San Fransisco Chronicle explains anonymous sources

Published on April 15, 2020April 15, 2020 by Mollie Muchna | Reading Time: < 1 minute

When quoting an anonymous source in an article about the spread of COVID-19 at a local nursing home, the San Fransisco Chroncile included a box that explained what an anonymous source is and the newsroom’s policies for using them. “The Chronicle strives to attribute all information we report to credible, reliable, identifiable sources. Presenting information from an anonymous source occurs extremely rarely, and only when that information is considered crucially important and all other on-the-record options have been exhausted,” the box read. “In such cases, The Chronicle has complete knowledge of the unnamed person’s identity and of how that person is in position to know the information.”

Mollie Muchna

mollie@trustingnews.org | + posts

Project manager Mollie Muchna (she/her) has spent the last 10 years working in audience and engagement journalism in local newsrooms across the Southwest. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she is also an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism. She can be reached at mollie@trustingnews.org and on Twitter @molliemuchna.