Why DO Sources Leak?

With Bob Woodward revealing the Washington Post delayed its publication of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategy for Afghanistan, and that it withheld some operational details under pressure from the Pentagon, speculation is swirling about the motivations behind the leak.   Some bloggers accuse military commanders of trying to blackmail President Obama into sending more troops to Afghanistan; some have even suggested Gen. McChrysral might retire if he doesn’t get the resources he wants.   All this has me reflecting on why sources leak.

Early in his tenure as U.S. Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld railed publicly against a tried and true Pentagon tradition: the unofficial leak to the news media.

“Outrageously irresponsible… egregious, terrible,” Rumsfeld fumed at the podium during a July 22, 2002 Pentagon briefing, outraged that anyone who worked for him would in his words, treat “…a war plan like it’s a paper airplane.”

The cause of Rumsfeld’s ire was a splashy front-page New York Times story that detailed early planning for the invasion of Iraq, which was still eight months away.
Upon careful reading, the article contained only the most innocuous details of the contingency planning, including the obvious assertion that any invasion would involve “air, land and sea-based forces.”

Among the revelations: the U.S. would “attack Iraq from three directions — the north, south and west.”

“The document envisions tens of thousands of Marines and soldiers probably invading from Kuwait,” the Times story intoned, along with “hundreds of warplanes.”

Duh.

At the time, in the summer of 2002, it was no secret the Pentagon’s contingency planning was in high gear for possible war with Iraq, even as President Bush publicly argued he was seeking a solution short of an invasion.

The most interesting part of the story was the stated motivation for the leak. The Times reported its source had expressed “frustration” that the war planning was “insufficiently creative.”

Rumsfeld angrily rejected the notion that patriotism could have been behind the disclosure. He ordered a full investigation, insisting a leak could “kill Americans” and jeopardize a military mission.

“There is nothing you could say that would lead me to believe that the individual was well-motivated and trying to serve his country by violating federal criminal law — NOTHING you could say,” Rumsfeld fumed.

The leaker was never found.

WHAT MOTIVATION?

The motives behind unauthorized leaks of information are as varied as the leaks and the leakers themselves.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell – a former ABC correspondent with years of news reporting experience — was shocked to discover how quickly a lot of classified, highly-sensitive information makes it way to the press.

It was a lesson I learned as a novice Pentagon correspondent back in 1993. I was getting my “clock cleaned” as the expression goes, by my network television competition, all veteran reporters with deep sources.

With the U.S. poised to attack an Iraqi facility, one senior official assured me that no information would leak out until AFTER the first cruise missiles hit Baghdad. I believed him, and waited patiently for the official post-strike briefing.

So I was caught embarrassingly flat-footed when all my colleagues were live with the breaking news, quoting Pentagon sources, that cruise missiles were in the air and on their way.

It was my first lesson that everything and anything can leak.

So why DO government employees and military officers, who have been sworn to secrecy, and at times specifically ordered NOT to leak, leak?

JUST TRYING TO BE HELPFUL

As strange as it may seem, some sources are simply trying to be helpful. They know they have the information reporters need, and they would prefer new stories to be as accurate as possible. They appreciate the role the news media play, and figure unless somebody leaks, the result will likely be a report that’s lacking some crucial context. And if the reporter has a good reputation, they feel they are doing a public service.

GETTING IN THE GAME
I once met a new military spokesman for the Chairman of the Joint chiefs who assured me he would never disclose anything beyond what was officially releasable, under any circumstances. No “deep background” or “off the record” for him. Not one unofficial word would pass his lips. It was a matter of honor, a point of pride.

I never saw much of him after that. Few other reporters bothered to talk to him either. I’m sure he passed a lot of worry-free days in his Pentagon office, untroubled by the frequent visits from pesky reporters who dogged his predecessor in the job.

He could brag upon his retirement that he never leaked, but he couldn’t say he had done much to help the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs make his case to the media, or that he saved his boss from any unfair or one-sided stories. He had no relationship with the press, and hence no influence over their coverage. He abdicated his responsibility to engage.

If public officials want to have any control over how a story plays out, they have to be in the game. And that means talking to, and yes, sometimes leaking to, reporters.
Otherwise you can sit back and hope for the best.

And as someone once said, “Hope is a not a strategy.”

A GOODWILL INDUSTRY

When you’re in the public eye, it’s nice to have friends in the press. Because when things go wrong, you want to have someone who thinks well of you writing the first rough draft of your history.

But earning the goodwill of the news media usually requires a track record of candor, reliability and straight-shooting.

The relationship between reporters and their regular sources is like a slow minuet, with each side seeing how well the other dances.

Reporters want to figure out to what extent their sources are spinning them, and whether those sources are in a position to know what they are talking about. Sources want to know if reporters are responsible and smart enough to put complex stories into perspective.

When information is first obtained, its worth is often hard to assess. The credence it is given is often based on the “reliability” of the leaker. Hence the term “reliable sources.”

(Does anyone quote unreliable sources? Why, yes they do, but that’s another chapter, in another book. In fact it’s a whole ‘nother book.)

But in time, often a very short amount of time, the facts become more clear and the leaked information can be more objectively evaluated, and that forms a basis for judgment. The more times a source is right, the more credence is given to future leaks.
And the more the source trusts the reporter, the more likely he is to help out whenever possible, as an insurance policy just in case he needs a sympathetic ear.

UP, UP, AND AWAY

Some leaks are transparent trial balloons. If reporters don’t know that going in, a sure sign is an immediate official denial of something a good source said was “under consideration.”

Why go to all the risk of announcing an uncertain plan or policy, if you can test the waters by leaking to the news media?

It’s a win/win. The news organization gets the scoop, and you get the instant feedback of knowing if the Congress, or the public, or even your boss is willing to support your dubious idea.

If the prospective policy is a non-starter, you can then publicly denounce the story, and insist it was never under “serious” consideration.

You might even give the reporter a second scoop, that the idea has been killed after his excellent reporting exposed it to the sunshine of public scrutiny.

That’s the other purpose of floating trial balloons — to sink a policy that lower level people oppose, like a war plan that lacks “creativity.”

FEELING IMPORTANT

Let’s face it, human nature being what it is, some sources leak for the same reason reporters chase that exclusive: for the thrill of feeling important. A reporter breaks a big story and YOU were the source! Why, that reporter would be nothing without your help. You are the brains, the real power behind the press. You are the master of puppets! You are shaping the course of human events. It’s a heady feeling, and some sources just like the feeling of affirmation.

“I DIDN’T TELL HIM ANYTHING”

Sometimes sources are good sources even though they don’t think they leak at all. It can be the case that they are maneuvered into a position where their actions or non-answers themselves become a basis of confirmation. Or the fact a source who’s usually available, suddenly can’t be reached, might in itself be confirmation that something’s up.

And reporters are tricky. They get tiny scraps of information, which by themselves seem trivial, and use them to leverage more information out of other sources, often by pretending to know more than they really do, or letting the source think they are about to go public with flawed or incomplete information. They play one source against another, and then circle back, each time using some additional newly acquired tidbit to convince sources that this time they really do have the complete picture.
In 1994, when I was piecing together the invasion plan for Haiti, this is exactly the method I used.

“I hear the plan is to invade from the south,” I said to one military official. “I can’t comment,” he replied, “But I will tell you your sources are not very good…”
“I hear the plan is to invade from the east,” I said to a second military official, adjusting the ruse. “I can’t comment,” he replied, “but it’s much more complex than that…”

And so it went for days, as I methodically stitched together the details. After I finally went to air with the plan, a Pentagon official came to my office the next morning and said, “There are some people in this building with their heads screwed to the ceiling over your report. They want to know who leaked the invasion plan.”

But the truth is you could have gone to all my sources and given each a lie detector test, and they would have all said the same thing, “I didn’t tell him anything. He already knew the whole plan when he came in.”

Or so it seemed.

BAD NEWS DOESN’T GET BETTER WITH AGE

There’s another good reason to leak, especially when the news is bad. The wheels of government bureaucracy turn slowly, and by the time the official release can be prepared it’s a good bet some reporter will get a whiff of the controversy and be off and running, perhaps with only the most sensational facts and incomplete information. The damage can be irreparable.

With a calculated leak, the source can get ahead of the story, and – this is the most important part – pick the news organization or organizations which will be the first to report the bad news.

If the source has developed a relationship of trust, the reporter is more likely to listen, and include facts and perspective that could mitigate the negative publicity.

The first story written tends to set the tone for the rest of the coverage, so if that initial story includes the leaker’s perspective, it can keep a bad story from becoming tabloid fodder.

IT’S THEIR JOB

Early in my time at the Pentagon I visited the office of a civilian official to complain that while I couldn’t find out about what I considered a fairly non-controversial matter, my colleagues at the New York Times and Washington Post seemed to routinely get secret briefings on important policy matters.

After pressing my case for about 15 minutes, the official angrily cut me off, “Look dammit, we just don’t HAVE a leak strategy on that issue…”

It was the first direct acknowledgement to me, that yes in fact, there are OFFICIAL leaks. Leaks orchestrated by the government, in which people are AUTHORIZED to give out secret, sensitive, or even classified material to help make the government’s case.

Sometimes reporters know they are getting an official leak, and sometimes they don’t.
They should always care.

Evaluating the motivation for leaks is essential to providing context and giving viewers or readers a way to decide for themselves how much weight to place on the revelation.

No discussion of sources would be complete without at least one mention of the hypocrisy of government officials decrying the use of “anonymous sources.” More than a few times I have heard high officials and their spokespeople refusing to comment on allegations made by “unnamed sources” because the accusers “lacked the courage” to make their charges in public.

These are often the same officials who schedule formal briefings at which public servants give reporters information on background, under the cloak of anonymity.
Yes, the government often requires the use of unnamed sources, because that’s how the game is played.