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Now you have N more points of failures, possibly concentrating far more power than attacking journalists directly. There's a reason journalists tend to be all
by alex_duf 3y ago
Now you have N more points of failures, possibly concentrating far more power than attacking journalists directly.
There's a reason journalists tend to be all hush hush around giving who their sources are, sources are often risking their lives, and are often putting regimes in place / powerful people under scrutiny. The very same people that can decide whether you should live or not.
So in principle: yes, in practice: please no!
- lolinder 3y agoThere are lots of ways around this. The most obvious is to forgo the process if the story is one of the few that would draw the ire of a national government or otherwise place lives at risk. There are lots of cases where anonymous sources are used in less extreme circumstances, and to protect those you could build a rigorous system of vetting notaries, equivalent to a security clearance. Under OP's proposed model we wouldn't need a lot of these notaries, since as I understand it they'd only be actually validating sources if doubts are raised, so the requirements could be quite strict.
- maaaaattttt 3y agoI agree, I was thinking about it while writing it. My thinking was that it should somebody sworn in to try not break the chain of trust. But adding somebody new in a chain will always weaken it (in this context). As the sibling comment mentions, it wouldn't have to be mandatory as well. It's just that in general I find the "anonymous sources" a bit too easy to use. It's very easy to have your article say whatever you want by using "anonymous sources".