News stories that are based on leaks or otherwise hinge on unnamed sources trouble journalists as well as members of the general public who feel they are being asked to take too much on faith. However, a panel discussion held last night (Nov. 3), "Deep Throats and Off-the-Record Info: Uses and Abuses," concluded that much important news would go unreported without the use of leaks, unnamed sources and information given off-the-record to reporters.

The discussion was sponsored by the Alumni Association of the School of Journalism and was moderated by Marshall Loeb, columnist for CBS Market Watch and former editor of the Columbia Journalism Review.

"In reporting there is a tension between using named sources and anonymous sources," Loeb said. "But I've spent most of my life covering business, and you can't get a story about corporate abuses without granting your source anonymity."

But the journalistic landscape has changed over the years, the panel agreed, especially as it relates to acquiring information off-the-record.

"There was a time at the White House when it was after 6 o'clock and Lyndon Johnson could have drinks with reporters without worrying that his comments would be reported. I suspect those days are long gone," said Mary Ellen Glynn, director of communications, U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

Steve Kroft, J'75, co-editor and correspondent for CBS News' 60 Minutes, was asked if he had ever regretted using an anonymous source. Although he said a reporter could get bad information from an uninformed person or a source that had an agenda, he had never used information from an anonymous source that was totally wrong.

"I once worked for the Washington Post Company," said Kroft, "and they have a good policy of requiring two independent sources for an investigative story."

Michael Isikoff, the investigating correspondent for Newsweek whose exclusive reporting on the Monica Lewinsky scandal gained him national recognition, did not entirely agree. "Two sources sounds good in theory," he said, "but in practice it's another matter. One good source -- the right source -- is better than 10 bum sources."

In response to a question about why he refused to listen to Linda Tripp's tapes while she was still secretly taping her conversations with Monica Lewinsky, Isikoff said that reporters should not become part of the stories they are covering.

The UN's Glynn, the only non-practicing journalist on the panel, said the arena of politics and international relations in particular relies heavily on anonymous sources.

"A lot of Washington is an anonymous source," she said. "Now I'm in diplomacy where everyone is anonymous source."

Glynn said that leaks were sometimes the best way to give an idea a fair hearing. In international affairs, for example, some countries would automatically oppose any idea floated by an American diplomat let alone a specific American diplomat. Therefore, stories may be attributed to an unnamed "Western diplomat."

Glynn argued that a distinction should be made, however, between "civilians" and "people who know how the game is played" when it comes to off-the-record comments. Reporters, she said, should be willing to give a break to people who are not accustomed to dealing with the press and who may realize only after giving an on-the-record interview that being identified in print could cost them their job.

Kroft warned that many of the whistle-blowers and other anonymous sources who approach journalists with stories are cranks and crackpots. Isikoff agreed that most of the anonymous sources who had approached him about stories fell into that category, and he suggested that reporters immediately test the veracity of such sources.

Said Kroft, "Nothing will end your career faster than getting a story wrong."