Off the record information can be useful to hunt down other information that can be put on the record. It’s like discovery in a lawsuit: during a deposition, I can ask questions that cannot be asked at trial, as long as they are reasonably likely to lead to evidence that CAN be introduced at trial.
So, if I’m a reporter digging into a story about what the President eats, and I’m talking to someone who works in the kitchen, maybe that person cannot/will not tell me exactly what the President eats, for fear of retribution from the President. But he tells me, off the record, that he’s seen tons of sacks of beets off-loaded into the stores room, and hints I might want to talk to the chef de tournant. This leads me to discover from that worthy that the President eats borshch every evening, and has ever since he came back from the G-20. The off-the-record information helped me, but the person who gave it to me is potentially insulated from suffering consequences for having spilled the beets (so to speak).
“Off the record” is also the standard euphemism for “I (Mr. Insider) am deliberately ‘leaking’ this private info to you (Ms. Reporter) . Make sure it gets out to the public but also make sure that it can’t be traced back to me.”
Exactly. You’ve seen all those news stories that were like “The President flew into a rage when he saw the story on TV, according to a senior White House adviser”?
Who was that white house adviser? Some guy whose name you’ve heard if you read Politico, who gave that information to a reporter off the record.
Why did the reporter accept the information? Obviously because it’s a good story. Why did the senior White House adviser give the information? Because they want that story to be public, but don’t want to get in trouble with their boss. Or, sometimes, they leak it with the knowledge and blessing of the boss.
There’s a difference between “off the record” and “not for attribution”.
Or at least there’s supposed to be.
Sources who tell a reporter something “off the record” can get very pissed if it finds its way into a news story. An example of a legitimate “off the record” revelation is one relating to a sensitive diplomatic or personal matter where public or human interest is best served by not publishing a story.
Ahhh, that’s very helpful. I wonder if White House personnel know or make the distinction between “You can spread this around, but don’t quote me” vs. “Don’t tell anyone about this, because I’m the only one who knows, and it will be traced back to me even if you don’t mention my name”.
One saying is that the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top.
“Off the record” is at best a request. There is no strict obligation on the reporter on how they use the information given to them. They simply make a judgement on the situation. If Nixon had met with Carl Bernstien and said “off the record I knew all about the break-in” it would have been headline news the next day with full attribution.
However journalists have to make a long term judgement on the value they get from someone feeding them information off-the-record. They also have to make ethical judgements about the arrangement. At least in the glory days of serious journalism this was so.
Off-the-record for most journalism means, or at least use to mean, that the information I am giving the reporter is my opinion and not my professional opinion nor am I speaking for the organization that I represent. Reporters would ask this because it would help them generate leads to further investigate their story.
Now it seems to be used as a way to leak information without it being credited to who said it.
I’m curious. What are these ethical judgments? Are there some things that even if the reporter agrees I can tell them off of the record, once they hear the thing, his ethics compel him to publish?
For example:
Me: I have something to tell you, but I want assurances that this is off the record.
Reporter: Absolutely.
Me: I had sex with a donkey/am a Russian agent who hacked emails at the behest of Trump/molested a child/slept with your wife.
Reporter: I’m sorry. Although I assured you that your comment was off the record, my ethics compel me to publish or otherwise disclose what you just told me.
?
ETA: Suppose it is not a mandatory ethical disclosure. If it is really, really juicy, can a reporter ethically lie to me and report it anyways?
If a reporter writes about information given to him off the record (assuming just the single source), he is put in the professionally difficult positions of (1) having his source deny the story publicly, (2) publishing inaccurate information and (3) having his trustworthiness compromised in future news gathering efforts. Who’s going to share sensitive information with a reporter who will lie about this most basic issue of trust?
“Off the record,” however, is not secret information that he is bound to conceal. The reporter can obtain the same information elsewhere from other sources.
There are also the officially sanctioned so called “trial balloons” that get floated as rumors to judge the response. Depending on the response, the idea may go forward or get dropped.
If you are speaking from your personal opinion vs your professional opinion, that doesn’t mean you are sharing facts. It means you aren’t officially speaking on behalf of your organization and role for your job. Which is why I said “my opinion and not my professional opinion” there is a difference.
Occasionally it only means “I’m not sure so don’t quote me”. But even then there’s probably some other motive. I would say it’s not hard to just shut up and say nothing if you don’t want to be quoted but I have a difficult time with that myself so I can understand why it’s done.
