"[W]hat bothers me," wrote Christian Kerr in yesterday's Australian in regards to the outing of Grog's Gamut author, Greg Jericho, "is that someone seriously expected they could stay anonymous online in this day and age."

Clearly, Kerr reads a different internet to the average reader. Or there's a mysterious social order he's aware of that bloggers, public servants and citizen journalists are not permitted entry to, because there's a profusion of anonymity in today's journalism, both online and in print.

Despite the heated exchanges occurring between readers and journalists divided by the uncovering, the anonymity argument, as applied to the Jericho situation, is a misdirection - and thoroughly irrelevant. It does, however, throw up questions surrounding journalism, ethics and the protection of sources. The thing about anonymity in today's online world is that some people deserve it, and other people - PR companies, the military, government departments - routinely get it. This is the crux of the argument about anonymity and why it matters.

Number 3 on the Australian Media Alliance Code of Ethics for members reads:

Where a source seeks anonymity, do not agree without first considering the source's motives and any alternative attributable source. Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances.

Margaret Simons elaborated on this on Crikey yesterday:

Journalists who agree to keep a source confidential are, for reasons of perceived public interest, agreeing to compromise their core commitment to "disclose all relevant facts". They do so in the interests of being able to bring otherwise secret facts to light.

One group that deserves anonymity is whistleblowers. Think Bradley Manning , think Andrew Wilkie : people who tried to instigate organisational or institutional change but were met with resistance and bureaucracy. Bradley Manning tried to stop two long-running wars by exposing numerous possible war crimes in the hopes that this would sway US policy. In a similar vein, Andrew Wilkie tried to influence Australia's participation in Iraq by questioning the security risk the country posed and the existence of WMDs.

Luckily for Wilkie, his convictions won out and he now sits in parliament. Unluckily for Manning, his convictions have led to a military trial and a potential sentence of 52 years. Unfortunately for both Manning and Wilkie, the intelligence they risked their lives for had very little impact on either war effort.

In 2005, Professor Brian Martin wrote of the fate of the average Australian whistleblower:

Although whistleblowers are extremely valuable to society, most of them suffer enormously for their efforts. Ostracism, harassment, slander, reprimands, referral to psychiatrists, demotion, dismissal and blacklisting are among the common methods used to attack whistleblowers. Bosses are the usual attackers with co-workers sometimes joining in...

Even worse than this, though, few whistleblowers seem to bring about any change in the problem they speak out about. The treatment of whistleblowers is a double disaster for society: capable and courageous individuals are attacked and sometimes destroyed, while the original problems are left to fester.

Compare the consequences of the anonymity of a whistleblower like Manning to that of a White House press secretary, say the enigmatic Tommy Vietor. Immediately following the release of the Afghanistan War Logs, Vietor circulated an email to White House reporters - a weaselly list of 'reporting tacks' journalists might want to take on the logs. I posted the email on the Overland site , courtesy of the NYT.

Within an hour, Vietor's name had been redacted from all other online sites covering the story, and he became a faceless, nameless 'White House official'. Although the granting of anonymity to Vietor was odd, it could be deemed understandable as he was speaking on behalf of the White House.

Here are some more recent examples of a similar phenomenon:

The Herald Sun:

Military sources familiar with the February 2009 night raid believe the two reservists may be facing charges because they were "too truthful" in the post-battle debriefing.

SBS news (originally AFP):

A covert American drone campaign has this month ramped up attacks on Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in the region as part of efforts to bring an end to a nine-year war in Afghanistan so that US troops can return home.

Fateh, whom the intelligence officials said was also killed in North Waziristan, is relatively unknown and his name - a likely nom de guerre - does not feature on the US list of most-wanted terrorists...

But security analysts said that any killing of a senior Al-Qaeda operative would be a victory for the US campaign.

Wall Street Journal:

The exact nature of the plot or plots couldn't be learned immediately, and counterterrorism officials in the US, Pakistan and Europe are continuing to investigate. There have, however, been multiple terror warnings in recent days in France, Germany and the UK.

"There are some pretty notable threat streams," said one US military official, who added that the significance of these threats is still being discussed among counterterrorism officials but that threats of this height are unusual.

The same story in the Age (originally AFP):

Intelligence agencies have disrupted an Al-Qaeda-linked plot to launch terrorist attacks in Britain, France and Germany similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, reports said.

Militants based in Pakistan had been planning simultaneous strikes in London and major cities in France and Germany, Britain's Sky News television reported, citing intelligence sources...

When investigators discovered the plot, the US military began helping its European allies track down the organisers in Pakistan, which explains the recent increase in drone attacks in the country, said Sky.

We've heard the stats before. Crikey ran a joint investigation with the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism earlier this year, Spinning the media , that found almost 55 per cent of stories were driven by public relations:

Our investigation strongly confirms that journalism in Australia today is heavily influenced by commercial interests selling a product, and constrained and blocked by politicians, police and others who control the media message.

What happens when a journalist gives a PR source from the corporate sector or the military anonymity? Firstly, the journalist deceives the reader. The relationship between the source and the story has not been provided, or it has, but in a very generalised way that leads the reader to trust the source. Perhaps if the reader was aware of the connection between the source and the story, they would judge the journalism differently. More importantly, if one of these anonymous sources is used, how can the information they present be validated?

The truth is most current anonymous sources do not deserve anonymity. News should not rely on journalists and public relations profiting - a situation where the journalist gets the story, the PR department gets the business, but we, the reader, never get the truth. Why would a journalist give anonymity to a source when they know it's an attempt to manipulate the public's point of view and protect the status quo?

Jacinda Woodhead is a Melbourne writer and Overland associate editor. She blogs about politics and literature at Overland, and reading, writing and technology at Meanland.