Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they’re lazy, and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.
It changes your life, the pursuit of truth, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth. It’s very, it’s very exciting.
National security is a really big problem for journalists, because no journalist worth his salt wants to endanger the national security, but the law talks about anyone who endangers the security of the United States is going to go to jail.
So, here you are, especially in the Pentagon. Some guy tells you something. He says that’s a national security matter. Well, you’re supposed to tremble and get scared and it never, almost never means the security of the national government.
As long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about consequences. The truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. I truly believe the truth sets men free.
I don’t want to disappoint too many people, but the number of interesting political, historical conversations we had, you could stick in your ear, it wasn’t that many. We talked about friends, family and of course girls.
