Out of the shadow of 'sources said'

How can a reporter "try not to use anonymous sources"? When a source asks me if we can "go off the record" - by which most people mean they don't want their names used - I try to persuade him to stay on the record. If that fails, I agree,then conduct the interview, try to figure out before finishing what he's said that's likely to be useful to me, and conclude the interview by saying something like: "Gee, why would you object to having your name on that quote?"

I explain why quoting him wouldn't hurt him. I might even note how insightful or constructive the quote is and why it's important that both it and his name be published. More often than not, my source has agreed, or has asked to modify a word or two before agreeing.

If this approach seems unlikely to work, I usually respond to a source's request for anonymity by saying something like: "OK. But on one condition. When I'm done writing this, if your quote and your name seem really important, I'll call you and read you your quote - and the paragraphs before and after your quotes, so you'll see the context - and I'll explain why it's important that I use your name.

"It will be your decision," I say. "If you say no, I promise to take your name and your quotes out. But you have to promise that you'll take my call and that you'll listen to my arguments."

Many journalists have told me they'd never read a quote back to a source, for fear he'd either deny having said it or ask that his name not be used or that the quote be dropped or watered down. But in using this approach for more than 25 years, I've never had a single source refuse my deal, and only once has a source insisted her name not be used when I called back for my recitation-and-persuasion sonata.

On one other occasion, when I called back a source, he said we could use his name and his quote only if I would agree to eliminate four of the five pejorative phrases he'd used to describe a rival. I said, "Why don't you pick the one pejorative that makes you the most uncomfortable and I'll take it out and use the other four." We compromised on three pejoratives in, two out - with ellipses - and that more than made his and my point.

That's the sum of my "problems" with this approach over all these years.

Yes, it's difficult to do this on a fast-breaking news story, when the reporter barely has time for the first interview, never mind a callback. But a significant number of unnamed sources show up in long-term investigative projects or other stories that aren't deadline-sensitive.

This is especially true in Washington and Hollywood, where asking for - and granting - journalistic anonymity is as routine as telling lies. But it happens everywhere. My all-time favorite in this regard was a Page 1 New York Times story on then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani three years ago. The writer quoted someone saying, "The thing that has been very depressing has been the number of anonymous sources professing to know his mind and his heart, and then expressing that knowledge in an anonymous manner."

Who said this? The reporter didn't say. The source was identified only as "one of the mayor's associates."

I'm absolutely convinced that if reporters pressed their sources harder to go on the record - and if editors insisted they do so or lose the quotes altogether - the epidemic of "sources said" and "administration sources said" and similarly egregious constructs would be quickly stamped out, and we'd all be better off.

• David Shaw is the media critic at the Los Angeles Times. ©Los Angeles Times.

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