Suitable Cases for Anonymity

On Tuesday this week the Guardian ran, across the top of its front page, a report headed: "Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq." One reader quibbled with the headline: the story, he said, made it clear the training was taking place in the US rather than Iraq, even if that was where the squads might eventually operate.

The sense of the headline was clear enough, I think, and right on the main thrust of the story, which was that US assassination squads designed to operate in and from Iraq were being trained by Israel.

Another reader had, on the face of it, a more serious complaint about the same piece. "When Guardian journalists crib entire articles from other sources, perhaps they should quote their source - in this case the New Yorker magazine - slightly higher in the story than the 18th paragraph?" That comment, to put it mildly, was more than a bit unfair.

The reader quoted the website of the New Yorker, which had posted on December 8 an article by Seymour Hersh entitled "Moving targets - Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?"

It did indeed cover some of the ground trodden in the Guardian report. The New York Times has also been reporting aspects of the story from early November. The Guardian correspondent told me: "I did some calling around on Monday and had much of the story before seeing Hersh's piece, which made my heart sink because I knew some people would assume what the reader thought."

The point about the Guardian's report was that it was based on the correspondent's own sources and moved the story on. I have read the New Yorker report and I have discussed the handling of the Guardian's story with the editor on the foreign news desk who liaised with the reporter. The mention of the New Yorker in the piece seems to me to be placed fairly and appropriately.

What interested me much more about the Guardian report was the description of its two anonymous sources. One was described as "a former senior US intelligence official", the other as "a well-informed intelligence source in Washington".

On the day the report was published the editor of the Guardian held a pre-arranged meeting with the paper's news staff to emphasise his guidelines on, among other things, anonymous quotes. He had called it in anticipation of the publication of the report in January of the Hutton inquiry into events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly.

His briefing notes, circulated earlier, struck a chord: "Hutton may well have uncomfortable things to say about the way we gather news: how we evaluate and edit it and how we react when challenged as to its veracity. The public, already pretty sceptical about what we say and how we operate, will, I think, expect some evidence that journalists are putting their own house in order."

Tuesday's Guardian report stands up well to the test of the editor's guidelines. To quote him again: "We have a policy on sources. It says we should use anonymous sources sparingly. It says that we should - except in exceptional circumstances - avoid anonymous pejorative quotes. It says that we should avoid misrepresenting the nature and number of sources, and that we should do our best to give readers some clue as to the authority with which they speak."

After the meeting, one journalist said, yes, we have good rules, but maybe we should spell out to readers that they have been applied. "For example [in the front-page report], we might have stated that intelligence sources cannot normally be identified but that the two sources used were independent of each other and had proved reliable in the past. It would be helpful to readers and would enhance credibility."

The story of the alleged assassination squads depended on anonymous sources and without them it could not have been published with the form and force it had. Similarly, a front-page story on December 5, flagged as a "special investigation" and concerning arms sales by BAE Systems, also depended upon anonymous sources.

To return to the editor's briefing: "People will frequently only say interesting and important things if they can do so anonymously. Sometimes the reasons are ignoble (cowardice). Sometimes they are noble (whistleblowing)." Much, he added, had to be left to the judgment of the reporter.

It comes down to trust again and whether it can survive the healthy scepticism of the reader. Most of the time it can. Occasionally we fall flat on our face.