Thanks to top Edinburgh Evening News reporter Victoria Raimes and Journalism.co.uk, I saw this from Charlier Brooker and it’s one of the usual attacks Americans make on UK press – that so much is attributable to ’sources’ and there’s a suggestion that this means there’s a lack of accountability (and made up). Coming from the land of the dry and dull reporting, this got my blood boiling….

Here’s why people stay un-named: they don’t want to lose their jobs.

Many organisations state that any communication with the press has to be done through controlled channels. Now, very often this may be OTT, but businesses and organisations are by nature

• a) cautious
• b) aren’t going to want their employees criticising them publicly (sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons).
• c) companies may want to keep the news to a release date of their choosing – sometimes never if it’s bad news

So if the press suddenly said ‘named sources only’ you can bet that all these ‘un-named sources’ would dry up – as would the best stories.

And let’s be fair, it’s not as if any American journalist benefitted from an un-named source or an American journalist had issues with a ‘named’ source.

Also, not everyone wants to see their name in the paper. Many people are happy to provide information but don’t want or need to see their name in print. Yes, there are other benefits sometimes from not being named in a story – but journalists weigh that up when taking a story. Good journalists just don’t blindly run with ‘unnamed source’ stories. A lot gets weighed up – is the source credible, is there any other way of firming this up, is the tale legit?

A part of me thinks – in all honesty – that it’s professional jealousy. They can’t get these contacts, so what do they do? Attack the system. In Brooke’s case she may think she’s making a point for journalistic integrity, but she’s not. This call for total openness and naming is like the web freetard view that everything should be free. In a perfect world, free from war, hunger and desire it would be wonderful, but that’s not the world we live in – and it’s not a world human nature will ever let us live in, so let’s go with what we can.

If the option is to either get a good story by an un-named source or not run the story, the journalist should always have the option of running the tale – especially if it’s important.

But how did we end up in this state? Would it have anything to do with the UK being culturally influenced by America, which brought us the idea of the controlled message, proper press spokespeople, looking good on camera and the short newsbite? That may be taking it a bit far to be honest, but if American journalism is full of accountability why is it that American political press corp is seen as one of the most-toadying-to-power that there is? Where was the accountability when it came to questioning the need to invade Middle East countries?

(BTW, please don’t think this is a US = bad rant. I love American writers. In features/news features they held the top spot for years in my estimation and are still amongst my most reread books. But for straight, dry news, America’s journalism is very often found wanting in my opinion).