Unnamed sources are never a first choice for journalists, but sometimes a source with information that will improve the well-being of society cannot be identified. One of the most well-known confidential sources in journalism history came clean on Tuesday, ending three decades of speculation.
W. Mark Felt, who was the No. 2 man in the FBI at the time, claimed Tuesday that he was the mythic figure who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein expose former President Richard Nixon's Watergate cover-up.
Although there are speculations about whether he acted alone, many are convinced that he did not have help, according to reports from The Associated Press.
The level of clearance that he had would have given him access to enough information to do this on his own, Robert Pritchard, assistant professor of journalism at Ball State University, said.
Confidential or unnamed sources must be used occasionally, but relying on them too much will often catch up with reporters, as Newsweek experienced when it published a story about soldiers desecrating the Koran, Pritchard said.
Using confidential sources is always an important tool for a free press to obtain information, but reporters can abuse the privilege, Ralph Baker, Ball State professor of political science, said.
Unnamed sources often provide useful information; however, they can just be out to damage a person's reputation, Pritchard said. But if the reporter has an existing relationship with the source, that can help prevent such situations, he said.
Reporters can often bring to light information that the public needs to know but wouldn't be able to get without the source's guaranteed anonymity, Baker said.
"Seasoned reporters aren't stooges, so they will know if the source is doing this just to smear somebody," he said.
White House officials often intentionally leak stories through unnamed sources so they can see the reaction of the public and of other government officials.
Laws to protect journalists' sources are similar to whistle-blower laws, which protect an employee's identity when the employee alerts the public to some wrongdoing by an employer, according to both Pritchard and Baker.
Twenty-four-hour news cycles have created a situation where networks have greater chances of using stories from unreliable organizations that might have found the stories through unnamed sources, Baker said.
"Politicians complain about confidential sources, but almost all of them take advantage when it can be useful to them," he said.
Not all unnamed sources are as powerful as Deep Throat; they could be just unnamed people trying to release facts without waiting for approval from their chains of command, Pritchard said.
While Felt's family and others praised him as a hero for his actions, some have been more critical.
G. Gordon Liddy, another associate of Nixon, went to jail because of Felt's actions and did not see his actions as heroic, according to Associated Press reports.
As a result of Woodward and Bernstein's work in exposing the cover-up that was aided greatly by Deep Throat's information, Nixon resigned in August of 1974, while he was facing impeachment, and forty other government officials and members of his re-election committee were convicted of felony charges.
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