The most powerful news stories can show the audience the world of the powerless.
A poor person who relies on charity or government assistance. A whistleblower in a company or government office. A teenager or young adult with no one to advocate on their behalf.
For these sources, speaking with a reporter is risky. They could lose their job. They might face retaliation. Their communities might reject them. Their emotional pain, laid bare, could be used against them.
When journalists interview vulnerable sources, the power dynamic shifts. Reporters typically have less power than their sources. This is true with politicians, corporate leaders and influential people, like athletes or entertainers. When a source is vulnerable, the reporter has more power, and, therefore, more responsibility to ensure that the source is fully consenting.
That said, career journalists might find their newsroom's formal guidance on the ethical obligations of working with sources lacks nuance. There is little instruction on how the responsibility of the reporter shifts when working with vulnerable sources as opposed to powerful ones.
Teachers play an important role in preparing young journalists to work with vulnerable sources. In this installment of the Educator Edition of the NPR Public Editor newsletter, we unpack how educators can help journalists understand their own power — and the responsibility that comes with that power — when working with people who take great risks to share their personal stories.
Because NPR and its member stations tell a lot of stories about people who don't hold much power, the Public Editor's Office fields many questions about how those sources are treated. Audience members intuitively understand that some sources become more vulnerable by telling their private stories.
We spent some time in 2023 digging into how NPR reporters interview vulnerable sources without exploiting them, and we found that many public radio journalists take great care in their approach. These real-world examples offer students valuable insight into the tactics needed to work with vulnerable sources.
For example, in July 2023 for Sunday Up First, then-freelance journalist Hanisha Harjani reported a story about the children of blog influencers whose private lives were shared by their parents online. Their primary sources were young adults trying to find stability in their emerging lives while they navigated online fame that they never consented to.
Harjani described some of the techniques they used to build trust, including being patient with reluctant sources who needed time and being transparent about the complicated and mysterious process of freelancing a story to a national outlet.
Similarly, NPR investigative reporter Joe Shapiro has reported extensively on parents who've lost custody of their children, as well as on people with disabilities. He works to make sure his sources are fully aware of his reporting process, but he takes care to give them full agency. Shapiro said he wants to avoid assuming he knows what's best for the people who let him into their lives.
Former NPR business reporter Stacey Vanek Smith, who now works for Bloomberg, routinely asks regular people to share details about their personal finances in her stories. She's learned to be cautious about including information that might be revelatory, but might also be embarrassing.
There is no formal set of rules to help journalists understand their role in protecting and working with vulnerable sources. Still, educators can guide journalists in creating their own set of ethical principles, guided by best practices:
Build trust
When working with vulnerable sources, trust is nonnegotiable, and it often takes time. Well before asking a potential source to go on record, reporters should take time to build trust before the reporting starts. In an interview for the Global Investigative Journalism Network, British reporter Katie McQue detailed how she approaches building trust. It starts with a journalist representing themselves as accurately as possible, she said. Sources need to understand the role of the journalist and the limitations of that role. "It's never, ever acceptable to raise an interviewee's hopes that by talking to you their problems can be solved," she said in the interview.
Building trust is also about meeting the source where they're at physically and emotionally, McQue explained to the GIJN. "Let them go at their own pace and never pressure them into telling you things they're very uncomfortable discussing. Sometimes I'll interview migrant workers in several shorter conversations, over a period of several days or weeks, whenever they are free and willing to talk."
Gather context
Vulnerable sources are at risk for a reason, and a journalist's due diligence is to gain as much context as possible to understand what's at stake for the source. Some come from historically misrepresented groups. Others are speaking out against a situation that might cost them their livelihood.
For instance, when reporting on marginalized communities, serve the source and the audience by providing historical context that helps create understanding. For the Solutions Journalism Network's publication, The Whole Story, journalist Oscar Perry Abello writes that marginalization isn't a choice. It is a result of systemic oppression. Many times, audience members don't have the context to understand what led to a group's marginalization. Journalists are in a position to provide that context.
Maintain transparency
It's easy to forget when working with sources that not all parties understand the process of reporting and gathering information. They don't necessarily know what the end product will look like. It's up to the journalist to explain the process in detail, especially when working with sources who have never been interviewed (i.e., most of the public).
As an article on NBCU Academy said about creating boundaries with sources: "Many sources aren't used to being interviewed by journalists, in which their words are recorded and end up in articles, TV news or audio stories. It's always good to inform them of that in advance."
Be ready to pivot
Sometimes a vulnerable source might agree to speak with a journalist for a story, but as the process unfolds, they might want to back out because the risk feels too great. Journalists should plan for this at the forefront of the reporting and have a backup plan where possible. Sometimes, offering anonymity is an option to protect the source and maintain the integrity of the work.
The Associated Press, for instance, noted in 2017 that it allows for anonymity to protect the source and provide the public with the information it needs. "Valuable news often originates from whistleblowers who would be in danger of losing their jobs, or in some countries their freedom or their lives, if the information was traced back to them." Even if a source isn't necessarily losing their livelihood or lives, sometimes anonymity is needed. Working with children is one example. Journalists should consult with their editors to determine when anonymity is necessary.
Empathy is the guidepost
In pursuit of a story, journalists can sometimes forget that a source is a human being with a life of their own, with feelings and obligations, none of which relates to the story. For vulnerable sources, participating in a story could add a layer of stress or fear. Empathy and patience go a long way in the relationship between source and journalist.
In a 2018 report for the American Press Institute, writer P. Kim Bui noted that two forms of empathy apply to journalism and can help journalists work with vulnerable sources. Cognitive empathy is used to help a reporter "understand people with opposing views and from different backgrounds." Behavioral empathy employs "verbal and nonverbal signals to show they're working to understand another person's feelings and ideas."
Teachers play a vital role in helping emerging journalists understand how their responsibility with a vulnerable source might differ from the relationship with a source who has more power. While many newsrooms may not have ethical policies specific to working with sources, there are best practices that reporters can use to form their own guidelines.
Use this handout, created by the Poynter Institute, as a toolkit for working with vulnerable sources before, during and after the reporting is complete.
For a classroom exercise or homework assignment, show your students several stories about vulnerable sources (or ask them to find some examples). Then ask the students to put themselves in the reporter's shoes at the beginning of the reporting process. Have them draft a reporting strategy that would ensure that their source was well-informed and willing to give full consent to participating in the story. — Nicole Slaughter Graham
The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Emily Barske Wood 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
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