This NYT piece looks at the scrambling going on by major U.S. news organizations to rein in the use of anonymous sources.

Some excerpts:

Concerned that they may have become too free in granting anonymity to sources, news organizations including USA Today, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, NBC News and The New York Times are trying to throttle back their use.

But some journalists worry that these efforts could hamper them from doing their jobs - coming in a hothouse atmosphere where mistrust of the news media is rampant, hordes of newly minted media critics attack every misstep on the Web, and legal cases jeopardize their ability to keep unnamed news sources confidential.

"Right now, the pendulum is swinging too far in the wrong direction," said Stephen Engelberg, managing editor for enterprise at The Oregonian in Portland. "Most newspapers, if they're honest," he declared, "would say that all of this taken together has probably created a climate that is not encouraging for the type of reporting we need to be doing."

But Tom Rosenstiel, of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that apparently cavalier use of this type of sources was a "source of friction" with readers.

Here's what some organizations have done:

Last year, The New York Times adopted a more stringent approach to its treatment of confidential sources, including a provision that the identity of every unidentified source must be known to at least one editor. A committee of the paper's journalists recently recommended that the top editors put in place new editing mechanisms to ensure that current policies are enforced more fully and energetically.

The Washington Post now pushes its reporters to be more assertive with news sources to get them on the record. When it does grant anonymity, an editor has to know the source's identity and the paper tries to explain more fully to the reader the reasoning behind that decision.

At NBC News, which is reviewing its guidelines, reporters and producers are, more than in the past, encouraged to provide the viewer with as much information as possible about the source's location and motivation (a liberal Democratic Congressman rather than a Congressman, for example), said Bill Wheatley, executive vice president of NBC News. "We discourage hiding behind anonymity to carry out an attack," he said.

CBS News, which earlier this year acknowledged that it could not authenticate the documents on which it based a "60 Minutes" Wednesday report on President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, is also reviewing its reporting standards.

One of the more stringent policies was adopted at USA Today last year by Kenneth A. Paulson, who became editor in April 2004, in the wake of revelations that Jack Kelley, one of its star reporters, had fabricated parts of at least 20 articles. All anonymous sources must now be identified to a managing editor, who considers whether the paper should trust the source and whether the news value of the article warrants the practice, Mr. Paulson said.

As a result, the newspaper, through last Thursday, has used 63 anonymous sources this year, a little more than three a week, primarily in national and business articles. Mr. Paulson estimates that the paper has reduced its use of anonymous sources by 75 percent.

The article also mentioned the coming legal battles over a reporter's right to shield an anonymous source's identity and the absence of the federal shield law. Here is what Steve Coll, an associate editor with the WaPo, says about that missing legislation:

"Its effect on journalism is direct and potentially chilling."

But the article ended on a positive note: It said the Bush administration is cutting back on on-background briefings and putting more stuff on the record.