Presswatch/On the Record

...This lack of candor is one reason the credibility of news organizations is generally in decline...

...Best Radio n d Te/evisi...

...Suppose that a source speaking on the record gives the reporter license to clean up his prose...

...That nonpareil political lexicographer, William Safire, calls on the record "the most honest and responsible sourcing...

...Some news editors are trying to get their reporters to use fewer anonymous sources...

...An anonymous source may simply con-vey minor information of a kind that "fills" out a story...

...Most journalists think it's absurd to expect "off the record" to function as an exclusionary rule to keep information from being obtained on the record or on background (or deep background) and then being put into print or into a broadcast...

...How—on what basis —is the source (definition: a fount of information) to talk to the reporter...

...To prevent misunderstandings (and preserve sources), reporters will sometimes stop a source beforehand in order to define terms...

...The main problem with anonymous sourcing of significant information is motive...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1990 27...

...He'll be in the paper...

...Or at least: "We think it's significant they feel the way they do, both because of their high positions and because we're inclined toward these views ourselves...

...The story is told of the reporter asking an Iowa farmer which candidate he favored in the upcoming caucuses...

...But it will gather news on deep background...

...The Times will state the news on its own authority, as though an eyewitness...

...As readers of this department know, leaks are complicated things...

...An anonymous source also may describe the theory or ideas behind a policy...

...Instead, the reporter muddies the identity of his source in an agreed upon way...

...More precisely, leaks occur when a source purposely says or passes something significant along to the news media...

...Some take it one final step to say that it means what is told them dies with them, as though they were in some kind of priest-sinner relationship...

...As the leaker probably hoped would happen, an angered Sen...

...They are not likely to suffer a similar loss of identity in the hands of a print reporter...

...Only the rare source approaches the level of Richard Darman, the federal budget director who by all accounts is the Michael Jordan of sources, able to pull off every imaginable move in an interview, employing all conditions of discourse and knowing the definitions maybe even better than the reporter...

...Joseph Biden, chairman of the committee, immediately denounced the leak as a "breach of confidence," thus keeping it—and the document request—in the news...

...This is why some prefer the term "planting...

...On the record is not the only way...

...When it comes to television, though, fame matters...

...I've known some reporters who'll take this a step further to say that what is told them cannot inform their queries of others...

...Background is the condition on which reporters and sources often talk, especially in Washington...

...On the record is not always as simple as it sounds...

...The purpose of deep background is complete anonymity for the source...

...But always there is the overriding question: What are the rules of engagement...

...He began his response: "Is this on background...

...Whoever enters this media capital had better know the lingo...

...Whether a source does so will depend upon his relationship with the reporter...

...A leaker is an anonymous source, but not every anonymous source is a leaker...

...Who could be...

...Not for attribution is synonymous with deep background...

...When "a senior State Department official" speaks in the lead of a story, it's probably Secretary of State James Baker talking to a roomful of reporters...

...Aware of this limitation, they will ask the same question in a number of different ways in order to elicit a crisper response...

...Sometimes he may have official authorization...

...Sources not so knowledgeable and talented as Darman will whisper, "This is off the record," thinking it means, "Use it but don't quote me" (deep background), or, "Use it, just provide me some camouflage" (background...

...If that isn't general enough, Sununu may become "a senior administration official" or "a government official" or "a leading Republican...

...Movement in this direction is desirable...

...If a picturehead (television reporter) is disguising a source, the poor chap may actually appear on screen, his intonation changed and face smudged out...

...In an accompanying editorial, the Journal said it got the document from "a relatively unconcerned recipient," as interesting a disguise as I've seen if not a parody of the entire practice of camouflaging a source...

...Let's begin with on the record, which means for quotation by the named source...

...Especially in Washington...

...But the truth is, most in the media aren't competent enough to make expert evaluations most of the time...

...But this isn't what most people mean by a leak...

...never has the news story appeared that confesses, in more or less these words, "The reason we print this anonymously sourced story in which ten senior administration officials trash the President's economic program is that we think they're right...

...But these reporters are few...

...That is, the reporter can quote what the source says and attribute the words to him by name...

...For better or worse, in fact, background has become a Washington export...

...Background was not unknown outside Washington a decade or two ago, but it was much less frequently used in gathering news...

...Or, as Howell Raines, the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, told me, the Times will attach the news to "a variety of documents and officials and studies"—so long as that's true...

...This leaker had a motive, which was to reveal the request as the unjustified trolling exercise it was...

...On the other hand, for Raines, as for most other journalists, a source who agrees to go on the record but later tries to take what he said off the record will probably strike out...

...Background means that a reporter can quote the source but not by name...

...By the way, officials who are not household names should not be surprised if their talking heads do not appear on air...

...Success is a function of police work and investigation and that's about all," a "former Justice Department official" told the Washington Post in the twelfth paragraph of a story on the cocaine investigation of D.C...

...But they can't edit Terry Eastland is resident scholar at the National Legal Center for the Public Interest and a former director of public affairs at the Justice Department...

...But I'm in a puckish mood, so how about this: full disclosure of motive...

...Hardly earthshaking, that, and no, I wasn't the one talking...

...Sometimes there is the active voice: "The Washington Post has learned . . ." (and you're never told from whom...

...News organizations prefer background to deep background, but will rely on the latter if there's no other way to get the story...

...Mayor Marion Barry...

...That may be one reason USA Today writes so "short...

...It's there and will be used to get what was said—from a non-offthe-record source—into the paper...

...Deep background is a variant of background, "deep" because the information provided by a source cannot be attributed to any of the above generic names but rather to something orsomebody else...

...Now background is in the lexicon of every reporter everywhere...

...There's also the question of leaks...

...Both must be distinguished from off the record, which is an entirely different condition of discourse...

...A different disguise still is "someone close to the President...

...Most take the practical view, stated to me by the Post's Bob Woodward: "You can't chase knowledge from your head...

...Assuming they're on good terms, this accounts for how a source comes to speak the King's English (or at least the journalist's version of it) in eight- or nine-point type...

...Some news organizations will write (or have their anchors gravely announce) "it has been learned...

...Though note one exception to the trend: survey data indicate that the credibility of on-the-record USA Today is on the rise...

...an incoherent one into "shape...

...There is also that universal if thoroughly unhelpful reference, "source," which sometimes is upgraded to "informed source...

...A classic leak was manifested on January 17, when the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal published the full text of a "kitchen-sink" document request sent to Clarence Thomas, a judicial nominee, by the Democratic staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee...

...Howell Raines says, "My philosophy is you should talk about these issues, preferably in advance...

...Other, sometimes mysterious and confusing ways of talking are available...

...Some sources will say, "Let me give you this on background," thinking they've spoken "off the record...

...Brit Hume, the ABC News White House correspondent, tells me that he had never even heard of the term until he came to work in Washington...

...Interviewed on background, for example, Chief of Staff John Sununu says what he says as "a senior White House official...

...For most reporters, off the record means that they may not put the information in the paper or on air...

...Television reporters can lift a quote from a taped conversation...

...Of course, such disclosure would have to be done on the record, although I'll settle for background...

...But they have an abiding characteristic: they always take place somewhere between background and off the record...

...Sometimes, of course, a "leaker" doesn't know he leaked...

...You shouldn't leave people feeling they are the victim of a crackback block...

...Itmay even be- in Everyman's...

...It won't "learn...

...A source close to this newspaper says that the reason this article has been published is . . . ) I'll settle for anything, that is, but full disclosure that's off the record...

...This means negotiating sources "up," persuading them to go on the record...

...A short version of this glossary ought to appear in a box in every newspaper and be flashed across the screen at the beginning or end of the network news...

...SARKES TARZIAN INC WRCB, CHANNEL 3 CE,-'17t.TENNESSEE KTVN CHANNEL2 c1LNC WITS, 92.3 FM BL-C,C1 WGCL, 1370 AM, ELC0i, G-0' INDIANA WAJI, 951 FM ,',A .DIANA CENTRAL OFFICE, EC,' 62 E.L.03rv11Nr1=1:Dr F' EQL4crir--, 817 332 7251 Providing...

...Whatever label is used, the source winds up with a greater or lesser degree of anonymity...

...The New York Times, by the way, prefers to remain ignorant...

...Note that I said: type...

...News consumers are supposed to trust the media to evaluate the motives of anonymous sources and the information they convey...

...And there is another truth: many in the media have their own agendas or predilections or hunches, and some are willing to use anonymous sources to get them into print...

...Unaware of the importance of his remarks, he may be said to have leaked involuntarily...

...What follows is a list of terms reflecting the definitions generally accepted by those who work in the news business...

...By hiding behind the cant of "objective news," these journalists are spared the need to reveal their motives...

...Doubtless it was the first kind of sourcing ever done, and there are still a few organizations—USA Today, most notably—that rely primarily if not exclusively upon it...

...Anonymous sourcing is often denounced by not only consumers of news but also reporters and editors, though not always for the same reasons...

...Broadcast journalism operates differently...

...T hese, then, are the terms and how they are understood by Washington journalists...

...What they say on the record may be attributed in a generic way, to a State Department official, for example...

...in other words, he speaks from a "good" motive...

...It takes two to tango, however, and sources aren't always as 26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1990 familiar with these definitions as the reporters who interview them...

...Sources who learn the art of the television interview will talk in clipped Dick-and-Jane phrases...