9 Protecting and Trusting Sources

We’ll open this chapter with a hypothetical situation involving medical information. Note that we could substitute other health-related maladies and scenarios, and the hypothetical framework would remain the same.

Study the following presentation slides by using the forward button or clicking on sections of the control bar.

In this lengthy-but-crucial chapter, we’ll study the ethical use of sources in media content. Two broad questions can help you think about the use of sources, such as those in the opening hypothetical. 

1. When should sources be protected? In the opening hypothetical, grief-stricken sources will share fond memories about the deceased city health director. These sources, including family members, may perceive that you are insensitive and intrusive if you publish private medical information about him.

Some readers might question why lung cancer is relevant in a story about the entirety of a public servant’s life. By publishing details about cause of death, you may appear to advocate for public-health protocols while lacking interest in minimizing harm to family and friends.

And whether’s it’s fair or not, here’s how some readers will interpret the narrative in your story:

This man wasn’t smart enough to quit smoking, and then he died of lung cancer.

2. Can sources be trusted? Do you have verification from multiple sources about the health director’s hidden smoking habit, or are you merely relying on sources who had casual conversations with him?

If you think your audience should know that local citizens are dying from lung cancer, partly because they are addicted to cigarettes, you must be certain that any reporting about the health director’s smoking habit is accurate and comes from more than one credible source.

Above all, you should report truthfully and ethically to avoid mistakes that might lead readers to the following narrative after the story is published with factual errors:

This reporter published fake news. In fact, the health director was not a regular smoker. The reporter just wanted attention and didn’t care about the pain that the obituary would cause for the health director’s wife and daughter.

Along similar lines, a 2022 article from the Poynter Institute addressed questions about reporting on someone’s COVID vaccination status. Today, similar questions could arise about reporting on the vaccination status of people who have contracted measles, for example.

Vulnerable Sources in Times of Trauma

News journalists want to report the emotional impact that people face in times of disasters, wars, tragedies and other traumatic events. But the interview subjects are often vulnerable, stressed and confused, so there are inherent risks when broadcast journalists use live, on-scene interviews in times of crisis.

Here’s a worst-case scenario involving a broadcast journalist interviewing a victim of trauma.

In fairness to the CNN reporter, the source consented to be interviewed in advance. After you watch the video, what are your thoughts? Should broadcast journalists be expected to anticipate moments like the one shown in the video?

Immediately after a high-impact event such as a mass shooting or a hurricane hitting a major city, audiences want up-to-date information and visuals. Such coverage can elicit empathy for victims and lead to charitable donations.

However, swarms of journalists covering the same traumatic event may lose sight of the need for compassion. Writing for the National Newspaper Association Foundation, Jackie Spinner provided this assessment:

The real problem is the chase. Our news organizations compete for exclusive interviews and to publish the most vivid and dramatic accounts first.

Writing for The Journalist’s Resource, Naseem S. Miller said journalists should keep in mind that trauma survivors often have experienced an event that gave them no control over their own lives. Miller suggested that instead of relying entirely on scripted interview questions, reporters can ask these sources how they want to start an interview. She also provided this advice:

Journalists should take greater care when interviewing private citizens, especially those who are suffering in some way and the survivors of traumatic events, by practicing trauma-informed journalism, which is acknowledging the impact of trauma on people and how an interview can create additional stress for them, and less-extractive reporting, which is about ethical ways that journalists can interview people who have experienced harm or are in some way suffering.

Similarly, Natalie Yahr generated 12 rules for less-extractive reporting, published by the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The first rule is to “make sure your source knows what to expect.”

Minors as Vulnerable Sources

Media professionals generally attempt to minimize harm to minors who unintentionally become part of dramatic or traumatic stories, such as school shootings. When possible, news reporters should get consent from a parent or guardian before using a minor as a source.

Some flexibility is possible, though. For example, you may see news outlets interview high school students who are involved in athletics, service projects or charity drives. In those instances, there is minimal risk even if the parent or guardian has not given consent in advance.

For cases involving children’s mental health, though, the ethical landscape is tricky. In a first-person essay, journalist Abigail Kramer wrote about the balancing act of reporting on vulnerable kids while protecting their privacy. The essay focused on children who face serious mental health challenges.

Kramer noted that the standard policy is to “allow parents and guardians to decide how identifiable or anonymous their children will be.” However, this can lead to difficult questions about minimizing future harm for children whose parents have given consent. Kramer’s essay included the following concerns:

• How will their kids feel seeing personal information published online?
• Will their family be publicly defined by what we write?
• Will the story pop up in a Google search if a future college admissions counselor or employer looks up their child’s name?

And what about minors who appear in their parents’ social media posts? You can read the following case study from the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin:

• ‘Act like you’re crying’ – Media Ethics Initiative

The analysis noted critics’ concerns that “many of these channels have dysfunctional families behind the scenes.” In those cases, the ethical concerns may extend beyond the parents to the platforms (such as YouTube, TikTok or Instagram) that host the content, news journalists who report on the content, and advertising executives who profit from the content.

Similarly, a 2023 article in Teen Vogue magazine discussed “mom-influencers” and the potential “harm of oversharing children online” when a child is not capable of giving informed consent. The article noted that “the lack of labor laws for child influencers is an example of the law lagging behind the culture.”

• Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content – Teen Vogue

Not So Heavenly After All

A stark example of a minor as a vulnerable source was the 2010 bestseller The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven. It told the story of a young boy who experienced brain trauma following a car accident when he was 6 years old. In the book, which was co-written by the boy’s father, the boy described an out-of-body experience along with visions of heaven, angels and the devil. Celebrated by many Christian evangelicals, the book sold over a million copies.

However, the boy’s mother was not supportive of the book’s content, and in 2015, the boy himself acknowledged that “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.” Here’s a brief summary from National Public Radio.

• Boy says he didn’t go to heaven; Publisher says it will pull book. – NPR

In 2015, Tyndale House publishing company acknowledged concerns with the book and ceased printing it. And if you want a deep dive into the financial matters, lawsuits, a movie version, and other nitty-gritty details, here’s a fascinating feature story:

• How the controversy around a Christian bestseller engulfed the evangelical publishing industry—and tore a family apart. – Slate

Where Is Wendy Williams?

In 2024, Lifetime aired a four-hour documentary about media personality and talk show host Wendy Williams. The producers said the project was initially intended as a “career comeback story.” Producer Mark Ford admitted, however, that they soon realized it would be “a deeper story, and that there was something ultimately disturbing going on in Wendy’s life.”

As the filming unfolded, Williams showed signs of dementia, which doctors eventually diagnosed. The producers recognized that Williams was a vulnerable source, and they were conflicted about whether to continue production, even with her family’s approval. Ford provided this perspective:

There was a real emotional connection that the project gave her, and honestly, it got to a point where we were more worried about what would happen to Wendy if we stopped filming than if we continued.

You can read more about the documentary producers’ decision-making processes here:

• Wendy Williams Doc Producers: “If We’d Known She Had Dementia, No One Would’ve Rolled a Camera” – The Hollywood Reporter

And below is the trailer for the documentary.

Anonymous Sources

Perhaps the most famous journalistic use of anonymous sources in U.S. history was when Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein helped expose the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. Their investigative stories contributed to Republican President Richard Nixon’s resignation in August 1974.

Woodward and Bernstein relied in part on an anonymous governmental source, nicknamed Deep Throat. In fact, the informant was Mark Felt, who was associate director for the FBI at the time.

The scandal involved operatives for Nixon breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Complex. Felt surreptitiously provided Woodward and Bernstein with details about the FBI’s ongoing investigation.

The work of Woodward and Bernstein was later dramatized in the popular 1977 movie All the President’s Men, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, marking a high point in public perception of U.S. journalism.

Woodward and Bernstein gained fame with the help of an anonymous source. However, journalists should greatly limit their use of anonymous sources for everyday reporting. Most reporting is stronger and more ethical with on-the-record sources.

Use of an anonymous source should be limited to cases when the source is considered trustworthy, limited alternatives are available in reporting important information, and the anonymous source’s job security or physical safety might be in jeopardy. In simple terms, minimizing harm to the source occasionally takes precedent over full transparency in reporting.

The Associated Press provides succinct guidance on using anonymous sources. AP’s guidelines say that anonymous sources should only be used under the following circumstances:

1. The material is information and not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the report.

2. The information is not available except under the conditions of anonymity imposed by the source.

3. The source is reliable, and in a position to have direct knowledge of the information.

The New York Times has similar guidelines and follows a policy that “the reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.”

Also, keep in mind that most of these cases involve an anonymous source whose job security or physical safety is threatened. If all interview subjects are granted anonymity when they request it, our news content becomes much less credible.

Once a reporter and editor have agreed to grant anonymity to a source, they have made a promise not to reveal the source’s identity. Breaking that promise would be unethical.

Caliphate – The Risks of Trusting Sources

The New York Times produced an award-winning podcast series titled “Caliphate,” about the radicalization of a young Canadian who said he became an executioner for ISIS. The podcast’s primary source was given a pseudonym, essentially making him an anonymous source.

The podcast garnered publicity and awards, but the premise was a lie. In the following audio, NPR explained why editors eventually retracted the core of “Caliphate” due to the primary source admitting that the stories he shared in the podcast were a hoax.

• ‘New York Times’ retracts core of hit podcast series ‘Caliphate’ On ISIS – NPR (audio with transcript)

We studied fabrication in a previous chapter. As part of our current lesson, a key takeaway in this case is that media professionals must verify that their sources are providing reliable information, not fabricated stories. In the the Caliphate podcast, journalists were heavily reliant on a single source and then perhaps became overly excited about the podcast’s popularity, and thus were willing to ignore many red flags. You can read some of the Times’ own coverage of the fallout:

• Canadian admits fabricating terrorism tale detailed in New York Times podcast – NY Times
(University of Arkansas students have free access to the NY Times by signing up via campus email credentials)

Checkbook Journalism

One additional concern, checkbook journalism, should be discussed before we conclude this lesson about ethical use of sources.

As an extreme example, in 1994, multiple media outlets reported that the National Enquirer had offered Al Cowlings, a friend of NFL Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson, $1 million for an interview. In checkbook journalism, sources are paid money or other incentives, such as trips or free products, for their stories.

More recently, TMZ has developed a reputation for utilizing checkbook journalism to publish immediate obituaries. According to an analysis from the Hollywood Reporter, TMZ has relied heavily on “paid informants” to be the first to report several celebrity deaths, including Matthew Perry, Eddie Van Halen and Michael Jackson.

Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang, gave this quote to the Hollywood Reporter regarding TMZ’s style of checkbook journalism:

“They paid off people in the hospital when my father passed. Couldn’t even f*****g grieve for 20 minutes.”

As another example, national morning television shows sometimes provide limousines, private jets and luxury hotel rooms in New York to entice potential interviewees to appear exclusively on their shows.  The ratings war between ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s The Today Show in some cases turned into bidding wars.

An infamous case of checkbook journalism involved Casey Anthony, the Florida woman charged with killing her daughter in 2008. The daughter had gone missing before being found dead five months later.

Several morning shows wanted an exclusive interview and rights to Casey Anthony’s story, but it was ABC’s Good Morning America that secured the deal. You can get background details from this 2010 NPR account, including ABC’s financial arrangements for “exclusive rights to reproduce family photographs and videotape of her then-missing 2-year-old, Caylee.”

• ABC News under fire for payment to murder suspect – NPR

Any paid-for interviews should come with a full disclosure for terms of the interview agreement, but the disclosure can lead to audience skepticism. How credible is information from the interview when the source has been paid? Is the source embellishing information with juicier details to get more money?

The Society of Professional Journalists offers a more detailed ethical analysis:

• Checkbook Journalism – SPJ

In short, it’s almost always a bad idea to pay sources for information.

Closing Review