Informed Gaps

Informed Gaps Nireekshak A DIFFICULT problem that confronts most correspondents some time or other is "sourcing". Even the casual reader is familiar with "informed sources" or "reliable sources" and "official sources" and these, more often than not, are generally amenable to identification. A fairly senior correspondent may even pass off important information without identifying his source, but by carefully hedging his statements with ifs and buts. What should one say of a lead story in a recent issue of Times of India which quoted "reliable sources" as saying that a Vietnam may be enacted in Kerala some time in the future? It is beside the point that a similar story appeared in Statesman a couple of days earlier, indicating the common origin of this crystal-gazing. How reliable are these "reliable" sources?