Use of Anonymous Sources Declines in U.S. Newspapers

Martin-Kratzer, Renee; Thorson, Esther

doi:10.1177/073953290702800204

Cited by 18 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…13 More recent research confirmed declining use of unnamed sources in 16 different newspapers and four major network news shows. 14 Studies show that use of unnamed sources also varies by medium, topic and story magnitude. They appeared in 75 percent and 70 percent of all articles in Time and Newsweek, respectively.…”

Section: The Role Of Unnamed Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Newspapers use unnamed sources less often in high-stakes coverage

Sobel

Riffe

2016

Newspaper Research Journal

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This analysis of unnamed sources in newspaper coverage of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, finds unnamed sources to be most common just after the attack and in its immediate aftermath. While unnamed sources were prevalent, they were less common than in studies of routine news coverage, suggesting journalists seeking transparency in reporting are less willing to grant source anonymity with high-stakes stories.

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Section: The Role Of Unnamed Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Newspapers use unnamed sources less often in high-stakes coverage

Sobel

Riffe

2016

Newspaper Research Journal

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“…Unnamed sourcing has been a common practice in war coverage (Denham, 1997), network news (Wulfemeyer & McFadden, 1986) and magazines providing news (Wulfemeyer, 1985). According to Martin-Kratzer and Th orson (2007), overall there was a decline in the use of unnamed sources by journalists in wire and staffproduced stories and among all circulation categories in the U.S. in 2004 compared with 2003. Although a few studies show that use of unnamed sources increased in the early 1980s (e.g.…”

Section: Unnamed Sourcing For Newsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pakistan media: Unnamed sources reveal political crises and law and order problems

Mazumdar¹

2016

cejc

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Journalists use sources to accord credibility to their news stories. However, they use unnamed sources when they feel the sources would be harmed for revealing information to the media. This qualitative study analyzes news from unnamed sources in political stories in Pakistani media. It uses grounded theory to find common themes in the news obtained from unnamed sources. The common themes found in the study were about political crises, and breakdown of law and order in Pakistan. The author discusses the ways in which unnamed sources were used in the stories. Many unnamed sources gave views that were different from those given by named sources in the same story, while a few stories did not give any indication of the rank of the unnamed sources in the hierarchy of the political party or the army.

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“…18 A consistent theme of this research is that journalists have a clear preference for citing sources that occupy positions of power within formal institutions or that represent influential segments of society. 18 Specifically, these studies have shown that while journalists occasionally reference a diverse array of actors in their reporting, including interest groups, 19 anonymous individuals 21 and policy experts, 22 a small group of government sources dominate most political reporting. 23 For many observers, this "limited diversity" 24 in sources is problematic given that it expands elite control over the media's agenda and limits the number of perspectives heard by the public.…”

Section: Source Diversity Is a Dispersion Of The Representation Of Afmentioning

confidence: 99%