Last night's American Forum on the role of confidential sources fueled a heated disagreement between Mike Isikoff of Newsweek and Matt Cooper of Time Magazine over whether or not sources should be pressured to go on the record.
"We're in a little bit of a danger of making a fetish of confidential sources," said Mike Isikoff. "Our ultimate obligation is not to our sources, but to our readers and the truth."
Moderator Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, jumped in to defuse the argument. He directed the discussion, which was hosted by the School of Communication, back to the recent conflicts of reporters protecting their sources and prosecutors subpoenaing journalists and their notes.
Mark Feldstein, another panelist and the director of the journalism program at George Washington University, said that problems arising from the use of confidential sources in America date back to before there was a First Amendment to protect freedom of speech and freedom of the press. More cases have come to public attention in the last thirty years since Watergate.
The panel, composed entirely of journalists, also addressed the problems reporters encounter when working with sources off the record or on background.
"You know if you don't make that deal, your source is going to make it with the competition," said Feldstein.
Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune questioned the wisdom of using confidential sources for trivial information.
"If you overuse anonymous sources, your credibility will suffer," said Page, citing the example of a recent article that used a confidential source to verify that a young golf star might go pro.
Once a journalist decides whether the news is important enough to use a confidential source, the next question is whether or not it threatens national security. A student at the forum asked the panelists how they decide what to publish if the government classifies it as a threat.
Walter Pincus, a reporter for the Washington Post, said he doesn't publish without telling the government what he is publishing and letting them make their argument against it. He said he doesn't always do as they request, but "we all have our own rules"
