When the Post Banned Anonymous Sources

Ben H. Bagdikian in American Journalism Review recounts that Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee once decided the paper should no longer use unnamed sources.

The Post's competitors, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, published important news stories that the Post did not have. The paper's readers were deprived of significant information. For a fierce competitor like Bradlee, that was intolerable.

The experiment ended after two days.