Sound reason for going off record

Michael Vatikiotis, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

The outcry over the use of anonymous sources in the American media, following an item published by Newsweek on the alleged abuse of the Koran by U.S. interrogators, is a threat to media freedom.

It is a particular concern here in Asia, where the poor transparency of many governments and the corporate world has long forced journalists to rely on trusted sources to say anonymously what they cannot say in public.

Let us get one thing straight. As a rule, any good journalist would prefer to identify his source of information. An attributed source lends strength to an article.

But, if carefully handled, an anonymous one does not undermine the journalist's credibility. In some cases, it is the only way to bring vital items of news to light.

Flashback to Indonesia in the dark days of former president Soeharto: When I was a reporter there for the Far Eastern Economic Review in the late 1980s, there were no officials in government willing to be quoted on anything the least bit controversial.

In fact, the only condition for meeting a reporter was that anonymity would be assured. These people feared for their livelihoods. What was a reporter to do? Not talk to the government at all? It was the same in the opposition camp; attributable comments could send people to jail.

Even a piece of good news, a trumpeted success, was regarded as dangerous. "Don't mention me in case the boss decides I'm trying to outshine him", was a common refrain. Back then in Indonesia, the mere mention of a politician's prospects, even without a quote, was enough to damage his future.

One of my very best sources at the time was none other than the late Gen. Benny Moerdani, who was minister of defense and one of the most powerful people in the country. He would arrive for a late-night dinner and remove the tiny Garuda lapel pin that was his insignia of office and say: "Now I can talk freely." All the same, it had to be off the record, which meant he was an anonymous source.

It was much the same in the corporate world, where the paternalistic structure of companies mirrored the autocratic one of government, and minions could never talk openly about what was going on.

Things started to change in the mid-1990s. Throughout Asia's business world, stock markets made it imperative for companies to open up to the media. Company chairmen could no longer afford to hide behind the traditional secrecy of their family holdings.

Politicians were under pressure to make governments more open and transparent as well. Press conferences became more frequent and the spin doctors more numerous. But the inside story was still the preserve of inside sources.

Then in 1997, the International Monetary Fund marched into the region to clean up the fallout from the Asian financial crisis. It demanded that governments become more open about the state of their finances. Yet it refused to talk to journalists unless it was under strict conditions of anonymity.

And when was a U.S. embassy official in Asia ever willing to be quoted for a sensitive story?

More recently, since Sept. 11 and the global war on terrorism, U.S. officials have become more worried and privately say that to talk openly could cost them their jobs.

So, clearly there are reasons why people will not say things for attribution. So why are columnists and writers in America, mostly on the right wing of politics, ranting about how the use of anonymous sources is the single-biggest reason for the loss of credibility in the American media?

Naturally, there are those in the U.S. who relish the opportunity of scaring off the media. That is intimidation.

The writer is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.