Anonymous sources, the refugee crisis and the ‘City of Ghost’

Our personal weekly selection about journalism and innovation. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

edited by Marco Nurra

• Matt Heineman documents the courage of Syria’s citizen journalists. His upcoming documentary, City of Ghosts, tells the story of the citizen journalists behind Syrian news website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), who risk their lives to document the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS in their hometown.

• New study investigates the emotional impact on journalists reporting the refugee crisis. It’s the first study of its kind into the response of news media professionals covering a humanitarian crisis, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The report reveals how journalists can be affected by moral injury, and warns that this issue has the potential to have a significant impact on their emotional health if nothing is done to prevent or treat it.
• The increasing use of anonymous sources and leaks has intensified the debate over how to vet information and sources. Should journalists seek a source’s identity and motivations? Share these with readers or viewers? Publish or broadcast information that hasn’t been confirmed? Questions like these arise when WikiLeaks releases more information about a presidential candidate than journalists can effectively fact-check or when BuzzFeed posts a sketchy Russian dossier in spite of skepticism that any of the scandalous information in it is true.
• Anonymous sources are sometimes the only key to unlocking a big story. The Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics lays out circumstances for offering anonymity.
• What do we mean by “evidence-based journalism”? WikiTribune offers some recommendations. “How do you know whether the quote was fairly reported, or taken out of context? By checking the source. Wherever we can, we’ll publish the entire conversation — audio and transcript — so you can check exactly what was asked, what was said, and even in what tone. This helps enormously with understanding what a source — who may not be media-trained — was trying to communicate.”
• What can fact-checkers learn from Wikipedia? Poynter published a Q&A with Katherine Maher, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.
• Did CNN blackmail a pro-Trump Reddit troll? Andrew Kaczynski reported a blow-by-blow account of his successful quest for the Reddit user behind a GIF of President Trump wrestling CNN to the ground. Kaczynski, who ultimately opted not to unmask “HanAssholeSolo” in his story, drew pushback from critics who said CNN’s justification for keeping the Reddit user anonymous amounted to a kind of coercion.
• Trump’s anti-CNN tweet is newsworthy, but coverage “wildly disproportionate” says Kyle Pope. “Our response to each of Trump’s media-bashing episodes comes off as if we’re hearing them for the first time. Can you believe he said that? Could this be the thing that finally does him in? Does he have no respect for the First Amendment? The answer, of course, is that he doesn’t respect the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech. The media’s impulse, which is understandable, is to keep the focus on his threats to the press, and not to let them become normalized. But we have reached the point at which the media response has become counterproductive and even beneficial to the president.”
• The evolution of The Economist’s social media team. “Tactics that worked yesterday may no longer be as effective today,” writes Denise Law. “For example, we have realised that focusing solely on social media distribution — and expanding our reach — is not the most optimal use of our time. We need to strike a healthy balance between striving to reach more readers across platforms over which we have zero control, with bringing them back onto the platforms over which we do have control, such as our apps and website.”

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