VICKSBURG - Agitators, kooks, vengeful or power-hungry people are drawn to the press.
And the press needs them.
It's only later that anyone learns whether these agitators, kooks, vengeful or power-hungry people are, in fact, also heroes of our communities, sometimes of our nation, or just agitators, kooks, vengeful or power-hungry people.
They are …. ta da … the anonymous sources we've been reading and hearing so much about since 91-year-old W. Mark Felt was outed, or outed himself, as Watergate's Deep Throat.
All reports are that Felt's family in Santa Rosa, Calif., now stands ready to cash in. And the consensus seems to be, "Why shouldn't they?" Everyone else who dives or is pulled into the vortex of celebrity seems to wind up with a healthier bank account.
In Washington, most reporters insist that having and quoting anonymous sources is essential. "It's the only way top officials will talk to us," they say. Well, horsefeathers. In almost every instance, what these people are doing is using the press to float ideas or prepare speculative stories so they can gauge public reaction. That's not journalism. It's shilling.
In Mississippi, most newspapers shun the notion of quoting anonymous sources. At The Vicksburg Post, the policy, even for letters to the editor is that there's too sharp a drop in trustworthiness if a forum is provided for a person not willing to own up to anything he or she has to say.
But there's another aspect: No editor of a newspaper, large or small, gets through a workday without a phone call (or, more recently, an e-mail) from someone offering a tip or demanding a probe. And the difference between tipsters and anonymous sources is only a matter of degree.
These people are sometimes angry - at their bosses, at the government, at a Little League umpire. And sometimes they're not. Some just see a wrong, and believe a little dose of sunshine provided by the press can set things right.
A skilled editor, I think, has a built-in balancing scale. On one side is placed the value of the information in terms of its scope and newsworthiness. On the other is placed what the source has to gain or lose as a consequence of speaking up.
In this way, an editor is a gatekeeper - deciding what information is worth checking out for a possible story and what is purely self-serving.
It's a risky business, and increasingly absent in today's media world, especially if that world includes "blogs" - a term apparently coined because "Internet chat rooms" sounded too casual.
Blogging has not become the rage in Mississippi as it has in more urban states where there are more office workers with the unique combination of high-speed Internet connections and lots of spare time. But blogging is hot on a national scale. There are thousands of sites where millions of people - almost always anonymously - exchange unfiltered information and opinion, often with little relation to fact. Bloggers are inherently untrusting of "old media" such as newspapers and television. And they've scored victories, including forcing Dan Rather and CBS to admit that documents used to "prove" President Bush had shirked his National Guard duties were forgeries.
But on a scale of trustworthiness (there's that word again), most know to score blogs low.
Felt was certainly not the first government insider to dish the dirt. But during the Watergate investigation, what Deep Throat did was add a mystic air, largely because of his anonymity. Plenty of people, fully on the record for not tolerating President Richard Nixon's coverup, have been forgotten. Judge John J. Sirica, for example, is not a household name - yet it was his rulings that forced the White House to disclose its abuses.
It's that mystic quality that gave Deep Throat both prominence and permanence. Before, leakers were more businesslike, as was the analysis by reporters and editors of what they had to say. Now things are more dramatic. The whole big media world keeps a game of "gotcha" going, and the more prominent the target, the less stringent the urge to verify before writing.
But, again, the good news is what our parents taught us: "The truth will out." Some damage may be done in the process, and that's regrettable, but over time if what an anonymous source or tipster offers to share with the public has serious merit, the information will find an audience to react.
It's shallow of the press to be self-righteous on this topic. We all rely on insiders who'll share what they know. Then it's up to us to try to put it in perspective. Many may be kooks, but some become heroes.
