Literally one of the most exciting moments I had in 2016 was the realization, well into the year, that Charlie Brooker — creator of Black Mirror, Nathan Barley and TV Go Home — was going to have to make sense of the entire annus horribilis in his annual Screenwipe special (previously).
In this segment from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, Heather Brooke highlights the problems of anonymous sources in the UK media, where police spokespersons frequently mislead the public about suspects and investigations. [Video Link]
You may know Charlie Brooker only through his amazing Black Mirror programs, but savvy Brookerfen are avid viewers of his Screenwipe/Newswipe shows — acerbic, potty-mouthed media criticism shows that feature talents of Barry Shitpeas and Philomena Cunk, a thick-skulled, oblivious, amazing deadpan comedic persona of Diane Morgan.
As long as secrecy and anonymity reign, public sector bureaucracies will be the hiding places for the incompetent, lazy and corrupt. Failures will be rewarded and successes stifled. It’s easier to lie when no one knows your name. It’s easier to do all sorts of unethical, if not criminal, things when you are promised anonymity.
When we think of journalists' anonymous sources, we think of the proverbial whistleblower. Company insiders, or civil servants, ready to violate their nondisclosure agreements to expose some wrongdoing, or perhaps to settle some score. On the other, sleazier, end of the scale, we might think of tipsters: a cash-strapped waiter at a restaurant who sells the story of a celebrity food-fight to a tabloid, a blabby nurse at a plastic surgery clinic who spills the beans on some captain of industry's chin-augmentation.
But the most commonly cited anonymous sources in the news today are the official, on-the-record spokespeople for corporations. And the anonymous speech that is protected by the journalists who quote them is the most bland, anodyne stuff you can imagine.
