Anonymous sources: No

You have to be over it by now. All the investigations of the investigations of the investigators; the Russians; the pontificating senators and congresspeople.

It’s far more than enough to make you turn off your televisions; cancel your subscriptions to the daily newspaper; bar yourself from surfing Fakebook commentaries; and go about your day oblivious to the day’s bloviating in Washington, D.C.

It really is true: While our national lawmakers continue to operate in their own bubbled la-la land — out of touch with what Americans really care about — the national news media, aka Lamestream Media, have shamed our industry. 

In the good ol’ days of journalism instruction, professors repeatedly, stridently and sternly discouraged anonymous sources in news stories. Rarely indeed was the occasion when they were permitted.

If a source asked the reporter not to use his name and told the reporter information “off the record,” the professors expected the reporter to find two other independent sources to verify the claim. In fact, see also the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics on anonymous sources in the accompanying box.

Journalistic practices obviously have changed a lot. At Forbes 25 years ago, for instance, the magazine employed an army of fact checkers who verified and documented every statement of fact in every story. If they were unable to confirm the information from an anonymous source, the offending passages were deleted. And woe be to the writer who fudged his facts — an employment beheading … “You’re fired!”

Standards at the Lamestream Media in Washington and New York have sunk to all-time lows (at least in our lifetimes). 

The reporters submitting anonymous-source stories and the editors permitting the stories to be published — especially without providing readers context of the source’s motives — deserve the Forbes treatment. 

What’s more, all of this starts at the top. The publishers and network CEOs of these institutions should be banning such practices — if not be fired themselves.

So many of the high-and-mighty “journalists” often will stand at a podium and preach how credibility is the most important asset of every news organization. And yet these journalism bigshots, with their slipshod practices and blatant biases, are tarnishing and destroying the news outlets that are doing it right.

And they wonder why their circulation and viewership continue to decline.

Ours isn’t. And there’s a reason why: Credibility. No anonymous sources. No fake news … Except on April 1.     

— MW