A Public Debate Over Unnamed Sources   

It's not unusual for editors and reporters to debate internally whether a particular story depends too heavily on unnamed sources.

It is unusual for that debate to spill over onto the newspaper's editorial and op-ed pages.

But that's what happened recently at the Washington Post, where the debaters included legendary reporter Bob Woodward, perhaps the nation's foremost user and defender of uniden- tified sources; celebrity editor turned Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser, who hates them; and the paper's managing editor, Robert G. Kaiser, who thinks they're unavoidable.

The brouhaha began March 9, when Overholser took Woodward to task in her editorial page column. Overholser charged that Woodward relied far too heavily on anonymous sources in his March 2 Post story that labeled Vice President Al Gore "solicitor-in-chief" for his aggressive fundraising tactics during the 1996 presidential campaign. Citing the fact that nine unnamed sources appeared in the article before any attribution was mentioned, Overholser claimed that the story flew in the face of the paper's stylebook, which says, "We should always assume that information provided by confidential informants is weaker than information attributable to real people."

Managing Editor Kaiser took the debate to an even more visible level by responding to Overholser's whistleblowing with an op-ed column defending Woodward and asserting that Woodward had clearly followed the paper's guidelines. While acknowledging the Post's preference for on-the-record sources, Kaiser argued that, when covering an important story, attribution is not always a realistic expectation.

"People have jobs, relationships and other interests that they may be unwilling to put at risk, even when they are willing--anonymously--to give us valuable information," Kaiser wrote.

Woodward's article reported that Gore had solicited millions of campaign dollars by way of a formi-dable fundraising network, attributing his assertions to "records and interviews with more than 100 organizers, donors and officials." Sources are referred to in the story as "Gore associates," "a donor" and a "senior Democratic official." Kaiser saw no problem with the vague attribution, and wrote that "readers can decide for themselves" if anonymity is appropriate for those with close political ties to the vice president.

But Overholser is uncomfortable with the notion of leaving such questions to readers. Besides, she says, a reporter should always question the motives of sources who leak information.

Kaiser says Woodward and Post editors engaged in numerous discussions about sources unwilling to go on the record during the reporting and editing process. He also notes that two named sources in Woodward's article talked about how they had been directly solicited by Gore, although their quotes were not featured prominently.

Kaiser argues that Overholser was too limited in her evaluation of Woodward's work, focusing on the sourcing issue while ignoring the critical question of whether the piece was on target. "She devoted no space in her column to issues of the import or accuracy of the story," Kaiser told AJR. "She totally focused on the sourcing, and I thought that was an imbalance."

The Post's stylebook offers guidance for handling sources in politically or otherwise sticky situations: "Before any information is accepted without full attribution, reporters must make every reasonable effort to get it on the record," the stylebook reads. "If that is not possible, reporters should consider seeking the information elsewhere. If that in turn is not possible, reporters should request an on-the-record reason for concealing the source's identity and should include the reason in the story."

Woodward says he followed these guidelines to the letter. While he says he respects the fact that Overholser has to be an independent voice of criticism, he says he is nevertheless convinced that her outcry against anonymous sources was more personal than professional. "She doesn't like anonymous sources," he says.

But Woodward insists that the truthfulness of the story is what's important, not the sourcing. "To write, 'What about these anonymous sources?' is beyond the issue," he says. "The issue is the quality of the information you can present." Woodward points out that since his "solicitor-in-chief" piece ran, other media outlets picked it up without calling its basic facts into question. Kaiser also points out that Gore called a press conference in which he basically acknowledged the article's validity.

But Overholser says there's a larger issue at stake. In her column she cited a 1985 American Society of Newspaper Editors survey in which 49 percent of journalists polled approved of the use of unnamed sources while only 28 percent of readers did, and twice described Washington as "anonymity- saturated." "Discomfort often seems a sufficient defense against being named," she wrote, "and pithiness reason enough to get a quote in."

Kaiser says the problem is not so much the Post as the town. "I don't feel the Post is unnecessarily anonymity-saturated," he says. "I do think the culture in Washington is enormously frustrating. Fewer and fewer officials seem willing to say things to us with their names attached. We could do [anonymous sourcing] less than we do. I'm sure that we're too easy, but we're not way off the mark."

For his part, Woodward thinks the exchange of views may have an upside. The dispute created "a new awareness that the goal is to get things on the record if you can," he says. "It doesn't hurt to be reminded of that."