Getting 15 minutes of anonymous fame

Sim Turner was the subject of a marvelous story told by master Maine humorist John Gould in his book, “It Is Not Now.” Gould wrote that Turner, evidently a typical Maine man of few words, “came into the house for noonin’ one day as his wife was standing by the cookstove ready to dish up beans. She said, ‘Ted Hunter called.’ Sim went to the sink, soaped his hands, and began to wash up. Thinking he hadn’t heard her, she said again, ‘Ted Hunter called!’ Sim turned to say, ‘Did he call twice?’ ”

At the risk of being compared to Sim Turner’s wife, let me be the first to acknowledge that I have become a stuck whistle of late, repeating myself about the dubious journalistic practice of granting anonymity to news sources when there is no rhyme nor reason for doing so.

I realize full well that you probably heard me loud and clear when I broached the subject just a month ago, but the old theory that everyone is eligible for 15 minutes of fame has obviously been amended to include 15 minutes of anonymity, as well, and it rankles something fierce.

The anonymous source, once resorted to by reporters and editors only in the most unusual situations and only after long deliberation in the newsroom, has become so routine as to be ridiculous. It is the contention of many a former ink-stained wretch that every time a reader reads in his newspaper about a “high government official … who spoke on the condition of anonymity,” the only thing that can accrue to the media is another lost sliver of credibility. And so, like old Don Quixote tilting at windmills – and with about as much chance of success – we flail away at the insidious practice.

I collect ludicrous examples of the genre, as other people obsessively collect stamps or antique shaving mugs, and boy did I run across a doozy in Saturday’s newspaper. In its determination to prove that no source is too insignificant to be granted anonymity, The Associated Press outdid itself this time.

The news story carried the tongue-twisting dateline of Shijiazhuang, China. The AP writer reported that three explosions within an hour had torn through workers’ dormitories in that northern Chinese industrial city, killing at least 18 people and prompting a massive security clampdown.

He spent half a dozen paragraphs on the details before serving up the one that jumped out and compelled me to reach for my florescent yellow highlight marker: “The shock of the blast was so strong that it knocked bottles from the shelves of a sidewalk stall about a half-mile away, according to the stall owner, who asked not to be identified.”

The italics, of course, belong to me (as much as italics can be said to belong to anyone, I suppose). The intimation that the identity of some working stiff in Shijiazhuang, China was information too sensitive to be disseminated here, half a world away, was the reporter’s. As though if we knew the guy’s name we’d rush right out and ring up the local hardline Commie boss there in Shijiazhuang and finger the poor sidewalk vendor for disclosing the monumental top-secret intelligence that the blast was so strong it had knocked bottles from his shelves.

But if the media’s love affair with anonymous sources is often laughable, the same can be said of the gyrations that law enforcement officers go through in their obsession with not identifying juveniles involved in anything newsworthy, apparently in the mistaken belief that such disclosure is never permitted under state law.

Exhibit A was a news story earlier this week about two Caribou snowmobilers who had been transferred to Eastern Maine Medical Center following a snowmobile accident. State police identified one victim, a 25-year old female. They did not identify the second one, a 13-year old boy, by name, but did confirm that he was the 25 year old’s brother. Well, duh. Readers were left to wonder whether he was the young lady’s 13-year old brother, Darrell, or her other 13-year old brother, Darrell.

You can hear some numb things on radio and television, too. Like the commentary by former professional basketball player turned sports announcer, James Worthy, during an early round of the March Madness college basketball playoffs. Worthy talked about Georgia State’s “small” players who checked in at “only six-feet-eight, or six-nine,” proving that perspective is in the eye of the five-foot-10 beholder. Later he offered the expert analysis that Georgia State’s opponent “would like to get out and go ahead – I’m sure – by 18 or 20 points…”

Well, pretty sure, anyway.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.