Anonymity, Cowardice, and Credibility
I’m more interested in the motives and character of people who offer “information” to reporters off the record on strict conditions of anonymity, when they’d risk nothing by speaking on the record other than loss of status or popularity, and perhaps their comfortable seats on corporate or not for profit boards. They’re not whistleblowers, exposing illegal or unethical activity and requiring anonymity to protect their livelihoods, or freedom. They’re not “leakers,” providing objective evidence of wrongdoing or offering allegations that can be investigated and independently corroborated. They’re gossips, and sometimes backstabbers, whose information may be no more reliable then the alliances they extend to the people they betray. Or they’re simply cowards, with access to reporters who pander to their adolescent fears of not conforming …
» via The Atlantic
