I heard the announcement and froze, wondering what to do. I knew my source didn’t want the people he was with to know he was talking, privately, to a reporter. But what I’d just heard would prevent him from meeting me at the appointed time. I didn’t have his cell number with me, and he didn’t know mine.
Feeling absurd, I scribbled a tiny note and folded it into my palm. Then I said goodbye to the entire group, taking care to shake his hand first—and pass the note. The corners of his lips twitched, just barely, with amusement, and I saw his hand slip to his pocket.
The subject of the story didn’t warrant such melodrama; it would be anticlimactic if I mentioned it. But, fun as it was to play Mata Hari, the transaction was, at base, a serious one. He had to be able to trust me to keep our conversation private.
And I’ve learned to play it safe.
When you’re young, there’s a rush to having an anonymous source; you feel like you ought to be meeting in a parking garage, or one of you should be smoking. Then you start to realize that “protecting your sources” requires a tax accountant’s diligence. And if they’re not as savvy as this guy was, you even have to protect them from themselves.
I once interviewed a woman who was being treated at a meth clinic. She was fed up with the way the clinic was run, and after a carefully anonymous meeting at a Bread Co., she finally poured out every detail.
Too many details.
Because in the process of describing how she was treated when she was “dropped,” she gave a tiny medical detail that wasn’t part of the standard urine testing procedure. And I was too stupid to know it.
The story came out, and the clinic director knew at once who she was. My source called me in hysterics, and I’ve never forgotten the sick moment when I realized what I’d done.
The purpose of journalism is to tell readers what they don’t already know.
The danger of journalism is that reporters never know how much they don’t know.
