returned to the issue, stressing that he didn’t want to discourage any employee who sees misdeeds at the Defense Department from acting as a whistle-blower.
The fact that a man who for 40 years has been at the top of American political and corporate life is still wrestling with the role of anonymous sources and government leaks shows that this is an extraordinarily complex matter.
And now, the revisiting of Watergate and the role of the most famous anonymous source in American journalism – Deep Throat, immortalized by the shadowy garage scenes in the movie “All the President’s Men” – has raised the issue once again.
Some journalists and media observers contend that anonymous sources are the bane of modern journalism, while others see them as a valuable asset.
Recent events show the potential rewards and risks involved, says Tom Kunkel, dean of journalism at the University of Maryland and president of the American Journalism Review.
“I think the great value of what happened this past week, with the revelation of Deep Throat, is to remind us that one of the most important stories in the history of the press as watchdog would have really been hampered if there hadn’t been a strong anonymous source. And the week before, we had Newsweek, which reminds us that anonymous sources used cavalierly or too glibly can have real consequences,” Kunkel said.
If reporters pressed, more people would go on the record, Kunkel said, but too many journalists simply accept anonymity or are too passive to seek the information in other ways.
“That’s what’s engendered this lazy, flabby practice, on both sides, especially where government sources are media savvy,” he said.
Not just in Washington, but around the country, anonymous sources often help, says Walter Dean of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and director of broadcast training for the Knight Foundation’s Committee of Concerned Journalists.
“Talk to local reporters who cover a statehouse, city hall, the police department, and they will tell you that anonymous sources are vital in tipping them off about wrongdoing or incompetence,” Dean said.
“We know from our studies that investigative reporting is something the public understands and appreciates, as other things the press does have lost a lot of public support.”
That’s borne out by a recent ABC News-Washington poll – conducted after the Newsweek incident but before the Deep Throat revelation – showing that 53 percent of the public approves of the use of anonymous sources while 43 percent disapprove.
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press will do a follow-up survey this week to see if the Deep Throat revelation boosted positive feelings about anonymous sources.
Some say that a trend toward greater secrecy in Washington is leading to the very thing administrations are trying to prevent, leaks and anonymous sources, because little information flows out from top officials, and those working under them are discouraged from speaking, at least openly. So reporters get more aggressive in seeking sources.
“It’s not a coincidence that we’ve seen a rise in anonymous sources as we’ve seen a rise in government secrecy, over the last 25 years,” Kunkel said.
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