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Article: A New Times Memo on Anonymous Sources.
- Article from:
- The New York Observer (New York, NY)
- Article date:
- June 5, 2008
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The Times has no official anonymous sourcing rules--no "two source rule" or anything like that--but they do often pass around internal documents to serve as guidelines. The paper's public editor Clark Hoyt recently recruited some Columbia J-school students and had them take some sample papers from 2004--when Al Siegal and Bill Keller last sent out an anonymous source guideline sheet--and compare them to 2007, and they found that anonymous sources had basically dropped by half at the paper.
But reporters shouldn't feel afraid to use them! Mr. Keller sent out a "refresher course" memo last night. There are helpful tips like: "There is, on the face of it, something ...