Rules to consider for when and how to use anonymous sources from the Freedom Forum:

• No anonymous sources unless a top editor is convinced there is absolutely no other way to get the main thrust of the story into the newspaper.
  
  
• No anonymous sources unless a top editor is convinced every possible effort was made to get the source on the record.
  
  
• No anonymous sources unless the story is of major importance to the community or the country. Use should be extraordinary, not routine.
  
  
• No re-publication of another organization's anonymously sourced story.
  
  
• No anonymously sourced stories unless there are at least two sources who have firsthand knowledge of the issue.
  
  
• No anonymous sources who have been protected with a "no comment" quote elsewhere in the story or who have been deceptively identified. It is unfair to readers.
  
  
• No anonymous sources if what is being rendered is opinion, including personal attacks, as opposed to specific facts that can be verified elsewhere.
  
  
• When an anonymous source is used readers should be informed as clearly as possible what the source's link to the story is, the source's potential motivations, and what axes the source may have to grind.