Lucy Dalglish, executive director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

I hope many of you caught what Lucy had to say Tuesday night about the use of anonymous sources, a topic we have visited in class.

She said she would never say we don't use too many. Anonymity is always an easy fallback way to get someone to talk to us about uncomfortable issue and blame.

But, she is clearly not among those editors who have outright banned used of unnamed sources. Without them, she said, the public is not going to hear the truth about such matters as intelligence mistakes, back-room budgeting and military matters. There is a place for this journalistic tool.

The difficult part is to determine if there really is no other way to get information from other sources, multiple sources or documents than to put it in the mouth of a person with a hidden identity.