“I can’t use you as an anonymous source,” Jess Crimson said into her phone, as her heart sank. While this story seemed like a legitimate lead on a corruption case, she would struggle to verify the claims without an on-the-record source. Her editor would not publish it.
“But listen, my name is John Anonymous,” the source said. Jess might as well just rip up her notes and hang up the phone. All of the work to get this phone call, and now she would have to give up.
“Unless you can give me other sources or someone who will go on the record, I just can’t use that name.” Jess was a tenacious reporter for The Jungle, which tackled tough investigative reporting cases and reported on the community at large. The Jungle followed clear journalism ethics.
“That really is my name…”
“I understand why you might want to protect yourself from scrutiny. We can’t run with something like that anonymously to save your job or whatnot because of our integrity.”
“Listen to me,” the source said. “My Dad was a poet. He changed our last name to Anonymous before I was born.”
“What was his name?”
“Bill Anonymous,” the source said, and Jess searched for the name online. Sure enough, it came up. He looked like a very obscure poet who died a few years ago. She typed John Anonymous in and found local reports of John Anonymous throwing the javelin in high school. He was a poor javelin thrower, but this verified his claims.
“I’m sorry for doubting you,” Jess said, and she opened a blank sheet of paper in her reporter notebook. “What was it like growing up with that name?”
“Aren’t we going to talk about the corruption?” John Anonymous asked.
“I don’t know, obscure poets make fascinating stories,” Jess said. “Maybe we do both?”