Journalistic Ethics and Forged Documents
I would like to throw open a question to any journalists who may be reading. There has been some discussion, recently raised by Mark Steyn, regarding whether journalists have a duty to protect a source who has given them forged documents. Steyn asserts that
once they [CBS representatives] admit the documents are fake, they can no longer claim ”journalistic ethics” as an excuse to protect their source.
I am not an expert on journalistic ethics, but my guess, which may surprise conservatives, is that Steyn is wrong. I think it would take a lot to justify burning a source — probably more than we have here. [UPDATE 9-21-04: we now have more facts. Burning Burkett is fine with me, because he admittedly misled CBS.]
Even if it is proven that a source has given you forged documents, how do you know that your source forged the documents — or even knew that they were forged? And if you don’t know that, then isn’t it inconsistent with journalistic ethics to reveal the source?
I would think the answer would be different if there were incontrovertible proof that your source knew the documents were forged — especially if he forged them himself. But in that case, we would have independent evidence of the source’s identity. So why would we need the journalist to tell us who it was?
I would like to hear from journalists on this issue to see if I am right.
UPDATE: Mark Glaser of Online Journalism Review writes with this opinion, which he has authorized me to post with attribution:
Hi Patrick,
I don’t think there’s a cut-and-dried ethics answer to your question. In most cases, reporters will not give up their sources because it will make it nearly impossible for sources to come to them with trust in the future.
However, if the source is someone in an unusual position of power (Kerry’s campaign manager, for example), then that story itself might outweigh the “keep sources secret” decree. It’s a tough call and it is hard to tell someone like Dan Rather that he has to give up his source because the papers *might* be a forgery. If there was definitive proof they were indeed forgeries then he would have to come out and say he was duped — but not necessarily give up his source.
Why such a focus on the source?
I think the answer to that question is inherent in the answer: we are all wondering if the source might be connected to the Kerry campaign.
And Matthew Hoy has his own contrary opinion, expressed in this post.
I am interested and surprised by Mark’s answer, which I reprinted in its entirety. I wouldn’t have thought that the identity of a source could possibly be ethically revealed simply because it’s a big story. If I were a journalist, I would not operate that way; I would go on the principles enunciated in my post — my sources stay secret unless they have unquestionably defrauded me, and I’d better be damn certain of that.
UPDATE x2: Dan Gillmor appears to agree with Matthew Hoy: CBS must reveal its sources. Once again, I am surprised. Again, do we know that any remaining unnamed sources were actually in on the hoax??
UPDATE x3: Kevin Roderick says fraudulent sources don’t deserve anonymity.
For the record, I agree with that. Kevin’s post shows that I haven’t been clear enough about my own position, which is best expressed by Dean Esmay in my comments:
You promise a source anonymity, you keep that promise unless you are certain the source intentionally set you up, willingly perpetrated a fraud on you.
But I continue to disagree with Steyn’s assertion that “once they [CBS representatives] admit the documents are fake, they can no longer claim ”journalistic ethics’ as an excuse to protect their source.”
My point was that the fact that a source gives you forged documents does not, without more, tell you that the source willingly perpetrated a fraud. The source could have been an innocent conduit, in which case the promise of anonymity should be kept. This is a subtlety that I believe many have overlooked in the debate.
I wonder what people think of Xrlq’s suggestion in the comments: once it’s clear it’s a fraud, then your source must name his source, or he becomes part of the fraud, and is subject to his identity being disclosed.
From what we know now, I have no problem if CBS burned Burkett. He has admitted to misleading CBS. So this is a theoretical discussion. (Or is it? It appears there may be another CBS source out there.)
I think it’s fair to demand that your source reveal HIS source. If he won’t tell you where he got the document, he’s part of the fraud himself.
Comment by Xrlq — 9/19/2004 @ 9:51 am
Time was when the relationship was between a reporter and the source. Even the editor might be in the dark. Nowadays the relationships have probably changed but my guess is that the question is not whether Dan can break the confidence but whether Mary Mapes can or should.
That said, I think any journalist would be loathe to give up a source unless there was incontrovertible proof that the document was fraudulent AND that the source knew it was so.
Which, if I don’t miss my guess, is the reason Dan Rather is in Texas right now, trying to break his source (to use a police interrogator’s term). If the source admits he provided false witness, Dan has one last (small) chance to redeem himself a little. “I reported based on false documents I thought were true and now, by God, I am reporting the falsehood, too.” He set the stage for it the other night when he said he’d like to break the story, if the memos prove false. Now, according to at least one blog I’ve seen, he flew to Texas Saturday. If I felt like a sooth-sayer, I’d predict that we see what Dan hopes will be the last chapter, either tonight on Sunday 60 Minutes or Wednesday at the latest.
By the way, breaking the dingbat in Abeline might be a way of cutting the Democratic Party or the Kerry campaign out of the role of middleman, if indeed that is what happened. If the creator of the documents comes forward, throws himself on his sword, and in effect exonerates Dan, there might not be any need to expose the mechanism by which the memos went from the computer to the reporter.
If the link was directly from Abeline to Mary Mapes, then she takes the fall. Either way, Dan is laying the groundwork for his own exoneration. He’s a canny guy and a survivor.
At least that’s what it looks like to me.
Evan Maxwell
Comment by evan maxwell — 9/19/2004 @ 11:52 am
Rather ignored warnings from his own ‘experts’, so hasty was he to break the story. Bullying Burkett into a confession doesn’t exonerate Rather - even if Burkett is so dumb or publicity-hungry that he submits to the grilling.
Git off the tube, Old Dan Rather
You can’t never fool no blogger
Phony memos, awful-looking,
Old Dan Rather’s goose is cooking
Comment by Insufficiently Sensitive — 9/19/2004 @ 12:05 pm
And I posted the above comments even before I read the WAPO Sunday piece, the one that confirmed Dan is in Texas and setting up Burkett, Mary Mapes or both, to take the fall. It seems she was in the cutout position; she knew the source and vouched for him/her to the CBS brass. If so, she got burned the most seriously, although that explanation does not explain how the normal vetting process went so wrong so quickly.
Comment by evan maxwell — 9/19/2004 @ 12:14 pm
It’s an interesting issue, but I’m not sure we should leave it to the journalists, since this is not their own private little party. A lot is at stake here, indeed crimes may have been committed. And in any event, I’m very skeptical about the whole idea that there is such a discipline as “ethics” or that there are people who can answer questions about ethics better than the rest of us. So, I’m going to offer an opinion even though I am not a journalist.
One can understand a journalist being burned by a source who provides a forged document, and can even understand that the source might have believed the document was authentic. In such a case, the duty that the journalist owes to the source might remain, as you suggested. But that surely applies only in the case where the plea “we didn’t know they were forged” has a shred of credibility. Clearly, the present case does not qualify.
The CBS memos are pathetic forgeries. If the CBS News guys really believed that the memos were real, they should all be fired for stupidity, anyway. If their source was the forger, CBS owes him or her nothing. If their source wasn’t the forger, the source nonetheless deserves to get burned (just as CBS does) for excessive stupidity because the forgeries are so incompetent.
In other words, an allowance could be made (both for CBS and for their source) for the case where an intelligent person has made a good faith effort to test authenticity and has been fooled by a reasonable fascimile. This isn’t such a case.
Comment by Patrick — 9/19/2004 @ 12:14 pm
I consider myself a citizen journalist. I hate to say it, but I disagree with Patrick.
You promise a source anonymity, you keep that promise unless you are certain the source intentionally set you up, willingly perpetrated a fraud on you.
If you aren’t certain that it’s so, then you don’t do it. Because not only is it a broken promise, but it also guarantees that other anonymous sources in the future won’t ant to talk to you.
Comment by Dean Esmay — 9/19/2004 @ 2:51 pm
To be clear: Dean agrees with me, but disagrees with the commenter named Patrick. (I say this because I am a Patrick too.)
Dean and I are fully in agreement.
Comment by Patterico — 9/19/2004 @ 2:59 pm
It only matters because they failed the vetting process completely. It would be malpractice in any other profession.
They _must_ receive crap leads all the darn time. Burning the source of a crap lead _that_ _didn’t_ _air_ is pointless.
I don’t think the bar is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ to burn the source. Sorry. ‘More likely than not’ seems like a better bar. You’re relying in part on the _source’s_ story for the documents. If the source says ‘hey, this was in my mail, you might be interested’ that’s one thing. But if the source is pitching them to you… then the _pitch_ is part of what your source offered. Lying in the pitch isn’t behavior you want to reward.
Comment by Al — 9/19/2004 @ 4:41 pm
Political speech in ruin
Powerline and Patterico run with another sold Mark Steyn column, where he describes the breaking of the Rathergate story, but more importantly, I focus on the last passege of this: As the network put it last week, ”In accordance with longstanding jour…
Trackback by Secure Liberty — 9/19/2004 @ 5:46 pm
Have to disagree. The last few years we’ve seen WAY too many anonymously-sourced stories that turned out to be flat out wrong. The whole Wilson/Plame fiasco, for example.
I think if journalism is going to regain its status as a profession, it’s going to have to amend the way it deals with anonymity. It needs to be cut back to only the cases where it’s needed — when the sources life is in danger, not their career or reputation.
I also think we should amend shield laws or libel laws to the same effect. There shouldn’t be any legal protection for slander that happens to come from an unnamed source.
Comment by Robert Crawford — 9/19/2004 @ 6:50 pm
It is my considered opinion you’re asking less a question than noting the next defense CBS will offer. It’s already started, from what I can tell:
Something about Burkett receiving the documents in the mail or some such (See)B.S. IIRC, Allah has some stuff on this defense.
Comment by Birkel — 9/20/2004 @ 12:19 am
Journalistic standards must proceed from the overall goal of getting the truth out. (Truth value is the “general major premise” of journalistic art, to use John Stuart Mill’s terminology). That is why anonymity is protected in the first place: so that sources will come forward. That backfires if anonymity can cover for false information. The priority at that point has to switch to uncovering the source of the false information and the motivation for it, with bad actors identified for future reference.
If a source was duped and passed on false information, he should have a chance to retain his anonymity by becoming an agent for truth and helping to ‘out’ the guilty parties. Any failure to be completely forthcoming marks him as complicit and in need of exposure. The possibility of an innocent source avoiding exposure by cooperating would lessen disincentive for sources to come forward, while still allowing proper focus on tracking down fraud.
Comment by Alec Rawls — 9/20/2004 @ 11:37 am
Rathergate’s drum-beaters
Local bloggers Roger L. Simon, Patterico, Hugh Hewitt and Little Green Footballs have been all over the CBS debacle and receiving varying levels of credit in the blogosphere. Simon, for one, has been claiming record high traffic during the run-up to Da…
Trackback by L.A. Observed — 9/21/2004 @ 1:56 am
Pardon me, but what “confidentiality”? CBS already exposed Burkett to the Kerry campaign, so it is no longer a matter of protecting the source. And for any number of reasons “journalistic ethics” is a weak shield in this case. About as compelling as Nixon’s claims of “executive privilege.”
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 9/21/2004 @ 7:53 am
My problem with a view of “journalistic ethics” that says the source may have been an innocent conduit of forged docs, is that it would become the best way to commit such fraud in the future; just use an innocent cut-out to avoid being outed.
Comment by geoffg — 9/21/2004 @ 8:22 am
I must disagree with you, Patrick.
1: I don’t like “anonymous” stories”. They make it impossible to prove that the source, or, for that matter, the writer, is simply pushing an agenda rather than reporting what is. So protecting anonymous surces is not a big deal to me.
2: At best, in such a case the “journalist” has already been shown to be a dupe. It’s silly to trust his judgment on whether or not “the source” was at fault. Reveal the source, and let us figure it out.
3: I don’t ahve a problem with anonymous sources telling a reporter “look over here, that will get you started”. The reporter can then follow the case, and report facts to us that we can judge.
But that’s a far cry from believing some unnamed person who supposedly said whatever it is the “reporter” decided to tell us.
Comment by Greg D — 9/21/2004 @ 1:21 pm
I find a certai flaw within your original premise, and it is thus: You assume journalists have ethics.
They don’t. Dan Rather and CBS have proved that.
Comment by James C. Hess — 9/21/2004 @ 4:57 pm
I find a certain flaw within your original premise, and it is thus: You assume journalists have ethics.
They don’t. Dan Rather and CBS have proved that.
Comment by James C. Hess — 9/21/2004 @ 4:57 pm
I agree with Greg D. I think anonymous sources are BS. It has long been a tradition in DC to speak “on background”, which means you can essentially say anything you want, promote any agenda you have, and there is no accountability.
As to the concept that sources won’t trust you if you reveal who they are, all I have to say is, if what you say is the TRUTH, there is no need to hide behind anonymity. To me, that is the deciding factor. If you have to remain anonymous, then why should I believe anything you say or any story based on your comments?
More damage has been done to genuinely good ideas in government by anonymous and ‘on background” reports, that they ought to be outlawed. If you can’t stand behind your words, don’t speak.
Comment by antimedia — 9/21/2004 @ 6:31 pm
ANONYMOUS SOURCES (Kevin Drum)
Comment by Tim — 9/21/2004 @ 11:16 pm
A KFI reporter, covering a story about Michael Jackson, said on the radio that if the information the source was providing him, namely specific charges that child pornography was found at Neverland Ranch, etc, was incorrect and the if the source had set out to deceive him, he would reveal the source on air. Seems fair to me. If the source gives information to a reporter and the reporter puts his journalistic integrity on the line he has maintain that inegrity by revealing the source as a fraud if that is so.
Comment by Patrick — 9/22/2004 @ 8:34 am