Should "sources" be revealed?

Nope. People want to be free to speak without attribution. The responsible journalists always verify such statements with other reliable sources to confirm.

@zenvelo It seems to me that there are less and less responsible journalists out there. But I am hoping in issues of national importance that they are fact checking.

Who decides what is “national importance”?

Suppose something is of statewide or local importance?

I think that the journalistic ability to protect sources is valuable and should be absolute.

Honesty is always the best policy, but some things are better left unsaid.
Loose lips sink ships.

Would you cut off your nose to spite your face??

How fond of Russian roulette are you?? To reveal sources may be akin to playing this game with a fully loaded revolver. Are you sure you want to play?? And don’t forget about aiding and abetting the enemy, and possibly facing charges of treason.

“The better part of valor is discretion.” -Shakespere’s “I Henry IV.” v.4 121

No.

No, sources must remain confidential no matter what.

When they lie they should be revealed.

That won’t happen. Because if you write “White House official lied under guise of anonymity” you never get access again. To hear the next set of lies.

Curious what you thought when there were leaks in the Obama administration.

In competent journalism, sources that are kept confidential are kept confidential for a reason. And competent reporters don’t report with single unsubstantiated sources. But even one anonymous source can lead to investigations aimed based on that information, which can lead to publishable sources and confirmation.

Also, when someone violates confidentiality, good luck getting another informant to give you information if they have reasons for needing to remain confidential. So, no, not when there are good reasons to protect confidentiality.

Unfortunately, our media is mostly owned by the same group of corporations that own most of our government, and our population is largely oblivious.

No, because very quickly there would be no sources.

No! Unable to secure sources who were willing to go on record, less-than-scrupulous reporters might be inclined to produce real fake news.

No.

Guys, I’m really astonished at how most answers here are no.

I believe that all… all… should be… and will be… revealed.

The only two reasons for confidentiality are unacceptable.
1 – fear of retaliation.
2 – agent provocateur platform.

In todays world, it is no longer good enough to be fearless. We MUST become FEARSOMELY fearless.

It strikes me as odd that we can give credit to someone speaking from the shadows… about something they supposedly claim is happening in the shadows.

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a smear campaign? Have you ever had to untangle false accusations? We have the right to face our accusers. The age of rumors and hearsay is over.

If one puts forth an accusation to the court of public opinion, then the public deserves complete balance and fairness to form that opinion upon.

Anything less is the incubator for confirmation bias. For those biased against Trump want to believe rumors and hearsay about him every bit as much as those biased against Hillary want to believe rumors and hearsay about her.

No great change for the better will come without risk of sacrificing one’s self upon the alter of truth. Just ask Rosa, Martin, Ghandi, Edward… None of which cloaked their own identity to smear the identity of another, They put their own names right up there with the names of their oppressors, and the name of the oppression.

I don’t trust fearless sources from the shadows, when the shadows are the source of their fearlessness. I don’t trust journalists who abandon journalism to promote a meme.

If the meme cannot be reversed, then it should be considered suspicious.
EXAMPLE:
“Larry Jones, a high level government insider told CNN today that someone in the White House is doing something wrong.”… That would be totally unacceptable as news because it doesn’t say anything. It’s noise. It’s incomplete, at best, a half truth. Changing the name of Larry Jones to “unidentified trusted source” doesn’t add any credibility. It reduces it every bit as much as changing the specific accusation to “something wrong” and the specific person to “someone in the White House” reduces the interest in the accusation.

You know the words… “Hey, want to know a secret”?… As if this person possesses some special knowledge… Those are the words that birth alienation dynamics. Those are the words of hatred.

To each, his or her own.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies. Sources provide some light on what would otherwise remain dark and in the shadows. Also, I do not require ‘sources’ to tell me how bad a President we have when Trump is quite capable of telling me that himself in his own words and by his own actions.