US Presidential hopeful, John McCain suffered many arrows this week as allegations in a story written about him were published in the New York Times. Apparently, Mr McCain had been involved in an affair with a lobbyist 21 years his junior. Whether or not these allegations are true all I can say is good work champ. Old Johnny didn’t spend all those years in a Vietnamese war prison just so he could come home and keep his pants on!

But on a serious note, Mr McCain is being forced to fight a battle against the ghost of the unnamed or inside source. This ‘source’ could be someone he worked with, who had honourable intentions and felt they have a duty of care to let the people of America know that their perspective president is an adulterer. Or this ‘source’ could be an angry former employee who felt that Mr McCain was not very nice to them and didn’t thank them enough when they brought him coffee in the mornings, so they decided to make up a story about him to try and destroy his political aspirations.

The decision on whether this ‘source’ is telling the truth lies in the hands of the journalist reporting it. That is quite a deal of responsibility no?

Picture this, you’re a struggling young journalist at a big paper and all you seem to get given are police station openings to cover. You are in a rut, your stories are not being well received and your editor is riding you like a plastic pony on a merry-go-round. What would you do if some half credible former McCain assistant calls you with some interesting ‘information’? Would it be totally out of order for you to take a few liberties and chances with this source / story to keep the wolves from the door?

It just seems so easy for someone’s name to be smeared publicly when the proof of the allegations are that of an unnamed source. I guess I am happy for an unnamed source to dob in some big faceless corporation for poisoning our drinking water and protect themselves with the ‘unnamed’ identity. But where should the line be drawn? Another grey area for those engineers amongst you to ponder.