Unnamed Sources

But how do youactually know ifthat is true?“

I find myselfasking this question sometimesin the middle of a conversationamong friends, which appearsmisplaced when you arecatching up over coffee and arenot in a newsroom.

In my defence, it is a habitafter more than 10 years injournalism. “What is yoursource?” is my instinctivego-to reply in most scenarios.You develop a certain level ofinquisitiveness and scepticism,and your hunch is always toquestion, crosscheck and askfor proof – so much so that Ihave occasionally thought thisprofession would be a goodstarting point for becoming alawyer or an investigator.

In the age of digital media,however, the very core principleof asking who, why and howis becoming obsolete, andbefore you label this hyperbole,consider how anything ‘leaked’online is considered kosher bythe media in Pakistan.

Pakistan faced two types ofinundations in 2022. One literallyin the form of the unprecedentedfloods, the other metaphoricallythrough the unaccountable audioleaks. The latter popped up onsocial media from ‘nowhere’ andran as breaking news in theiroriginal form on mainstreammedia’s official social mediaaccounts, and played relentlesslyon TV channels. And whilequestions were raised as to wholeaked them, they did not factorinto how much airtime or spacethese juicy audio bits should get.

And therein lies a glaringproblem: when you don’tknow the source of theseaudios or their veracity, howcan they be considered ascarrying any weight? Thismay be a hard question toask in the age of WikiLeaksand the Panama Papers – butthere were mechanisms stillin place for those, as well asfollow-up investigations andcorroborations. One example isthe UK’s The Guardian, whichwas one of the first publicationsto write about WikiLeaks, or useany of the documents, carrying abreakdown of how they handledthe data, shortcomings and all.

How many of these audioleaks have been taken to anykind of conclusion in Pakistanby a media house or officiallyby the state? For the former,the argument is that we lackresources, but if media housesare willing to put money intoYouTube teams, they shouldfirst use the funds to set upproper fact-checking desks. As for the latter, unfortunately,the state itself has playeda big part in encouraging‘anonymous’ sources. A typicalanswer one expects fromreporters is “aap ko pata haiwoh record pey jawab nahedain gaye” (you know theywon’t answer on record). AndI use the word encouragingbecause more often than not,the key players themselves will‘leak’ a document or snippetof information to one or selectindividuals of their choice.

It often happens that a reporterwill share a page from an officialdocument and when pressed onhow he got the document, he’llname an office holder. Whenpushed to get a quote verifyingthe document from the sameperson, the story falls apart.“Aap kay paas document hai,quote kee kya zaroorat hai?”(You have the document so whydo you need a quote?). To this,my reply is: “Official documenthai, leak *honay kee kya zaroorathai?”* (if it is an official document,why does it need to be leaked?)

To be fair, reporters face doublethe pressure; from the personsharing the information as wellas the digital news desk, with acommon goal to have the storyup as fast as possible. With that inmind, let me say as a disclaimerthat this article is not an idealistpitch to follow the theories ofjournalism to a tee and by nomeans does it assume we operatein a country where everythingofficial would automatically be onrecord. But to what extent shouldthe liberty to use an anonymoussource be exercised?

For readers who are not partof the media fraternity, theseare some of the basic questionsthat need to be asked. How didthe source come to know ofthe information; is the sourcereliable; have we verified ortried to verify the informationwith another individual; is theinformation available only onsources; and – most crucial – isthe information vital to carry?

In the subcontinent as wellas many other parts of theworld, anonymous sources cansometimes be the only wayto carry a big and meaningfulstory, which is why choosingwhen to run a story on unnamedindividuals or documents/audio/visuals, otherwise unavailable tothe public, is key.

The ethics of the professionand responsibility to theaudience aside, unnamedsources threaten the media’scredibility in the eyes of analready wary public; case inpoint, The Wire debacle in India.

Let me attempt to summarisethe unusually complex chainof events. The Wire – in thenow-retracted articles – hadclaimed, citing unnamedsources, that Amit Malviya, thehead of the Bharatiya JanataParty’s Information Technologycell, used his influence to havesome Instagram posts removed.Meta, the parent company,denied the report, accusingthe outlet of spreading falseinformation through “fabricatedevidence.” The Wire then doubleddown to back its source andMeta said it was manufacturingevidence. After a chain of fakescreenshots, fabricated URLs,fake emails and the editor saying“our stories came from multipleMeta sources – whom we know,have met and verified.” TheWire suspended its storiesand said it would conduct anexternal review.

Much has been written abouthow the matter was handledirresponsibly by the publicationand its implications – the mostnoteworthy concern beingwhat this means for mediathat dares challenge thestate. Pressure in the form ofunconcealed as well as subtleintimidation is already high inIndia and such mistakes onlygive more ammunition to thenaysayers and raise doubtamong those who are scepticalof the media as a whole.

Editors in Pakistan can wellrelate to these kinds of pressures,making it just as imperative forthem to do their homework.The time-sensitive and highlycompetitive digital nature of thejob, however, makes it harderto do so. As one senior editorpointed out, “how do you operatewhen the guidelines have beenredefined by a majority of themedia houses, and you haveto exist among them?” Thetopic at hand was not related tostate security or religion but themarriage of power couple SaniaMirza and Shoaib Malik.

Pakistani, Indian and evenEmirati publications were inoverdrive mode trying to runsomething on the allegedseparation of the two individuals.The problem? Nothing was onrecord, neither confirmation nordenial. The irony? All the newsreports seemed to be curatingfrom each other, recyclingthe same rumours, with noone having a clue as to whothe original unnamed sourcewas – or more importantly,how reliable it was. Grantedthe public’s interest in thesetwo individuals makes thereports hard to ignore, but howfar should newsrooms go inperpetuating unfounded reports?When the leading news channelin Pakistan reiterates over andover again, as the first item intheir news bulletin, that “Sania,let alone reply to her husband’stweet, did not even ‘like’ it,” youknow they are grasping at strawsbut raking in numbers.

Coming back to hard news,the tight grip of the state on whatcan and cannot be reported andwhen, has led many journaliststo turn to social media,particularly YouTube. And a keychallenge for media houses ishow to compete with the analysisand juicy information that isbeing run on such platformswhere accountability is almostnil. I don’t have a solution, butyet another idealistic approach.Trust that your readers will cometo you for the most reliable pieceof information, never mind whatthey hear or read on socialmedia. However, given therapid speed at which the medialandscape is evolving, everynewsroom and editor, myselfincluded, will have to tacklethe issue with something moreconcrete. As we do, the onething to keep in mind is that if theinformation proves inaccurateor dubious, it is the reporter, theeditor and the news organisationthat will have to answer for it, notthe source. So as we grapplewith this conundrum, let us hopethat we are guided more by theweight of that responsibility thanthe “zaraye” (sources) who wieldmuch more influence today thanthey ever should have.

Zahrah Mazhar is Managing Editor,Dawn.com
Instagram: @zeeinstamazhar