Re:How to Tell Us a Secret
by 394549 on Thursday September 20, 2018 @01:45PM
(#18034228)
> Sometimes we see a lot of news articles and news regarding X, Y, Z topic from anonymous sources
Those sources aren't "anonymous sources," they're more accurately called confidential sources.
You may see an story backed by no public sources. You then have to make a decision about whether you trust the publisher to have adequately checked the story using private sources.
If the newspaper gets information from a truly anonymous source (say a classified military memo), they need to verify that it's authentic before they publish. They may do that by checking as much of the memo's content as they can and calling up people in the Pentagon and asking if they've seen that particular memo. Those people may not be willing to confirm the memo publicly (because that may open them up to legal problems), but if if their identity is kept private it's less risk to them so they may be willing to confirm it.
Those sources aren't "anonymous sources," they're more accurately called confidential sources.
You may see an story backed by no public sources. You then have to make a decision about whether you trust the publisher to have adequately checked the story using private sources.
If the newspaper gets information from a truly anonymous source (say a classified military memo), they need to verify that it's authentic before they publish. They may do that by checking as much of the memo's content as they can and calling up people in the Pentagon and asking if they've seen that particular memo. Those people may not be willing to confirm the memo publicly (because that may open them up to legal problems), but if if their identity is kept private it's less risk to them so they may be willing to confirm it.