Years ago I agreed to be interviewed for a film which was included in an exhibit for the national museum in Washington, D.C. known as the Newseum. It was on the use of anonymous sources. In the film, which is still playing, I cautioned about their use, saying that they can be inaccurate or even non-existent, and that they reduce trust in the news media. Today, the use of anonymous sources has accelerated, and the “sources” being used against President Donald Trump are now openly acknowledged as coming from U.S. intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA and NSA. Not surprisingly, questions about the motives of sources are seldom, if ever, examined by the media that rely on them. Even when anonymous sources supposedly come forward and identity themselves, there is doubt. The Newseum staged an exhibit on Watergate, the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon, and focused on Mark Felt, who was second in command of the FBI at the time. The story is that he “broke his silence and ended the decades-long mystery” about the identity of “Deep Throat,” the alleged anonymous source who helped Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

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