In today’s WaPo, Christopher Lee takes an interesting look at the use of anonymous sources:

In Washington, sometimes the most difficult thing to extract from the federal bureaucracy is a name.
After 12 West Virginia coal miners died in an accident last month, the Mine Safety and Health Administration offered a briefing for reporters with two of the agency’s top officials. As is often the case, the officials insisted that the briefing be “on background” — that is, reporters could use the information in their articles but not quote the officials by name.
A funny thing happened on the way to deadline. The reporters on the conference call revolted and pressed to put the session on the record — and the agency relented.
The incident reflects the tension between federal officials and the press at a time when the media’s credibility is under assault, in part because the public believes journalists rely too heavily on anonymous sources in reporting and writing articles about Washington.
Although most briefings at federal agencies are on the record, “on background” sessions remain common — even when reporters (occasionally) protest, and even when taxpayer-paid experts are merely speaking about their work.

It’s nice to see journalists demanding more on-the-record briefings, but this article doesn’t address the bigger problem of sources who leak information anonymously as a way to avoid accountability, take political pot-shots or simply get away with lying. Even if every background briefing in Washington was on-the-record, it wouldn’t alleviate the concern that reporters don’t do a good enough job of telling us when anonymous information is coming from a disgruntled partisan with an ax to grind.