In the frenzy over Karl Rove’s role in the naming of CIA operative Valerie Plame, one question has gone comparatively unexplored: What in the world is “double super-secret background”?
The phrase was used by Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, in a memo to his boss, to describe the conditions under which Rove spoke with him about Plame. Her husband, former diplomat Joe Wilson, had criticized the Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq war.
There has been at least one account attempting to explain, in all apparent seriousness, how “double super-secret background” differs from the more restrictive “off the record.”
Off the record generally means “you can’t print or broadcast this.” It’s intended as a tip, to get the reporter looking for information and confirmation from other sources – perhaps sources willing to speak “on background.”
“On background” generally means the information may be used, but the source may not be identified except in the most general way, such as “a source close to the president.”
“Double super-secret background” appears to be a recent modification and complication of these covert code words that have become part of the Washington culture.
Is there a triple super-secret background? A just plain super-secret background? Is there a difference between secret background and non-secret background?
It sounds like kids playing games. “I double-dare you to tell. I double super-duper dare you.”
Actually, as Cooper himself explained in the most recent issue of Time, it is something of a game, or more like a joke. In recounting what he told the grand jury investigating the leak, he noted that the description “has raised a few eyebrows ever since it leaked into the public domain.
“I told the grand jury that the phrase is not a journalistic term of art but a reference to the film ‘Animal House,’ in which John Belushi’s wild Delta House fraternity is placed on ‘double secret probation.’ (‘Super’ was my own addition.),” Cooper explained.
What Rove actually told Cooper, according to Cooper, is that the conversation was on “deep background,” which is more serious than just plain “background.”
“I explained to the grand jury that I take the term to mean that I can use the material but not quote it, and that I must keep the identity of my source confidential,” Cooper wrote.
Fair enough. “Double super-secret background” was a whimsy. But somehow, no one ever mentioned that until Cooper himself explained it. It’s as though this addition to the lexicon of Washington leakiness and secrecy sounded legitimate enough that no one thought to challenge it.
Which goes to show how out of hand the culture of confidential sources can become. It also shows one of the bad effects of relying on secret sources. When journalists promise confidentiality, they risk becoming a part of the story.
And it raises another question: Who owns the rights to confidentiality? The source does, argues Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor – not the reporter. As Stone told The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, “It’s the source’s privilege, not the reporter’s. If the source doesn’t want confidentiality, the reporter has no business insisting on it.”
Even The New York Times itself said, in an editorial last Tuesday, “More broadly, it is up to the source, not the reporter, to speak out. If Mr. Rove or any other officials involved were really concerned about getting out the truth, all they would need to do would be to stand up in public and tell it.”
Confidentiality should be granted only rarely and under the most extraordinary circumstances. Secrecy is antithetical to a journalist’s primary role of revealing information, not concealing it.
A journalist’s primary obligation is to deliver accurate, useful information to the public. That should be a higher principle than keeping secrets with sources.
Fred Brown, retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists.
