So I'm checking out the news online this morning and from behind me I hear, "What the hell is this?" I turn around and ask my wife what she's talking about. She tells me that there's a story on the Long Island Wins website about a reporter effectively publishing the address, down to the apartment number, of two undocumented workers that he used as sources for a story. Undocumented workers who asked that their last names not be used to preserve their anonymity.
So I go over to their website and check it out for myself. Lo and behold, in the September 22 issue of the NY Times, I find this article by a 'reporter' named Kirk Semple. In the article, he shares conversations that he's had with several undocumented workers who live in a building that he describes by the size, number of apartments within, street, neighborhood and apartment number. In the article, we find that two of the undocumented workers that he spoke to, Francisco and Alex (at least he kept their last names out of it) live in apartments 3c and 3d with their families.
Surprisingly enough, after contacting Mr. Semple to find out why he felt it was necessary to publish his sources addresses, I discovered that Mr. Semple is thin-skinned and defensive in response to critiques, and that I'm self-righteous because I consider it a violation of journalistic integrity to effectively publish the address of 'anonymous' sources and their families.
My questions remain the same. Why was it necessary to gratuitously publish clearly identifiable details of the 'anonymous' sources' living arrangements? The details added nothing to the article or its thesis. Would my understanding of the article been severely damaged had I only been told that, say...the sources lived in a 4-story building in Bensonhurst? Or even just in Brooklyn? Why would a reporter feel it necessary to publish not only the neighborhood, not only the street, not only a description of the building, but the fucking apartment numbers? How in the world does such detailed information find its way into an article about undocumented workers? Why was it more important to withhold the sources' last names, even though it would be impossible to locate them solely by their full names, but acceptable to print intricate details of the location of their homes?
I can't answer these questions because I'm just a self-righteous peasant who has no right to question my betters in the media. If you'd like an answer, perhaps you could contact the 'journalist' yourself: Contact Kirk Semple and ask him.
Hopefully you'll have better luck than I did.