This leads me to believe a lot of things are curated and high public figures have control of their image. Or does a source mean someone that ratted out about their personal lives like.. creeps? Like “Celebrity Y was seen out with Celebrity X, the insider source says they’re just getting to know each other and having fun.”
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It can be anyone. Part of journalism is figuring out who are reliable sources of information and who aren’t, and then protecting them in whatever way they need protection so that they continue to be good sources of information.
It can be a high up who doesn’t want their name attached to the quote, it can be an insider rat, it can be an official media relations person…the whole point of unidentified sources is that you’re not supposed to know.
A source is a source of information. Each piece of information that gets reported does have some sort of source, the reporter did get the information from somewhere. This can be a public source like a press release or a named person. But it can also be a secret source, someone who does not want their name to be published as the source for whatever reason.
An insider is someone who is inside a certain circle where secrets are being told. This may for example be a member of a project in a company or a member of the entaurage of a celebraty. An insider usually knows a lot more about something then the reporter, who stand on the outside. But an insider may leak information out to the reporter.
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It can be pretty much anyone who convinces the journalist they have info
– Someone who is really in the know and wants to spill the beans but doesn’t want to have their name out their publicly, they may get in trouble if it’s found out. If the information includes government secrets then it is possible that they can be prosecuted.
– Someone who has access to the information but is out of the loop on the details – like someone who works in a secretary or copy room position, or IT or something like that – they have the info, but they’re not involved in the decision making process. Sometimes with some of these we have the “so and so is considering an idea to do XYZ” – that doesn’t mean it’s any kind of real decision, there are probably a hundred proposals and this is just one of them.
– Sometimes an organization wants to get a piece of info out to the public to gauge their reaction. This is like a deliberate leak. Maybe Disney has an idea to try a new pricing schedule at its amusement parks, but it doesn’t want to publicly announce it. So someone will “leak” it to the media and Disney will see how the public reacts. If the public gets all mad then Disney can say it was just an idea and was never confirmed, that was just being floated and they look at a lot of ideas and only a few get implemented. If the public seems to like it then Disney can confirm it is happening and can formulate their implementation strategy taking the public reaction into account. This happens more than we think and lots of us are kind of getting played.
Take a look at the book or movie of All The President’s Men. Two journalists got the scoop on the White House involvement in the Watergate break in, literally leading to the Watergate scandal and the eventual resignation of US President Richard Nixon. The source’s identity was kept secret for decades. It was revealed a few years before his death.
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