“Important journalism is not published because we too quickly give up on sources who hesitate to come forward”, writes Per Christian Magnus.

Without anonymous sources, many stories would never see the light of day. Such sources are crucial for confirming information and pointing to important documentation. These are sources that you do not need to cite, but which can have a decisive impact on the results of the investigations.

Open sources are just that – open, and therefore limited when it comes to access to blank news.

Surveys from FAFO (2017), Akademikerne (2019) and the Freedom of Expression Commission (2022) show that freedom of expression in Norwegian working life is increasingly limited. Fewer and fewer employees dare to criticize workplace conditions or express disagreement with management, and many see it as a breach of internal rules to speak to journalists.

A big mistake editorial managers can make is to limit journalists’ work with sources, including anonymous ones. Limited resources and publishing pressure are often used as reasons.

An excessive interpretation of VVP 3.2, which calls for caution when using anonymous sources, can be inhibiting. It can also become a sleeping pad. With aggressive source management, we can get anonymous sources to come forward.

Look at Denmark

Because what do we do if we know of a good case where absolutely no sources will come forward? In Denmark, they are often rougher than us.

The editors who for 20 years have produced Operation X for Danish TV 2 told during this year’s SKUP conference that they do not let source challenges stop the coverage of cases.

In order to reveal that one of the world’s leading dressage centers was mistreating horses, they chose to go undercover. One of the journalists took a job at the center of Olympic medal winner Andreas Helgstrand. For a month she worked as a horse groomer while filming the work and the conditions with a hidden camera.

This led to violence against horses being documented, while the owner went to court to have the publication stopped. The court shielded the journalists by concluding that the work had great social significance and public interest.

Covert recordings are rarely used in Norway. The be careful poster is clear in the conditions for use.

But in cases with anxious sources and sources who withdraw during the work, we must open up the use of covert recordings as an important part of the range of methods at our disposal.

Data analysis will not provide the whole story

Offensive source care is also becoming even more important now that we are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) in journalistic research.

Today, the major media houses have a significant focus on adopting AI. Tomorrow, AI will become a standard tool in most newsrooms, and greatly streamline journalistic work. Not least in investigative journalism.

AI tools will be a normal part of journalists’ toolbox. Therefore, AI competence will not necessarily distinguish the best journalists.

It will be the ability to build good source networks, with sources that provide knowledge and insight – and revelations – that data does not provide.

It’s about being able to talk to people, creating trust and getting sources to tell things they initially didn’t want to tell.

Scraping, compiling and analyzing data will not give us the whole story. This is only revealed when we get people to talk.

What is required to carry out offensive source work?

How to interact with sources so that they will confide in you? We like to call this competence “the tacit knowledge”.

It is acquired by learning from the more experienced, through one’s own experience and trials.

Sources choose to speak to journalists from media outlets that demonstrate impact. They talk to journalists who show that they can implement and deliver results.

More importantly, they talk to journalists who understand them and know the field.

But this is at least as much about the journalist’s ability to create contact and trust, about the journalist’s ability to create security to speak. About the journalist’s ability to protect the source, and about the journalist who is available – day and night.

Much investigative journalism lacks a redeeming element, the dimension that gives impact and creates consequences.

Most often, I think this is rooted in the lack of the decisive oral sources that tell what the data cannot, or that confirm what the data shows. It lacks the human being who bears witness to and conveys the hidden.

With aggressive source management, anonymous sources today can become open sources tomorrow.

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