Mr. Pot Calling the Kettle

Gary Rosenblatt's editor's column in this week's Jewish Week made me laugh out loud. He writes about journalists' use of anonymous sources, apropos news of Deep Throat's identity and the Newsweek kerfuffle. In his words:

In a perfect world, newspapers should never publish anonymous quotes. But in reality, circumstances sometimes dictate that people with important information to impart have good reason to want to remain unnamed because to go public would jeopardize their careers, or even their lives.

Sometimes, though, sources will want to speak off the record for less noble reasons. They may want to take a cheap shot at a rival, or make an outrageous statement and not worry about suffering the consequences, or they may just be too intellectually lazy to be prepared to back up their comments. In the end, it comes down to a reporter’s judgment about whether the source can be trusted and whether that source’s reasons for wishing to remain in the shadows are justified.

In case you need to be reminded, we journalists make mistakes, not only in reporting facts but in evaluating people’s character and motives.

There are times when we at this newspaper have persuaded people who insisted they would only talk to us off the record to change their minds and go on the record. We may convince them that their quotes are key to a story’s credibility, or we may explain that we have others on the record, so there is some comfort in not being alone in speaking out, or we may ease their concerns about being misquoted by checking their quotes with them before publication.

There are other times we have opted, in the end, not to publish a story because it lacked sufficient credible sourcing.

All well and good. Except for the minor fact that Gary Rosenblatt is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to the use of anonymous sources.The cover story in this week's issue of his paper is rife with anonymous sources, unfounded allegations, and innuendo. It has to be one of the best examples of shoddy journalism I've ever seen. And this story is just indicative of his usual style of "reporting". The sanctimonious tone he takes toward other journalists is just too funny, considering his own hypocrisy. Before you worry about cleaning house at other publications, Mr. Rosenblatt, how about you work on cleaning your own glass house?