A story about bathroom beautification at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Wednesday’s New York Times carries the following attribution:
A second person who checked out the women’s restroom — and who asked not to be identified because she has always wanted to be an anonymous source — reported her findings by email: “Black shiny granite-y sink. Arched faucets by Sloan. Tasteful slate gray and powder gray tiles.”
The reactions on Twitter to the anonymity were varied. Most thought it was funny, but at least one reader thought the reason stated wasn’t sufficient:
Best grant of anonymity by a journalist since Watergate? This, from today's Times, gets my vote. pic.twitter.com/5tqS0h0sf6
— robert p. baird (@bobbybaird) February 25, 2015
@bobbybaird That's amazing. I've never seen that before in any publication – doesn't seem like an adequate reason.
— marcus baram (@mbaram) February 25, 2015
@bobbybaird I bet she tells everyone she knows that she was the anonymous source.
— Misty F (@Saintless) February 25, 2015
@bobbybaird I love it when the Times is cheeky. And I bet that anonymous source is awesome.
— Nick Guest (@ogeemd) February 25, 2015
@bobbybaird @neurovagrant Amazing. I know my demands next time I'm interviewed for anything ever.
— ThatToyChick (@thattoychick) February 25, 2015
@bobbybaird @4b5 Thank you. This was the first time I've really laughed out loud at a tweet.
— BackinTokyo (@BackinTokyo) February 25, 2015
Last year, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan introduced ‘AnonyWatch,’ a running feature that collects anonymous attributions in The Times. Earlier this year, she confirmed her commitment to monitoring the use of blind sources in the paper, pledging to “stay on the case.”
Meanwhile, a Twitter bot called NYT Anonymous regularly surfaces uses of anonymous sources in the paper, with a link and screenshot added.
Over on his blog, NPR Standards & Practices Editor Mark Memmott quoted an NPR editor who (anonymously) said he is fine with the unidentified source, given the tenor of the article:
Speaking anonymously because he doesn’t want to be drummed out of the Noodge Union, an NPR editor said it felt fine, given the spirit of the story. “Always wanted to be an anonymous source” seems like a parody of the many questionable reasons the Times and other news outlets have granted anonymity in serious stories. There’s a case to be made it worked in this rather cheeky report.
Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of The New York Times, wrote that she’s “inclined to laugh” about the source, which was probably meant as a sendup of the “whole matter of how freely anonymity is granted.” She also asked New York Times standards editor Philip Corbett to comment on the story:
On the Port Authority piece, he wrote to me in an email: “That line was just intended as a bit of self-aware humor. The people I talked to thought it was funny. It certainly doesn’t suggest that we don’t take sourcing issues seriously. But after all, this was a bathroom story.”
