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Watchdog ConferenceNaming SourcesIncreasingly reporters cite anonymous sources ratherthan provide readers, viewers and listeners with actualnames. At this conference, journalists, whose work demonstrateshow information was gathered from sources whoagreed to be named in the story, told how they had donetheir reporting to achieve this end and why it mattered thatnames were used. Excerpts on this topic from discussionsamong panel members follow. (A space between quotesindicates that this material was taken from different sectionsof their presentations.)Doug Frantz: Investigation of the Church of Scientology.“I wrote a 5,000-word story about a very controversialsubject and in it I had one unnamed source. That was aperson who was identified as a senior government officialwho was involved in the decision-making process. That isbecause the person was an IRS official who couldn’t underlaw speak about the internal deliberations of the IRS. But Ispelled that out in the story, so I think that that provided thetransparency that meets one of my [reporting] rules.”“We have to tell our readers where these sources arecoming from…. Even if you use their names, I think you needto provide some background…. One of my key sources wasa private detective named Michael Shomers. From the outsethe was on the record. I could use his name, and he providedme with enormous documents…. The third or fourth time Isat down with him, I asked him, ‘Why are you talking to me,because Scientology is known for going after its critics withgreat vigor?’ He knew this as well as anyone, having been onthe attack side of it. He said, ‘Well, I don’t trust Scientologyanymore, and also I had a financial dispute with my formerpartner at the private detective agency.’ It was good for meto know that. I also put that in the newspaper because it’s notenough that I know it, my readers have to know it, becausethey need to evaluate what this source is saying, not just tome, but to them in the newspaper. Even though his name isattached, I think you need that kind of transparency.”Loretta Tofani: Investigation of rapes in jail. “The serieswas unusual at the time [1983] because all the victims werenamed and the men who raped them were also named andquoted. The series consisted of about a dozen case studiesof men who had been gang-raped: Within each case studythere was the victim’s story corroborated by the rapist’sstory. Also, there was medical evidence for those rapes, andthe Post published the photographs of both the rapists andthe victims.”“With the rapists, I used a somewhat different approach[than I did in interviews with the victims]. I felt I didn’t haveto read them their Miranda rights or warn them there was achance of being prosecuted. I went in there and talked aboutjail conditions and asked them about how they had done therape. If they said they didn’t rape someone, then I’d find theother gang rapist in the same rape and get somebody thereto describe it and go back to that person with new informationand the story would come out. I just used their names.I didn’t feel I was talking to somebody in the State Departmentwhere it was understood that everything was confidential.I was a reporter. They knew it. I had written to them onPost stationary and I used their names. It was simple. [Andwhen I was with them] I was writing in my notebook.” [SeeTofani’s additional comments in section “Stages of Reporting:How to Find and Use Sources.”]“This story was given to the government basically on asilver platter. It had the names. It had everything. It hadmedical records. It had victims’ names. It had rapists’ names….[The government] convicted all the rapists.”Roy Gutman: “I think it’s essential that to keep ourcredibility strong we have to make it clear in our coveragejust where we get this stuff from and whose agenda we arepushing or whose agenda is being pushed by virtue of thisstory. In the last couple years there’s been a real decline inthis transparency and all I can do is point to it.… It’s a terribletrend, and it’s a disastrous trend in a free society. People willstop believing us if we don’t start telling more about wherewe get our stores and why we’re running them.”Bill Kovach: “The journalists who cover national securityand think they have a tough time ought to look at some of thiswork [of reporters who investigate nonprofit groups andorganizations], journalists who are putting everything onthe record. These are not source stories, 5,000 words, onesource. These reporters get some of the toughest informationin one of the toughest areas to cover on the record….[And] one of the results of increasing journalistic interest innonprofits is that lawyers have talked about this kind ofreporting at Bar Association meetings, and there are now lawfirms that specialize in calling news organizations that areinvestigating nonprofits and offering their services.”Jim Tharpe: Investigation of the Southern Poverty LawCenter. “We did not publish anything in the series unless itwas attributed to somebody. But we went beyond that. Ithink if we had stuck with that tack as the only thing we didin the series, we would have ended up with people at theCenter easily dismissing them as disgruntled employees….But by looking at 990’s [financial records of nonprofits],what few financial records that were available we were ableto corroborate much of that information, many of the allegationsthese former employees had made….”Nieman Reports / Fall 1999 7