November 7, 2005

WaPo ombudsman defends use of unnamed sources

By Noel Sheppard
The Washington Post's new ombudsman Deborah Howell, in only her second article in her new position, chose to defend journalists' use of unnamed sources. Of late, this has become quite a hot—button issue, as an increasing number of articles from more and more media outlets seem to rely almost exclusively on anonymous suppliers of information, supposedly from within the White House. In fact, in the past week, two of America's leading magazines, Newsweek  and TIME, published articles about turmoil inside the White House with bold predictions about changes to come within the administration. The latter just yesterday claimed that deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, Treasury Secretary John Snow, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are all about to leave the White House in a huge administration reshuffling. Yet, in both of these reports, not one source was named. This makes the beginning of Howell's article even more disturbing: 'Anonymous sources, always controversial, have...(Read Full Article)