A month ago, Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers reported that President Obama was leaning towards sending 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan. They based their report on anonymous sources. Some bloggers picked up on the report, and posted about it.
Some people got angry at those bloggers and at the reporters for having relied on anonymous sources for this story. They felt vindicated, a couple days later, when the White House denied any decision had been made. They felt even more vindicated, a few days after that, when it was reported that the president had rejected all Afghan War options. They made their sense of vindication known.
Some pointed out that the president's rejection of all war options didn't preclude the possibility of his accepting a new war option. Meteor Blades made a very important post on the usefulness of anonymous sources. He also pointed out that the much-touted stories about the president rejecting all war options also relied on anonymous sources. The point being that some accept sources that confirm what they want to believe and reject sources that don't.
I wanted to wait and see. I was reading that the president's inner circle was torn, and that the president was giving careful consideration to his options. Ultimately, I believe that when a reporter uses an anonymous source, that reporter's credibility is staked on the veracity of the source. Some very important stories have been broken because of anonymous sources. Watergate, for instance. On the other hand, the use of dishonest anonymous sources have rightfully destroyed some reporters' reputations. Particularly when that use might have been deliberate. Judith Miller comes to mind.
There are two points to this post. The first is a call for some self-reflection by those who were so angry at the bloggers who posted the anonymously sourced McClatchy stories. I'm not going to name names, and I don't really care. You know who you are, and if anything good is to come of this particular controversy, it is by self-reflection, alone, that it will happen. And it's not only a question of who was right and who was wrong, it's a question of why it seemed to matter. Were you angry at McClatchy and the bloggers who used their reporting merely because you're purists about the methods of journalism, or was it something else? Did you not want to believe that the president was going to escalate the war? Did you feel vindicated when you thought he wasn't going to escalate the war? Was that because you didn't want him to escalate the war? And now that he has, have you been defending him? What has happened to the outrage you felt when you thought he was wrongfully being accused of planning to escalate the war? And this is not for those who hoped he would, all along. This is only intended for those who were outraged when they thought he wrongfully was being accused of planning to escalate. Please think about it.
And, oh, by the way- about Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers? They were right. They risked their credibility on anonymous sources, and they were proved right to have done so. And they deserve credit for having broken an important story.