The Ground Rules

Reporters and sources agree on rules before they talk. Rule one: you may print it with my name. Rule two: you may use it, but not my name. Rule three: you may not print it at all — it only helps you know where to look.

The agreement comes first, like calling the rules of a game before the first turn. And a promise made is kept — people can lose their jobs over what they tell a reporter.

The standard terms. On the record: everything is publishable, attributed by name — the default, and the only term that needs no negotiating. On background: publishable, but attributed only as agreed — "a city official with knowledge of the contract" — and the phrasing itself is part of the deal. Off the record: not publishable at all; it can only guide you to records and people who can put the same facts on the record. Terms are set before the information changes hands. Retroactive requests are yours to grant or refuse.

One rule sits underneath all three: the definitions vary between newsrooms and sources, so state them aloud before you begin. "If we go on background, here is exactly what I will and will not do." Thirty seconds of stating terms prevents the worst hour of your career.

Each term trades something. On the record maximizes accountability — the reader can weigh the speaker's stake. Background buys candor at the price of accountability, which is why editors police it: an unnamed official can float a claim at no cost for being wrong. So newsrooms require that an editor know the identity, that the anonymity have a reason worth printing, and that the description of the source be as specific as safety allows.

Off the record is the most misunderstood: it yields nothing publishable, and accepting it costs you — you cannot un-hear the information, and using it as a shortcut elsewhere can betray the spirit of the deal. Accept it when guidance is genuinely worth more than quotation. Decline it when you already have the fact from elsewhere — and say so before they speak.

Before a friend tells you a secret, you both agree: may I repeat this? Agree first. Then keep your word, even when it is hard.

Some telling is for everyone to hear. Some is only to help you understand. Deciding which, before the telling, is what keeps trust.

Confidentiality, once promised, binds at law as well as honor. In Cohen v. Cowles Media (1991) the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment gives no immunity when a newsroom breaks a promise to a source — promissory estoppel applies to reporters like anyone else. The other edge cuts harder: Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) found no general reporter's privilege to refuse a grand jury, so a reporter who promises silence may face contempt. Some — Judith Miller, 85 days in 2005 — have gone to jail keeping the promise.

Shield laws complicate the map: most states offer some statutory protection, varying widely in scope, and there is no federal shield statute. The promise is therefore made under legal uncertainty — which is precisely why the ethic is strict. The source prices their risk on your word, not on the statute book.

Model the beat as a repeated game. A source discloses at personal risk; the reporter's ability to elicit future disclosure depends on a reputation for honoring terms. One defection collapses the equilibrium — not only with this source but across the network of potential sources watching how this one fares. The confidentiality promise is a credible-commitment device, and its extreme cost in the breach (jail rather than betrayal) is what makes it credible at all.

Operationally, protection has outgrown the promise: subpoenas reach phone metadata, badge records, and cloud accounts, so modern source protection is technical — first contact over untraceable channels, minimal records of the relationship, and the working assumption that investigators may not need the reporter to find the discloser. Regimes like deep background and the Chatham House Rule are institutional cousins: attribution rules as infrastructure for candor.