Anonymity, Access and Accountability: The Crisis of Source Attribution in Pakistani Media

In Pakistan media sources are always anonymous and unidentifiable. However, anonymity is not the real problem. A source can remain anonymous and still give some valuable information about the functioning of the state machinery or any dark side of society. The problem is whether anonymity is being used to protect the identity of truth-tellers or protect some powerful institution from accountability.

Compare the following three ways of identifying a source in a news story: “A source says”, “A government source posted at Prime Minister secretariat say”, “A clerk at Prime Minister Secretariat who read the file said”. In all three the source remains anonymous; all three formulations preserve the deniability of the institution concerned and yet give three different levels of information about the identity of the source. Anonymity remains constant yet all three formulations provide the readers with different abilities to evaluate the claims of the source.

In Pakistani media stories sources are mostly vaguely described. This is not a universal practice around the world. For instance, in most of the western media, sources are mostly precisely described. For instance, Pakistani media often quotes sources to inform the public about military developments in erstwhile tribal areas. The stories never say a military official who was part of the operation or who was part of the military planning says so. The story only says a source told us. On the other hand, western media like Reuters or BBC often precisely describe the sources. “A military official involved in the operation said” or “a British cabinet source said” or any similar description of the source which gives enough information about the identity and context of the source for the reader to evaluate the information provided to him or her.

The problem is that in both cases anonymity creates channels through which information could enter public discourse without anyone fully owning the information. Modern technology has tremendously increased the impact and reach of information being relayed in the age of electronic and digital media.

The powerful institutions in society can no longer afford to remain a passive recipient of whatever the media is reporting about them. So, they have hired professional media managers to shape the media discourse. Powerful institutions employ media managers, spokespersons, communication strategists, social media teams, and narrative managers. The government ministries, military, intelligence agencies, political parties, judiciary or corporations no longer wait for journalists to discover stories. They try to shape what the media and reporters see.

In this highly competitive media environment, we can divide anonymity into two types. First type could be labelled anonymity for accountability, and second type could be labeled as accountability for deniability. First type of anonymity journalists and professional media houses often use in their investigative reports to protect whistleblowers and socially and politically weak sources from retaliation from the powerful. This type of anonymity is often used to protect the sources of leaked documents and corruption investigations.

The second type of anonymity is used by the media to protect the powerful from responsibility. This type of anonymity is used for reporting security briefings, helps float political trial balloons and can also be used to leak information about strategic affairs that the powers that be don’t or can’t own publicly. So, the same tool of anonymity could be used by journalists to either protect the powerful or to challenge the power structures.

A journalist’s primary responsibility, or perhaps primary loyalty. But in the kind of access journalism that is being practiced in Pakistani society, survival often depends on relationships with the powerful sources. In other words, loyalty to powerful quarters is most often given priority over loyalty to readers. Access to power corridors is considered a career capital. Whether the first or second type of anonymity predominates depends on whether reporters are serving public interests or preserving access to powerful quarters.

It is a system that incentivizes the practicing of a second type of anonymity in media reports. A reporter cannot survive in this competitive media environment if he doesn’t enjoy the protection of powerful quarters. On the other hand, if a citizen or the reader cannot evaluate a source, rumors gain credibility, propaganda becomes harder to detect and accountability weakens.

In such an environment public trust in the media institutions declines substantially. In a democracy, a citizen not only needs to know what is being said but also who was saying it.

Pakistani media while reporting on political, military and strategic affairs issues often use anonymous sources. In this way the reader only knows what is being said. They often do not know who is speaking, why they know what they are saying or claiming, whether information relayed to them has been independently verified and whether the source is informing the public or is managing a particular narrative. When anonymous sources are routinely cited in media reports, journalism becomes a transmission belt for deniable information. Rumors become routine.

Democracies are unimaginable without anonymous sources as investigative reporting will be impossible without them. In Pakistani media anonymity has become the default language of power, rather than a shield for those who dare to speak the truth to power. The problem is not that the source is anonymous, rather the question is why is the source anonymous? Why is he in possession of the information he or she claims to be true in the media report? And most importantly who benefits from anonymity? And does anonymity serve deniability or accountability?

Pakistan media needs to reevaluate the method, content, language and the way they present news to their readers. I know all these elements in the news structures are greatly shaped by the process of the media’s encounters with the power centers in our society. The inability of Pakistan media to reform from within stems directly from its reliance on an outdated business model that depends on vested interests as a source of revenue. Pakistan journalists will have to reinvent the model if they want to survive. Today’s world has multiple sources of information. Reporters or media have ceased to be the sole transmitter of information to the public. We can preserve our status as a source of credible information.