BROOKE GLADSTONE: The New York Times has issued new rules on when and how to use anonymous sources. This follows similar actions from the Boston Globe and Washington Post, among others. The rules stipulate that an anonymous source should be used only in situations where the story could not otherwise be reported, and that the reporter should reveal what might motivate that source to speak. New York Times assistant managing editor and standards editor, Allan M. Siegal, helped write those rules, and he joins me now. Welcome to the show.

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So what's new here?

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: The main new thing is that we now require, and we say out loud that we require, some editor in this organization to know the identity of every anonymous source we quote in the paper. We used to be able, on a very sensitive story, to send a reporter out, and the reporter could say to the source "you're only talking to me -no one else will ever know who you are." That's not true any more.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So generally speaking, what do you think are the main problems with over-reliance on unidentified sources?

ALLAN M. SIEGAL:People take advantage of news organizations, ours included, to float information without taking responsibility for it, and some of them think that then leaves them free to change their story later on, since no one can hold them to what they said. And when you fill a story with 'sources said' or 'authoritative sources' or 'government sources,' a careful reader is not going to be as convinced of the truthfulness and reliability of that information as if you were able to say very specifically if not whom you're quoting, then what kind of person, what kind of position were they in, how did they know all this.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I'd like to go over an example with you. On Monday, the same day that the new policy went into effect, the Times ran a front page story about the fall of Haitian President Jean Bertrand-Aristide. It was written by Christopher Marquis, a Washington correspondent, and was pretty much based exclusively on information provided by, quote, "a senior State Department official." So, basically it described Aristide's final hours in Haiti, and his decision to resign and his middle of the night trip to the airport with only his small inner circle. Now since that article was written, we have heard from several people, including the South African ambassador to the UN and of course Aristide himself disputing aspects of the Times' story. In retrospect, do you think that this article's use of sources was consistent with the Times' policy?

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: It was consistent with our policy, because it was necessary. At that time, there was only one account available to us. That account came from the government. And people in the business of diplomacy and international affairs and national security simply do not, as a matter of policy, speak for attribution. If you want to know what the State Department thinks or what the State Department says, you have to be prepared to withhold the names of the people you speak to.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:So would you say then that there are in effect two sourcing policies, one that simply has to apply to certain agencies of the federal government and one that applies to everyone else?

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: I wouldn't say that there are two. I would say that there's a kind of sliding scale. The more important the information is, the more tolerant we have to be about the inability to put names on it, and then there are things all the way down the line to public relations people for companies who are just trying to cover their backs sometimes when they won't let you use their names, and there we quite simply should refuse to take information.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:According to the New York Times policy, and I'm quoting here, "When we use such sources (anonymous sources) we accept an obligation not only to convince the reader of their reliability but also to convey what we can learn of their motivation. Do you think this was done in the Marquis story?

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: I don't think there was any particular motivation. I think that they were describing to us what they thought they knew the facts were on the ground at that time. If we find out that this story was wrong, we are likely to be very up front about it and to apply some heat, both personally and in print to the people who fed us this version on Sunday for Monday's paper. But I don't think it's necessary to assume that they're wrong because the government has on occasion been wrong.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So you don't think that the story on Aristide's departure required that level of skepticism.

ALLAN M. SIEGAL:There was no reason at that time to be skeptical about it. I don't think there were sources available to give us any other version.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Right. But I wonder, is it up to reporters to convince readers of the reliability of government officials and to make explicit any and all interest the government might have in a given story, or should a reader bring that skepticism to anything they read in a newspaper?

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: I think we owe the reader the background. This particular story is full of background, and I'm noticing that the headline says: "Aristide Flees After a Shove from the U.S." So we didn't make it look as if he packed his bag at leisure and decided I think I'll spend a few days in the Central African Republic.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:The reason why I'm hammering away at this is that obviously this is a time when the government is coming under increasing scrutiny for its credibility. We have all the reasons for the run up to war that have been subsequently examined, and some newspapers applied what I guess they considered to be the appropriate degree of trust when receiving information that may have been a little bit cooked, and I wonder whether a heightened skepticism isn't appropriate in circumstances like this.

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: Skepticism is always appropriate. Cynicism, in the absence of any basis for it, is not appropriate. I don't think that government spinning is a new phenomenon, and the reason for a policy of identifying your sources as fully as you can and describing them as completely as you can is to make clear to the reader that you don't know what the facts are - you just know what you've been told.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: All right. Al Siegel, thank you very much.

ALLAN M. SIEGAL: Thank you very much.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Al Siegel is assistant managing editor and standards editor at the New York Times.