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Article No. 1
Unnamed
and Anonymous Sources:
Did They Shape the Debate Over Invading Iraq?
John
A. Hatcher
University of
Minnesota, Duluth USA
Keywords: Iraq war,
anonymous sources, content analysis, whistleblower
Abstract
A study of 528 news items from 11 countries explores how
anonymous and unnamed sources were used by journalists during the buildup
to the Iraq War. A quarter of all sources appearing in news items were not
identified by name. The use of unnamed sources corresponded with a decrease
in ideas opposing the war and a tone that presented the war as being more
positive and unavoidable. The findings raise questions about whether anonymous
and unnamed sources serve the perceived whistleblower function in political
discourse.
Introduction
The
image conjured up by the term “anonymous source” may be that of Deep
Throat, the unnamed and, up until his death in 2008, unknown government
source who guided journalists at The Washington Post in their
reporting of the Watergate scandal that eventually led to the resignation
of President Richard M. Nixon. Deep Throat is portrayed by journalism
practitioners as a whistleblower: a source who helps reporters get
information that cannot be obtained in any other way, who is in obvious
opposition to political leaders, and who assists the media in their role as
political watchdogs (Brown, 2005).
However,
a rich body of work exploring the role of media in a political system shows
that, driven by ideals that place high value on credible, verifiable
information, journalists favor official sources who tend to frame an issue
in a way that is congruent with political leaders; these sources speak in a
tone that tends to reinforce the position of government leaders rather than
challenge it (Bennett, 1990; Schudson, 2003). The goal of this study is to
explore the long-held assumption that journalists break from their routines
when they use unnamed and anonymous sources in political reporting. It
asks: Does the presence of anonymous sources in political reporting lead to
news content that challenges the ideas of political leaders? Or, is there
evidence that anonymous sources are being used by political actors to
reinforce and even strengthen their own positions? This study explores the
use of anonymous sources using a long history of media sociology research
that explains the journalist-source relationship as one intimately tied to
the political institution and the dominant messages of the sources that
Schudson refers to as “parajournalists” (2003, p. 3).
While
there has long been a debate over the use of unnamed sources, little is
known about exactly how the presence of anonymous sources in news reporting
affects political discourse. This study uses news coverage of the buildup
to the Iraq War to explore these questions; it analyzes 528 news items
published in 22 newspapers from 11 countries representing five languages.
It explores whether the use of unnamed sources was more prevalent in some
countries than others, whether these sources encouraged the use of certain
ideas to interpret the news event and whether these sources swayed the tone
of media messages.
On
Sept. 4, 2002, then-U.S. President George W. Bush announced that Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein was a threat to world security because he possessed
weapons of mass destruction (“Moves towards U.S. military action,”
2002). He urged the United States and other countries to join together
in a coalition that would remove Hussein from power. Bush’s announcement
triggered a global discourse over the question of whether to invade Iraq.
During the seven months prior to the invasion, the world’s media were
fixated firmly on this global debate, offering the ideal opportunity to
explore just how unnamed and anonymous sources shaped political discourse.
Hachten
(1999) says that, like never before, global news events are instantaneously
observed by media who, with the aid of technology, make information
immediate and transnational. Hatchen believes there now exists one global
style of journalism that is especially apparent in the coverage of wars and
major disasters. Technology also makes global messages about such events
homogenous as news channels no longer respect boundaries of culture or
state (Hallin & Mancini 2004). Aiding technology, they assert, is a
global Americanized media, concentrated in the hands of a few (Humphreys,
1996).
Theory
This
study defines the unnamed or anonymous source as any source appearing in a
news item who is not identified by name. To date, the body of research
looking at the use of anonymous sources can be put into one of two
categories: (1) how often unnamed sources are used in reporting; (2)
whether readers question the credibility of news stories that include
unnamed sources. This study examines the use of such sources from the
perspective of media sociology research and particularly Bennett’s concept
of media indexing (1990) and Schudson’s notion of the parajournalist
(2003). The goal is to explore whether a whistleblower role can be detected
in source use and to study this relationship in a comparative analysis of a
global news event.
Research
regarding the use of sources in the coverage of major news events finds
that the unnamed sources used by journalists would likely be expert and
official sources (Tuchman, 1978; Lawrence, 2000; Salomone, Greenberg,
Sandman & Sachsman, 1990; Durham, 1998). In general, journalists depend
on sources to help them make decisions about what’s news, how to think
about (frame) that news and, indirectly, to determine the tone of the
message. Lawrence (2000) notes that the official sources reporters rely on
for information often have great ability to manage the news. Many journalists
see it as their professional obligation “to gather information provided by
legitimate sources and to convey that information as ‘neutrally’ as
possible" (Lawrence, 2000, p. 52). The goal is objectivity in
newsgathering, but the result, Lawrence asserts, is often news that could
be characterized by Iyengar’s (1991) conception of news reports that merely
give an accounting of what happened without making connections outside of
the news event.
Tuchman
(1978) finds the desire to obtain facts viewed as verifiable pushes
journalists toward sources that have official capacity. The facts presented
by unofficial sources may be just as accurate, but Tuchman notes that they
are harder for a reporter to substantiate. Salomone, Greenberg, Sandman and
Sachsman (1990) find many of the standard elements required for a quality
news article – such as accuracy and assessment of a threat – are more
likely to come from a traditional news source or expert. Journalists also
rely on official sources to frame a story – to put it into context and give
an event meaning (Durham, 1998).
Idealized,
journalism defines events in their broadest terms: Diverse voices interpret
events and show how isolated incidents connect to a broader world (Entman,
1993; Iyengar, 1991; Neuman, Just & Crigler, 1992). However,
journalists work in a dynamic environment in which factors both inside and
outside the newsroom weigh daily on the decisions they make regarding what
stories to write and, ultimately, how to write them (Shoemaker & Reese,
1996. Entman (1989) says a journalist may yearn for work that attempts to
“illuminate the powerful,” (p. 125) but falls short due to pressures from a
desire to be objective, to be accountable and to produce a profitable news
product. Entman believes these news practices are highly resistant to
change, primarily because of the limits of audience interest and the
journalists’ close relationship with political elite.
The
term framing has been used in so many ways that it has almost lost its
value. The concepts of framing, metaphor, idea elements, theme, focus and
topic could be used interchangeably to describe the aspect of news content
that has to do with the choices a journalist makes in the creation of a
news story. This study develops its definition of framing from Entman
(1993): “To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make
them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a
particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation,
and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (p. 52).
Using
this definition, coupled with what Tuchman (1973) observes, framing can be
seen as a dynamic and evolving process, best understood by analyzing the
choices a journalist makes in deciding which sources a journalist includes
and what information those sources use to define a news event. Gitlin
(1980, p. 6) says that frames are “principles of selection, emphasis and
presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what
happens, and what matters.” Gamson and Modigliani (1989) say that
journalists frame news events using five devices: metaphors, exemplars,
catchphrases, depictions, and visual images.
Schudson
(2003) describes a journalist-source relationship in which news
organizations rely on expert sources to decide what events are newsworthy
and what frames or ideas should be ascribed to those events. Journalists,
he notes, are besieged by a vast array of “parajournalists” (p. 3) from
myriad political and corporate institutions who have a powerful hand in shaping
news. Journalists rely on official government sources to make sense of the
world. “News is produced by people who operate, often unwittingly, within a
cultural system, a reservoir of stored cultural meanings. It follows
conventions of sourcing – who is a legitimate source, speaker or conveyor
of information to a journalist” (p. 190).
Bennett
(1990) uses the concept of indexing to describe how the boundaries
of discourse are established by the political elite: “Mass media news
professionals, from the boardroom to the beat, tend to ‘index’ the range of
voices and viewpoints in both news and editorials according to the range of
views expressed in mainstream government debate about a given topic” (p.
106). In other words, official sources decide what the news is and what
ideas should be employed to interpret the news event. Indexing is most
prevalent, Bennett asserts, in news events that are of great importance to
the interests of the state – including military actions and foreign
affairs. This routine would make it unlikely for media to include ideas
that would fall outside the acceptable range of discourse.
In
retrospect, media organizations have been forced to scrutinize their
coverage of the buildup to the Iraq War and concede that they may have been
misled by unnamed and anonymous sources. In May of 2004, the editors of The
New York Times told readers they had not done an adequate job of
reporting critically on the question of going to war in Iraq: “…we have
found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it
should have been” (“The Times and Iraq,” 2004, May 26, para. 3). In part,
the Times concluded, it erred by relying on sources and informants
without verifying or questioning their claims with greater scrutiny.
Indeed, the media’s questionable coverage of the buildup to the war,
coupled with several high-profile scandals in the United States, have
prompted news organizations to re-examine how anonymous and unnamed sources
are used in news reporting. Many news organizations have responded by
instituting more stringent policies, and recent analyses have documented a
decline in the use of anonymous sources in reporting (Martin-Kratzer &
Thorson, 2007). The State of the Media Report (2005) found that U.S.
newspapers decreased their use of anonymous sources from 29 percent to just
7 percent in one year (more recent State of the Media reports have not
revisited the use of anonymous sourcing).
Esposito
(1999) notes that the use of anonymous sources is at least a century-old
practice in journalism – one on which there has never been agreement.
Longtime media critic Ben Bagdikian (2005) writes that one of the most
famous anonymous “leaks” of information came on the eve of the attack on
Pearl Harbor, when President Roosevelt released information to The New York
Times that peace talks with Japanese negotiators were not progressing well
and that an attack on U.S. soil was a possibility. Bagdikian (2005) and
others say that anonymous sources provide a crucial role in the reporting
process for whistleblowers who risk their livelihoods and even their lives
in the release of information. Opponents, such as USA Today founder Al
Neuharth, argue that only in rare cases in history has anonymity been
warranted, suggesting that media are too quick to grant anonymity, leading
to a loss of both credibility and accountability (Shepard, 1994).
Most
research has found that, as a practice, journalists use anonymous sources
frequently. Wulfemeyer (1985) examined the news magazines Time and Newsweek,
finding that 80 percent of all stories analyzed used some kind of
anonymous or unnamed source and concluding that journalists were not being
any less cautious or transparent in their reporting methods in spite of
recent scandals. Wulfemeyer and McFadden (1986) found the use of unnamed
sources varied by medium: newsmagazines used the most, television network
news broadcasts used them in about half of their news stories and
newspapers used them the least. Rosentiel (2005) speculated that part of
the difference across media may have something to do with the way in which
television news’ compressed format forces it to look for ways to condense
information, eliminating specific identifiers such as the names of sources.
Wulfmeyer
and McFadden (1986) conclude that if sources don’t appear in reporting
then, by default, the news organization becomes the one accountable for the
credibility of the information. Esposito (1999) believes the internet and a
24-hour news cycle are pressuring journalists to rely more on these kinds
of sources. Anonymous and unnamed sources, he concluded, don’t allow
readers to assess the credibility of a source or the information they
provide.
Even
within the broad definition of an unnamed source, there are distinctions
that journalists use that may help readers determine the credibility of the
source and the information in a news report (Adams, 1962). A source
identified as being a “White House source,” for example, may have greater
credibility to a reader than an ambiguous attribution. However, when the credibility
of an institution is tarnished – as the White House’s was through events
such as Watergate and Vietnam — Riffe (1980) found, the credibility of
unnamed sources from these institutions also suffered. However, the impact
of an unnamed source is not uniform. Esposito (1999) speculated that these
kinds of sources may be more prevalent in high-profile stories. Further,
the level of controversy connected to a news event also may influence how
closely a reader scrutinizes the credibility of a source (Fedler &
Counts, 1981).
While
the use of unnamed sources may be an important ideological discussion for
journalists, some research suggests readers don’t object to or even notice
the use of unnamed sources (Policinski, 2005). News organizations report
that they rarely receive complaints from readers about the use of anonymous
sources (Wilson, Babcock & Pribek, 1997). Rains (2007) finds that
readers looking at information on health information Web sites gave
anonymous sources the same level of credibility as named sources, and
concluded that readers do not use “critical information seeking” (p. 209)
skills when accessing information.
The
Iraq War, one of the world’s most-covered media events (Tumber &
Palmer, 2004), drew more than 3,000 journalists to produce news that was
instantaneous and global. Coverage of a conflict of this magnitude
encouraged journalists to seek out official sources who presented the war
as a foregone conclusion, ignoring metaphors that discussed attempts to
find alternatives to the war, the United Nations refusal to support an
invasion as well as peaceful protests of the war (Lule, 2004). The result,
Lule concluded, was that media failed to analyze the debate or offer any
historical context.
Analysis
of Iraq War media coverage shows journalists took their cues from their
sources. Pfau, Haigh, Gettle, Donnelly, Scott, Warr and Wittenberg (2004)
looked at media coverage from reporters who were embedded with troops and
found that, as might be expected, this type of coverage is more favorable in
tone toward individuals and the military. However, this kind of coverage
was not more positive overall. Aday, Livingston and Hebert (2005) compared
U.S. media coverage with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television station and
concluded that cultural and ideological differences shape how objectively a
news event is covered by media. In general, they find, media cover the
“whiz-bang” (p. 16) aspects of the war, but miss many other important story
lines.
Hypotheses
The
theoretical model for this study, shown in Figure 1, is built on Schudson’s
(2003) and Bennett’s (1990) descriptions of how political actors dictate
the ideas used and establish the tone of the message in public discourse.
One research question and four hypotheses are tested.
Figure
1. Proposed theoretical model of how unnamed sources influence news
content.
A source
is any person or document to which information is attributed. An unnamed or
anonymous source is any person or document to which information is
attributed but who is not specifically identified by name.
A news
frame describes the ideas used to interpret an event. They are thought
of in this study as belonging to one of two broader categories based on
whether they support or oppose the dominant message of the political elite
– in this case, the White House view of the threat of Iraq.
The tone
of a news item is defined as the series of attributes used to describe
how strongly a news item presents information in a way that encourages a
particular attitude about a news event.
RQ1:
Did some countries use more unnamed sources than others in their coverage
of the buildup to the Iraq War?
This
question, the only one that looks at source use at the country level,
explores whether some countries may have had a greater stake in the news
event and therefore relied more on unnamed and anonymous sources for
analysis.
H1: The
more unnamed sources in a news item, the more likely the item will be given
greater prominence.
Prominence
is how much
importance a news item is given based on its placement in a newspaper.
Since journalists profess to use unnamed sources only when accessing
important information that cannot be obtained in any other way, it is
expected that news items including these kinds of sources would be deemed
to have greater newsworthiness.
H2:
The more unnamed sources in a news item,
a.
the more
organizational sources.
b.
the fewer
unaffiliated sources.
It’s
expected that news items containing information attributed to unnamed and
anonymous sources would require further substantiation. As such, organizational
sources, such as government sources and military sources, would be used to
verify information supplied by unnamed sources.
H3:
The more unnamed sources in a news item,
a.
the
greater the use of pro-war ideas.
b.
the
less the use of ideas that oppose war.
It’s
expected that many unnamed and anonymous sources are presenting information
that is being leaked by government leaders – in this news event, the agenda
of U.S. officials. As such, these sources are expected to champion the
ideas that leaders are espousing as the correct choice. This prediction is
contrary to the notion of the unnamed source serving as a whistleblower,
suggesting these sources are reinforcing the ideas of political actors.
H4:
The greater the use of unnamed sources in a news item,
a.
the less neutral the
tone of the news item.
b.
the more the overall
tone of a news item presents going to war as a good idea.
c.
the more the idea of
going to war is seen as being unavoidable.
Unnamed
sources are predicted to champion the ideas of government officials making
an argument for going to war. As such, the ideas will be presented in a way
that will favor the option of taking military action against Iraq.
Method
The
event timeframe from which news items were collected started on Sept. 4,
2002, when U.S. President George Bush pledged to launch an intensive round
of diplomacy with world leaders and the United Nations “to deal with the
threat” of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (“Moves towards U.S. military
action,” 2002). It concluded on March 19, 2003, when Bush declared
war on Iraq ("Iraq Crisis, 2002-2003,"
n.d.). During these seven months, countries around the world debated
whether to join or even support the United States in an invasion of Iraq.
The entire world was embroiled in a passionate policy debate that forced
governments to act, journalists to report and the public to respond.
A
number of factors were considered when selecting the countries to include
in this analysis: the Netherlands, India, Canada, Israel, Australia, New
Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Spain.
Each of these countries was faced with the same decision of whether to join
the coalition that would invade Iraq. However, these countries also offer
variation in culture, geography and, most importantly, their public opinion
about the war and, ultimately, in whether they joined the U.S.
invasion.
Two
newspapers were chosen from each country. All of the newspapers, shown in
Table 1, identified themselves as being general-interest newspapers. The
newspapers selected for this study were the largest circulation newspapers
from which data could be found for the identified news event using the
Lexis-Nexis database. While it would be desirable to sample from even more
newspapers from each country, the market penetration of these newspapers
combined in each country can be said to be representative of the news
content in each of these countries. All of these newspapers identified
themselves as being general-interest newspapers, rather than specialty,
entertainment or sports-oriented magazines. The French, Dutch and Spanish
language newspapers were published in their native languages, which led to
some challenges that were addressed in the area of intercoder reliability.
News
items were collected from each newspaper using a keyword search (“Iraq” or
the equivalent in the language in which the newspaper was published) in the
Lexis-Nexis database. The search term is rather broad, but it was deemed
more important to cull stories not related to the conflict, than it was to
risk missing some stories related to the conflict that might not have been
found if the search criteria were more narrow. Since the goal was to
understand how the issue of Iraq was portrayed in public discourse, only
news items that were clearly not about Iraq in any way were excluded.
Editorials,
letters to the editor, columns and other opinion pieces were included.
While journalists do not necessarily produce these items, they are still
part of the content included by the news organization and are, therefore,
subject to the same gatekeeping routines as other elements in a news
product.
A
systematic, random sample of news items from each newspaper was conducted,
ensuring variation across the time period. A total of 25 news items from
each of the 22 newspapers was sampled.
Table
1. Newspapers used in content analysis.
|
Country
|
Coalition
member?
|
Publication
|
Circulation
|
Comment
|
|
Australia
|
Yes
|
Daily
Telegraph
|
440,000
|
Daily
newspaper in Sydney owned by News Corp.
|
|
Herald
Sun
|
540,000
|
Largest
selling newspaper in Australia - also owned by News Corp.
|
|
Canada
|
No
|
Toronto
Star
|
470,433
|
Canada's
largest daily.
|
|
Ottawa
Citizen
|
137,000
|
English
daily in capital.
|
|
France
|
No
|
La
Croix *
|
91500
|
General
daily French newspaper
|
|
Le
Figaro *
|
365,682
|
Oldest
daily in France.
|
|
India
|
No
|
The
Statesman
|
180,000
|
English-language
daily.
|
|
Indian
Express
|
690,000
|
General
daily newspaper.
|
|
Israel
|
No
|
Jerusalem
Post
|
47,000
|
English
language daily.
|
|
The
Jerusalem Report
|
n/a
|
Biweekly
news magazine with strong readership in United States.
|
|
Japan
|
Yes
|
The
Daily Yomiuri
|
10,000,000
|
English-language
version of Tokyo daily newspaper.
|
|
The
Mainichi Daily News
|
50,000
|
English-language
version of Tokyo daily newspaper.
|
|
Netherlands
|
Yes
|
De
Telegraaf*
|
800,000
|
Largest
daily in the Netherlands.
|
|
BN/DeStem*
|
146,000
|
Part
of Wegener, the largest publisher of regional newspapers.
|
|
New
Zealand
|
No
|
The
Southland Times
|
33,000
|
Regional
daily newspaper covering southern New Zealand.
|
|
The
New Zealand Herald
|
200,000
|
Auckland
daily newspaper owned by Independent News & Media plc.
|
|
Spain
|
Yes
|
El
Mundo*
|
356,677
|
Second
largest newspaper in Spain.
|
|
El
Pais*
|
1,040,808
|
Largest
daily in Spain.
|
|
United
Kingdom
|
Yes
|
The
Guardian
|
399,000
|
The
paper maintains a radical, left of centre editorial stance.
|
|
Telegraph
|
904,955
|
Britain's
newspaper of record.
|
|
United
States
|
Yes
|
New
York Times
|
1,100,000
|
Daily
newspaper considered newspaper of record.
|
|
USA
Today
|
2,300,000
|
Most
read daily newspaper in U.S.
|
* Newspapers not
published in English.
A source
is any person or document to which information is attributed. Each source
was classified into one of 11 different categories based on its
organizational affiliation. Each source also was coded as being either a named
or unnamed source based on whether it was identified by name in the
news item. A number of previous studies were used as a foundation for the
source coding scheme. Broussard, Shanahan and McComas (2004) classified
sources into eight categories based on their affiliation with a particular
group or agency. Kim and Weaver (2003) used a similar approach, identifying
sources in the reporting of the Asian economic crisis based on their
position and their country of origin.
A frame
is an idea element in a news item. The phrase was the recording unit for
frames, with information aggregated to the item level. This strategy has
been used in numerous framing studies with success (Broussard et al., 2004;
Kim, 2004; Voakes, Kapfer, Kurpius, & Chern, 1996; Luther & Miller,
2005; Lee & Maslog, 2005). Using previous studies of coverage of the
buildup to the Iraq War, a list of idea elements was generated and
categorized into story frame categories. Luther and Miller’s (2005) computer-generated
analysis of news frames and subframes in news coverage during the buildup
to the Iraq War was particularly important in the creation of these framing
lists. This list was then tested on news items in several pilot studies
that looked at news items that appeared during the time period identified
for this study to ensure that the list was exhaustive and each category was
mutually exclusive. These idea elements were eventually collapsed into
pro-war frames (terrorism, liberation, weapons of mass destruction and
impending war) and oppose-war frames (proof WMDs, Iraqi perspective, public
opposition, alternatives to war and global tension).
To
measure tone, each news item was rated using five different
five-point scales, which were treated as interval-level variables. Four of
these measures were then converted to a summative index (Cronbach’s alpha
= .96) based on the score for all measures of tone. The fifth index was
treated as a separate measure because the reliability of the index was not
acceptable when it was included. The design for these indexes was based on
Moy and Pfau (2000) who use a global attitude measure of six,
seven-interval scales to create an index that measures tone. That same
measure is also used by Pfau, Haigh, Gettle, Donnelly, Scott, Warr and
Wittenberg (2004) in a study of coverage of the Iraq war.
It
took nearly six months to design a coding scheme, modify that scheme and
train coders to reach acceptable levels of reliability.
The procedure followed Neuendorf’s (2002) guidelines for achieving a
reliable, replicable coding design. The initial coding scheme was developed
drawing on previous studies. Practice coding was then conducted, with
adjustments made to the codebook, instructions to coders and the coder
training based on the discussion of this work. A pilot study was conducted
to test reliability. Final coder training was conducted with further
modifications to the coding scheme. Coding of a final sample of 16 percent
of the final data set was conducted with reliability tests reported. PRAM,
an automated reliability program, allowed coding to be inspected routinely.
Reliability
estimates for all general news item characteristics between the two English
coders was found to be acceptable or higher. For sources, reliability
results using Pearson’s correlation coefficient averaged .88. Reliability
for unnamed sources was .79, and .95 for total sources in a news item. The
measures of story frames averaged .83 using Cohen’s kappa, though
the framing category of global impacts of war was .68. Measures of tone are
adequate, with the lowest of these correlations being “unavoidable” and
“foolish” tones having Pearson’s correlation coefficients of .71.
The
coding of non-English news items occurred after most of the
English-language items had been analyzed. Coders were selected and coder
training was conducted using practice news items that were not included in
the analysis. Coders were not permitted to proceed to coding of non-English
items until reliability for each variable was .70 or higher using Cohen’s kappa
for nominal variables and Pearson’s correlation coefficient for ratio and
interval-level measures.
Results
Table
2 shows the prominence and type of news item and also whether the item was
published in a country that joined the Coalition of the Willing. Nearly 15
percent of all news items were front-page articles; 64.6 percent were
placed on inside pages. For nearly 20 percent of all news items,
information on prominence was not provided. The news items included a
mixture of hard news stories (74.2 percent), editorials (6.3 percent),
commentary (7.2 percent), columns (5.7 percent) and letters to the editor
(3.8 percent). The news items represent a nearly equal number of news items
from countries that were on opposing sides in the debate on whether to go
to war in Iraq, as the coalition member variable shows.
Table
2. Percentages for general item characteristics.
Variable
%
Prominence
Front
page
14.8
Section
front
1.7
Other
64.6
Not
provided
18.9
100%
(N=528)
Type
of item
News
item
74.2
Editorial
6.3
Commentary
7.2
Review
.2
Column
5.7
Letter
to
editor
3.8
Other
2.7
100%
(N=528)
Coalition
member
Joined
coalition
54.7
Did not join
coalition
45.3
100%
(N=528)
Table
3 shows news items averaged 633.61 words with a standard deviation
of 446.38. An average of 3.75 sources was found in each news item, but this
also had large variation with a standard deviation of 3.30.
Journalists attributed information to 1,980 sources. Of these sources, the
most common type were organizational sources in comparison to the
unaffiliated voices of citizens as sources. Of the 3.75 sources in each
news item, 28 percent were sources who were either anonymous or whose names
were not given to readers (e.g. “a government official”).
Each
news item was analyzed based on whether idea elements fit into one of eight
news frame categories. Coders decided whether these frames were present or
not present. These frames were then collapsed into pro-war and oppose-war
categories. News items included almost equal use of the pro-war and
oppose-war frames, with each story averaging 1.62 ideas that fit into the pro-war
category and 1.58 ideas designated as oppose-war ideas.
Coders
analyzed news items using five different measures of tone, all of which had
means ranging from 3.00 to 3.5, showing balanced or neutral coverage when
seen as a whole. Using four of these five measures, an overall tone index
was created
that finds the overall tone of coverage was 12.43, with 12 being what would
be classified as balanced or neutral on a scale of 4 to 20. However, the standard
deviation of all of these measures shows that there was variation among
the news items. The fifth measure of tone – whether the war was seen as
avoidable or unavoidable is the furthest from neutral, with a mean
of 3.50 showing that news items tended to present the likelihood of war as
unavoidable. Finally, to measure how far from balanced or neutral news
items were – regardless of the direction of that tone – a measure of
neutrality finds that on a scale of 0 to 6, news items averaged 2.93.
Table
3. Means and standard deviations for news item variables.
Variables
Mean
Std.
Deviation
N
Item
length
633.61
446.38
528
Sources
Organizational
3.38
3.14
528
Unaffiliated
.22
.92
528
Other
.16
.49
528
Total
3.75
3.30
528
Unnamed
1.04
1.64
528
Frames
Pro-war
1.62
1.00
520
Oppose
war
1.58
.99
520
Overall
tone
Negative/positive
3.19
1.01
523
Unavoidable/avoidable
3.50
1.12
524
Foolish/Wise
3.06
1.0
524
Bad/good
3.18
1.07
524
Justified/unjustified
3.00
1.14
524
Tone index
12.43
4.06
523
Neutral
2.93
2.84
523
Comparing
News Items at the Country Level
Research
Question 1 finds that some countries used more anonymous and unnamed
sources in reporting than others. The analysis of variance
comparisons shown in Table 4 find that the United States, Great Britain and
Canada, all countries that became members of the U.S.-led coalition, used
unnamed sources more in their reporting than other countries. The United
States used the most unnamed sources, averaging two per news item (p<.001).
France and Spain used the fewest unnamed sources in reporting. France was
the most vocal opponent to the war, while Spain, which did join the
coalition, did so in spite of great public opposition.
Country-level
comparisons (N=11) do not allow the use of more rigorous,
multivariate statistics to control for the length of news items or the
number of total sources. When these country-level differences were tested
using proportional comparisons (unnamed sources to total sources; unnamed
sources to total words in a news items), the differences in the use of
unnamed sources all but vanish. A Sheffe post-hoc test of the analysis
of variance finds that the only country-level differences significant
at the 95 percent confidence level exist between France and Australia and
France and the United Kingdom.
Table 4. One-way analysis of variance for
key source variables by country.
|
Variable
|
Israel
|
Netherlands
|
Japan
|
India
|
United States
|
Spain
|
Australia
|
France
|
Canada
|
New Zealand
|
United Kingdom
|
|
Unnamed
Mean
Standard
dev.
F
df
significance
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1.08
|
.73
|
1.14
|
.59
|
1.96
|
.42
|
1.14
|
.31
|
1.20
|
1.18
|
1.47
|
|
1.63
|
1.05
|
1.59
|
.93
|
2.86
|
.81
|
1.46
|
.72
|
1.91
|
1.66
|
1.43
|
|
4.30
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
10,
517
|
|
p<.001
|
|
Total
sources
Mean
Standard
dev.
F
df
significance
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4.59
|
3.56
|
2.67
|
2.18
|
5.40
|
2.80
|
3.96
|
2.26
|
4.61
|
4.50
|
4.43
|
|
4.21
|
2.19
|
2.49
|
1.69
|
4.66
|
2.37
|
2.50
|
1.75
|
4.48
|
3.44
|
2.80
|
|
5.73
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
10,
517
|
|
p<.001
|
Influence
on Item Prominence
Hypothesis
1 is supported. Table 5 shows that front-page news items used more unnamed
sources than news items published on pages of less prominence. Front-page
news items used 1.53 unnamed sources on average (p<.01), while
news items published on inside pages used an average of .95 unnamed
sources. This finding is tempered by comparing the use of total sources in
a news item, which shows a statistically significant difference between the
number of sources used in front-page and inside pages overall. Front-page
news items averaged almost five sources per news item, while inside pages
averaged 3.58 sources per item.
Table 5. Independent t-test for news item
characteristics by prominence.[21]
|
Variables
|
Front
page
Mean
(SD)
(N=87)
|
Inside
page
Means
(SD)
(N=341)
|
t value
|
df
|
significance
|
|
Unnamed
|
1.53
(2.39)
|
.95
(1.46)
|
-2.86
|
426
|
.004
|
|
Total sources
|
4.71
(3.83)
|
3.58
(3.21)
|
-2.83
|
426
|
.005
|
|
Item length
|
684.23
(519.28)
|
639.08
(442.78)
|
-.81
|
422
|
.42
|
Influence
on Use of Other Sources
Hypothesis
2 looks at whether unnamed sources were used in conjunction with other
kinds of sources and finds no support. Table 6 shows that unnamed sources
have a positive correlation with the use of organizational sources (r=.66,
p<.001) and with the use of total sources (r=.70, p<.001)
overall and the length of a news item. However, H2a and H2b are not
supported when compared at the multivariate level.
Table
6. Pearson’s correlation coefficients for source and news item
characteristics
|
Variables
|
2.
|
3.
|
4.
|
5.
|
|
1.
Unnamed
|
0.66***
(528)
|
0.08
(528)
|
0.70***
(528)
|
0.27***
(524)
|
|
2.
Organizational sources
|
_
|
-0.08
(528)
|
0.95***
(528)
|
0.42***
(524)
|
|
3.
Unaffiliated sources
|
|
_
|
0.22***
(528)
|
0.08
(524)
|
|
4.
Total sources
|
|
|
_
|
0.44***
(524)
|
|
5.
Item length
|
|
|
|
_
|
___________
*p<.05
**p<.01
***p<.001
Influence
on Use of Pro-War and Oppose-War Ideas
Hypothesis
3a is not supported. Unnamed sources did not explain how much news items
included ideas that supported the idea of going to war in bivariate
analysis shown in Table 7. However, unnamed sources were found to predict
whether ideas opposing the war were used in news items, supporting H3b.
Unnamed sources does not have a significant correlation with
oppose-war ideas, however, the variable is significant (p<.001)
in a regression equation that controls for total sources, item length and
coalition membership. The b of -.15 shows in Table 8 that as the use
of unnamed sources increases, the use of ideas opposing the war decreases
in an equation that explains 8 percent of the variance. Total
sources (b =.10) also predicts oppose-war ideas, showing an increase
in sources leads to an increase in ideas opposing the war.
Table 7. Pearson’s correlation
coefficients source and news item characteristics and news frames.
|
Variables
|
Pro-war
frames
|
Oppose-war
frames
|
|
Unnamed
|
.08
(520)
|
.01
(520)
|
|
Organizational
sources
|
.14***
(520)
|
.15**
(520)
|
|
Unaffiliated
sources
|
-.01
(520)
|
.17***
(520)
|
|
Total
sources
|
.13**
(520)
|
.20***
(520)
|
|
Item
length
|
.33***
(516)
|
.18***
(516)
|
|
Pro-war
frames
|
__
|
.08
(519)
|
|
Oppose-war
frames
|
|
__
|
_____________
*p<.05
**p<.01
***p<.001
Table
8. Hierarchical regression analysis of news item and source characteristics
on oppose-war news frames, N=528.
|
Blocks of independent variables
|
Std. beta
|
R-square change
|
Total R-square
|
Adjusted R-square
|
Tolerance
|
|
1. News item
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Unnamed
|
-.15***
|
|
|
|
.50
|
|
- Total sources
|
.10***
|
|
|
|
.44
|
|
- Item Length
|
.00*
|
.08***
|
.08
|
.08
|
.77
|
|
2. Coalition member
|
.03
|
.00
|
.08
|
.07
|
.95
|
_____________
*p< .05
**
p<
.01
***
p<
.001
Influence
on Tone of Message
Hypothesis
4 tests the influence of unnamed sources on the tone of the message. It
finds that unnamed sources predict how strongly a news item will present
the war as a positive idea and as unavoidable outcome. These relationships
are shown in Tables 9, 10, and 11.
Table
9. Pearson’s correlation coefficients for news item, source, frame
and tone variables.
|
Variables
|
Neutral
|
Tone
index
|
Avoidable
|
|
Unnamed
|
-.12**
(522)
|
-.11**
(522)
|
.17***
(523)
|
|
Organizational
sources
|
-.10*
(522)
|
-.08
(522)
|
.13**
(523)
|
|
Unaffiliated
sources
|
.03
(522)
|
.04
(522)
|
-.04
(523)
|
|
Total
sources
|
-.08
(522)
|
-.07
(522)
|
.12**
(523)
|
|
Item
Length
|
.20***
(518)
|
-.10*
(518)
|
.07
(519)
|
|
Pro-war
frames
|
.14**
(517)
|
-.35***
(517)
|
.25***
(518)
|
|
Oppose-war
frames
|
.31***
(522)
|
.34***
(518)
|
-.18***
(518)
|
|
Neutral
|
__
|
.08
(522)
|
-.11*
(522)
|
|
Tone
index
|
|
__
|
-.50***
(522)
|
|
Avoidable
|
|
|
__
|
___________
*p<.05
**p<.01
***p<.001
Table
10. Hierarchical regression analysis of news item, source and frame
variables on tone index, N=528.
|
Blocks of independent variables
|
Std. beta
|
R-square change
|
Total R-square
|
Adjusted R-square
|
Tolerance
|
|
1. News item
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Unnamed
|
-.06
|
|
|
|
.48
|
|
- Total sources
|
-.10
|
|
|
|
.41
|
|
- Item length
|
.00
|
.02*
|
.02
|
.01
|
.69
|
|
2. Coalition member
|
-.30
|
.00
|
.02
|
.01
|
.94
|
|
3. Frames
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Pro war
|
-1.47***
|
|
|
|
.88
|
|
- Oppose war
|
1.57***
|
.24***
|
.27
|
.26
|
.91
|
_________________
*p< .05
**
p<
.01
***
p<
.001
Table
11. Hierarchical regression analysis of news item, source and frame
variables on avoidable tone, N=528.
|
Blocks of independent variables
|
Std. beta
|
R-square change
|
Total R-square
|
Adjusted R-square
|
Tolerance
|
|
1. News item
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Unnamed
|
.08*
|
|
|
|
.49
|
|
- Total sources
|
.02
|
|
|
|
.42
|
|
- Item Length
|
.00
|
.03**
|
.03
|
.02
|
.69
|
|
2. Coalition member
|
-.08
|
.00
|
.03
|
.02
|
.95
|
|
3. Frames
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Pro war
|
.30***
|
|
|
|
.89
|
|
- Oppose war
|
-.23***
|
.10***
|
.13
|
.12
|
.92
|
_________________
*p< .05
**
p<
.01
***
p<
.001
H4a
is supported in bivariate analysis: Unnamed sources has a negative correlation
(r=-.12, p<.01) with how neutral a news item is. As the
use of unnamed sources increases, the news item becomes more neutral.
However, this relationship is not present in multivariate analysis.
H4b
is supported when the direct path between the source and tone is tested, but
not when the indirect path is tested. The use of unnamed sources has a
negative correlation with overall tone (r=-.11, p<.01); as
the use of unnamed sources increases the tone of the message becomes more
favorable toward the idea of going to war. In bivariate analysis, the tone
of the news item also has significant correlations (p<.001) with
both the pro-war and oppose-war frames. As the use of pro-war frames
increases (r=-.35), the tone of the news item becomes more favorable
toward the war. In contrast, as oppose-war frames increase (r=.34),
the tone of the message becomes less favorable. In multivariate analysis,
Table 10 shows that the use of unnamed sources is significant when the
direct path of a source’s influence on the tone of a message is tested.
However, when the use of pro-war and oppose-war frames are held constant,
it is the use of these frames that remain predictors of the tone of the
message in relationships that parallel those found in the bivariate
comparisons. In a regression that explains 27 percent of the variance, as
pro-war frames increase, the tone of the message becomes more favorable (b=-1.47,
p<.001). As oppose-war frames increase, the tone of the message
becomes less favorable (b=1.57, p<.001).
H4c
is supported. The use of unnamed sources is found to predict whether news
items presented the war as being an unavoidable outcome. Unnamed sources
has a statistically significant correlation of .17 with the variable
measuring the view of the war as being unavoidable. As the use of unnamed
sources increases, the news item presents the war as being more
unavoidable. In a regression equation that explains 13 percent of the variance,
Table 11 shows that this relationship remains (b=.08).significant at
the 95 percent confidence level. The use of pro-war and oppose-war frames
are also found to have an influence on the view of the war as being
unavoidable. As the use of pro-war frames increases (b=.29, p<.001),
the idea of going to war becomes more unavoidable. As the use of oppose-war
frames increases (b=-23, p<.001), the view of the war
becomes seen as more avoidable.
Discussion
Anonymous
and unnamed sources have helped journalists expose news events that could
not have been uncovered by any other means. They are news events in which
the journalist is serving as the public watchdog, and the source is taking
great risk to disclose some type of wrongdoing (Pincus, 2005; Bagdikian,
2005). If this description accurately reflects how and why these types of
sources are used then one could expect that when news items include the
voices of unnamed and anonymous sources they would also contain information
that would challenge the arguments being made by political leaders. What’s
more, it would suggest that anonymous and unnamed sources would be an exception
in news reporting. But this study found no support for such a model. To the
contrary, these findings are better explained by those who believe unnamed
sources are an effective tool for political actors rather than for
journalists.
To
summarize, this study of news coverage of the buildup of the Iraq War found
that news items that used more unidentified sources were stories that were
less likely to including perspectives that opposed the idea of an invasion.
Stories with more unidentified sources were stories in which the tone of
the message was one that made the idea of going to war seem unavoidable;
the view of an invasion was seen in a more positive light.
These
relationships did not vary from country to country, suggesting that
newsgathering routines regarding unidentified source use are uniform for
journalists in the countries used in this analysis. These relationships
were also not affected by whether the news item was published in a country
that ultimately decided not U.S.-led invasion.
The
results also suggest that use of these kinds of sources was fairly common
during this time period. Rather than appearing only frequently and as a
last resort, unidentified sources were a standard part of the newsgathering
process. During the seven months prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq,
one of every four sources in the 528 news items published in 22 different
newspapers from 11 countries was either unnamed or anonymous.
While
these findings are far from definitive, they challenge the whistle-blowing
role of the anonymous and unnamed source. The findings offer an opportunity
to place unnamed and anonymous source use into previous theoretical
discussions regarding political reporting and agenda setting (Entman, 1993;
1989). Journalists require sources they can trust to provide them
with information they deem credible and accurate (Tuchman, 1973).
Journalists covering politically volatile issues look to official sources
as they seek to interpret a news event (Schudson, 2003: Bennett, 1990).
Agenda-setting
theory shows how the journalist-source relationship is often dominated by
political actors who hold great power in deciding not only what issues are
discussed but also what ideas are used to interpret those issues (Shoemaker
& Reese, 1996; Entman, 1993). Political reporting is characterized as
being event-driven and lacking frames that add context to a news event
(Iyengar, 1991), which in this case meant the absence of discussions of
alternatives to going to war and doubts about the existence of weapons of mass
destruction.
What’s
most intriguing about how anonymous and unnamed sources were used in these
news items is the possibility that they might have allowed political actors
to have even more sway in the agenda-setting process. Anonymity may allow
political leaders to “leak” ideas that they may not want their names
attached to and that, as some have suggested, may give them even more power
to direct the discussion of a news event from behind the scenes (Bagdikian,
2005; Shepard, 1994).
It is
important to put the time period of this analysis into the context of the
overall coverage of the war in Iraq because journalists do not always stick
to the routines suggested by this agenda-setting process. As famous cases
in journalism history, such as the Pentagon Papers and Watergate show,
there are times when the public officials’ interpretation of news events
comes into question. This skepticism empowers journalists to deviate from
standard newsgathering routines. This is what Lawrence (2000) describes as
a triggering event: Moments in the life of a news event when the
explanations of political actors simply don’t add up. When this happens,
Lawrence writes, journalists begin to challenge official interpretations of
news events and look for outside sources to offer other explanations. For
example, the videotaped footage of Rodney King being beaten by police led
to riots in Los Angeles and prompted media to begin questioning police
officials who wanted to categorize such incidents as isolated events.
Journalists began making connections between these events nationwide and to
question policing techniques. This contextual view of news is what Iyengar
(1991) classifies as thematic framing of news rather than episodic framing,
which might be seen as more reactionary.
It
would make sense to see such triggering events as the time when journalists
would look to anonymous sources as they scrutinized ideas being put forth
by political leaders. Such sources would empower the journalist to
scrutinize ideas dominating political discourse and offer new perspectives
based on information gleaned from sources who had vital inside information.
It’s
likely that during the period of time that was the focus of this study, the
press was more accepting of the explanations being offered by political
officials. If there was a triggering event in the coverage of the Iraq War,
it came later, when the lack of discovery of weapons of mass destruction
prompted journalists to begin to question the ideas owned by political
leaders. Ironically, that scrutiny led, in part, to concerns that
journalists had been manipulated by anonymous sources.
The
strength of this study is that it looks at news coverage with great
variation in the country of publication, newspapers and time frame. In
doing so, it attempts to go beyond previous research of the use of
anonymous sources that has been concerned either with how often journalists
use unnamed sources or how readers perceive the credibility of these
sources. However, there are some obvious limitations as to what can be said
from these results. While the relationships outlined here allow us to
control for various alternative explanations, this analysis does not make
one important connection between the specific ideas in the news article and
the owner of those ideas. It would be useful to further explore the use of
anonymous sources by connecting each source to the specific ideas being
attributed to them in news articles. It would also be valuable to see if
the relationship between anonymous sources and issue ownership exists in
more routine political reporting. This project also underscores the need to
do more comparative work to parse out country-level differences in how
unnamed and anonymous sources are used.
The
temptation may be to use these findings to blame the media for the limited
discourse that occurred prior to the Iraq War. This would ascribe far more
power to media than many believe they have in such affairs – and, in fact,
when seen as a whole, news stories included almost equal pro- and anti-war
frames presented in a tone that was, on average, neutral in its coverage.
While it’s convenient to “blame” news media when they fail to critically
evaluate or challenge the dominant messages of political discourse,
Schudson suggests that: “To hold news organizations accountable for news is
something like holding parents accountable for the actions of their
children – it is convenient to locate responsibility somewhere, and it
reminds news organizations (or parents) that they have a serious job to do
for which they will be judged. Still, they sometimes have to work with
unyielding materials” (2003, p. 14). It might make more sense to consider
journalism within the context of a cultural setting, reflecting and
transmitting ideas and information but not capable of stepping outside of
its situation. As Bennett notes, the existing media routines are unlikely
to change without major shakeup and the resurgence of a courageous and
independent press (1990).
These
findings should help journalism practitioners see the powerful influence
unnamed sources have on the public discussion of an issue, though not,
perhaps, in the way they envision. Would questions regarding proof of
weapons of mass destruction or the alternatives to war have been discussed
in greater depth and in a tone that was more critical if journalists had
been less willing to let government sources hide behind anonymity when
making claims about the reasons to go to war? Perhaps greater scrutiny
regarding the use of these kinds of sources would have prevented incidents
such as the one involving USA Today’s foreign correspondent, Jack
Kelley, who admitted to fabricating many of the unnamed and anonymous
sources in his reporting (Martin-Kratzer & Thorson, 2007).
In
the aftermath of the Iraq War, journalists said they had learned their
lesson. Scholars began to monitor the use of anonymous sources and many
media companies re-examined when they would permit sources to speak on the
condition of anonymity. Media ethicists used the Iraq War to remind
journalists to ask why a source is requesting anonymity and consider the
impact of this choice (Rosentiel, 2005). But the debate continues. Clark
Hoyt, public editor for The New York Times, said his newspaper continues to
use anonymous sources even when the same information could have been
obtained in other ways, “It allows unnamed people to provide quotes of
marginal news value and to remain hidden with little real explanation of
their motives, their reliability, or the reasons why they must be
anonymous” (2010, p. WK10). Bagdikian (2005) believes that it’s naïve to
think anonymous sources can be abandoned entirely, but that news
organizations should become less reliant on them and do more in-depth
reporting on their own.
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About
the Author
John
Hatcher, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Previously, he studied mass communication and political communication at
Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and The
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He has written
about the sociology of news for academic and professional publications
including the Journal of Global Mass Communication, the Columbia
Journalism Review, and American Journalism. He has 15 years of
experience as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist. For a list of
recent and pending publications, visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/~jhatcher.
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