As they covered the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s,
Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
frequently based stories on information from sources they did
not name. Sources in their stories were often identified as
"aides," "officials," "staffers," or simply "sources."1 In some
cases, the reporters protected sources' identities by
introducing information with phrases such as, "It was learned"
or "The Post has been told."2 Notwithstanding the criticism of
government officials who called their work "shabby journalism,"3
Woodward and Bernstein helped create a niche in the newspaper
industry for a new breed of maverick journalist: the
"investigative reporter." Because of their work, their paper
received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for meritorious public service.
Less than a decade later, another Post reporter, Janet Cooke,
drew national attention to the drug problem in inner-city slums
with her profile on an eight-year-old addict. The parts of her
story, "Jimmy's World," that readers found most