Source-less Mint

BY Avanish Tiwary| IN Opinion | 02/02/2011

Letter to the Hoot: How credible can a story be which is full of anonymous sources,

asks AVANISH TIWARY

I have a point to make about the way Mint covers its stories.

We all know how important a source can be for a news story. Without a credible source, a story is lifeless. Mint, is doing this on a regular basis. They are running stories that do not have the name of the sources. Instead of the name they write something like this: "he said on condition of anonymity" or, "a person said who is an expert on this topic". Now, how can a reader believe blindly on such sources just because a newspaper says that he is an expert?

On two days recently (29th and 31st Jan, 2011) they ran stories that does not have a single named source. The lead itself has an anonymous speaker and the whole story is based on his quote. How credible can a story be which is full of anonymous sources and what will be the image of a newspaper that runs a series of these kind of stories?

Links to few of the stories that do not have a named source:

Five unnamed sources

http://epaper.livemint.com/ArticleImage.aspx?article=31_01_2011_001_011&mode=1

Two sources speaking "on conditions of anonymity"

http://epaper.livemint.com/ArticleImage.aspx?article=31_01_2011_001_010&mode=1

main point of story from an unnamed source

http://epaper.livemint.com/ArticleImage.aspx?article=29_01_2011_001_008&kword=&mode=1

Avanish Tiwary
Trainee Journalist
Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media,
Bangalore

January 31, 2011

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