NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride

Shortly after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, people who were squarely in the middle of newsworthy issues began asking for anonymity.

Government employees, school teachers, college professors, medical workers and immigrants wanted to share their stories, but they didn’t want their names used, fearing that it might provoke a backlash.

We wrote about this trend for the Poynter Institute back in April and predicted that a new wave of anonymous sourcing was about to take hold in American journalism.

We’ve recently received audience questions about NPR’s practice of granting anonymity to sources. And it made us wonder whether NPR journalists are leaning more heavily on anonymous sources to produce the news report.

So we searched the archives for phrases like “asked to remain anonymous” and “not authorized to speak publicly,” to get a sense of how NPR is using anonymous sources and if NPR is using more of them. — Kelly McBride

Illustration by Carlos Carmonamedina

Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. Letters are edited for length and clarity. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page.

Is NPR using too many anonymous sources?

Lee Humphrey wrote on Oct. 22: I’m not a journalist but even as a high school student, I was told and told firmly that any news story quotes had to be clearly attributed to real people. Lately, it seems that NPR reporters seem to think it’s ok to say ... so and so can’t or won’t give his/her name because of fear of ... losing job, retribution, etc. This is not journalistic reporting. This is gossip. I do not believe anything that this person is saying, and NPR and the “reporter” should be embarrassed (as I am), that the best they can do is find someone who has no credibility. As a long time and sustaining member of MPR (which in fact is much more honest in reporting in all kinds of ways), I am appalled and more than disappointed that NPR has lowered itself to this journalist bar.

Journalism teachers and textbooks do generally discourage anonymous sources. Listeners and readers are often more skeptical of sources that are not named. Why? It is impossible for news consumers to judge the credibility of an anonymous source. Instead, they must trust the judgment of the journalist and the news organization.

And since President Barack Obama’s first administration, it has been increasingly difficult for reporters to turn up new and relevant information about the federal government without leaning heavily on anonymous sources. Obama cracked down on unauthorized leaks.

NPR journalists who cover Washington most often use anonymous sources to break or advance a big story that no other newsroom is reporting, like this one about federal workers getting rehired after DOGE cuts or this story about ICE scrambling to rent space to ramp up their capacity to detain and deport people.

The details revealed in those stories would not come to light without the anonymous sources. In every case, a senior editor at NPR knows the identity of the source and how the source has come by the information.

“NPR uses information from anonymous sources to tell important stories that otherwise would go unreported,” assistant standards editor Meghan Ashford-Grooms wrote in this essay explaining NPR’s process for approving anonymous sources. “And only specific senior editors can sign off on their use.”

Because those unique stories that no other newsroom is reporting take a long time to develop, they are less frequent than day-to-day updates. Looking over NPR’s coverage of the Biden or the Obama administrations, I can see no obvious increase in the use of anonymous sources to cover the White House or Congress in the Trump administration.

In fact, the Washington desk may be using fewer anonymous sources, Chief Washington Editor Krishnadev Calamur said, because NPR doesn’t receive “authorized leaks,” the test balloons that politicians float into the news cycle to gauge public response.

“They don’t really tell us anything,” Calamur said. “One of the advantages I should say, working in this universe, as opposed to prior administrations — Democrat and Republican — is that before, when they gave us information, it was purely anonymously.”

Often when NPR reporters seek to confirm information that another newsroom has reported, the confirmation comes “on background,” which means that no specific name is attached, but that NPR can quote White House officials as verifying the report.

However, other reporting teams at NPR outside the Washington desk are using more anonymous sources. Stories that focus on the peripheries of the federal government and beyond are more frequently leaning on people who fear retribution if their names are public. For example, this story, about a woman fired after posting a critique of Charlie Kirk after his assassination, cloaked her identity and did not name her employer, citing concerns about her safety.

Without protecting her identity (the story refers to the source as Alexandra, her middle name) NPR could not have told this story.

“We did not identify the employer because doing so would have made it possible for someone to identify Alexandra and again open her up to online abuse and harassment, thus compromising our commitment to protect Alexandra’s privacy after a traumatic experience,” said Brett Neely, the supervising editor who oversaw the story. “We did reach out to the company for comment, as you can see in the story.”

Similarly, many stories about immigrants and international students do not name sources. This recent Planet Money podcast episode on the decline of international transfers of money explains, “All the migrants we spoke to for this story asked for anonymity. So we’re calling them by their first initials.”

Sources request anonymity when they want to share their story, but they are afraid for their jobs, their precarious status as residents of the U.S. or their physical safety. NPR grants the request when the story offers the audience a deeper understanding of important issues.

That makes sense to me. NPR would be shortsighted to eliminate all anonymous sources and the audience would suffer if they could not hear from vulnerable people whose experiences are central to understanding the impact of our current policies.

That said, when NPR reports information attributed to an anonymous source that turns out to be false, or incomplete, it has an obligation to let the audience know what happened.

This April story relied on an anonymous source to report that President Trump was looking to replace Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after a series of mishaps involving classified information. Six months later, Hegseth is still the Defense Secretary.

Brigham Young University journalism professor Joel Campbell noticed and wrote to us on May 1:

Did NPR ever acknowledge that it was wrong and that this anonymous source may have been too early out of the gate to read what was going on? What’s NPR’s policy on anonymous sources? I don’t feel NPR did enough to tell us why anonymity in this case was granted and this bold assertion which held so long while other media moved away from it quickly? Enquiring minds want to know.

When I asked NPR about this specific story, Andrew Sussman, supervising editor for national security, wrote, “NPR still stands by our story on the controversy and chaos engulfing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier this year, and the fact that the White House was looking at possible replacements. The secretary did manage to weather the immediate storm over his inappropriate use of Signal — and the former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was moved out of the White House into another position in a related development — but our reporting continues to indicate that there is dissatisfaction within the military over Hegseth’s lack of experience and norm-busting approach to the role.”

The story reports, based on anonymous sources, that the White House was looking at replacements for the Defense Secretary. But obviously, President Trump did not continue that process by actually replacing Hegseth. Other NPR stories have provided more context, reporting on the President’s faith that Hegseth will “get it together” and as well as Hegseth’s early attempts to restructure the military to fulfill his vision and minimize the influence of his critics.

NPR continues to report on the embattled Defense Secretary, including this August story about the intersection of Hegseth’s faith and his views on women.

But that first Hegseth story in question perfectly demonstrates the risk of using anonymous sources, even if they are not wrong at the time. The information can be incomplete and it’s impossible for a news consumer to get additional context because they don’t know who the source was or why over time, the information presented lost significance.

And when the information attributed to an anonymous source turns out to be incomplete or lacking in context, the burden rests squarely on NPR’s shoulders and harms its reputation.

NPR should update that story that reports the White House is looking at replacements for Hegseth. The reporters should go back to their sources to explain what happened with the replacement effort, then add an editor’s note to the top of the story that links to other stories. Sussman’s defense is reasonable, but not accessible (until now) to consumers who might stumble upon that story.

If the story had named sources in it, a reader could deduce how close the sources were to Trump and therefore how close Hegseth was to losing his job at that point. Giving those readers an explanation of why NPR still stands by the reporting would offer people who question NPR’s reporting a reason to trust in NPR’s ongoing coverage of the Pentagon. — Kelly McBride with research by Amaris Castillo

The Public Editor spends a lot of time examining moments where NPR fell short. Yet we also learn a lot about NPR by looking at work that we find to be compelling and excellent journalism. Here we share a line or two about the pieces where NPR shines.

Government shutdowns of past and present

In a recent story for NPR’s special series, 2025 Government Shutdown, general assignment reporter Rachel Treisman puts the current government shutdown into context through explanatory reporting and a historical look at shutdowns as far back as 1976. The story includes a visual chart, a look at what’s needed in Congress to end the shutdown, and the impacts this shutdown is having on everyday Americans. It’s an illuminating and informative piece, where historical context adds nuance and understanding. Read it here. — Nicole Slaughter Graham

The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Nicole Slaughter Graham and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming.

Kelly McBride
NPR Public Editor
Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute

Kelly McBride
Public Editor

Amaris Castillo
Poynter Institute

Nicole Slaughter Graham
Poynter Institute

The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy.

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