Anonymice

Good rant on Slate by Jack Shafer about a pet peeve of mine, the amazingly excessive and corrosive use of anonymous sources in D.C. reporting these days. Shafer’s point is that anonymous sources have their place – protecting the nameless whistleblower inside government or whatever from harm. But mostly these days it’s handed out willy nilly to shield people from accountability for their words. That’s different, and it’s bad.