Integrity

Reading the newspaper today, I came across this statement about White House negotiations on the bailout deal: "... said people from both parties who were briefed on the exchange. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the session was private."

Recently I read a similar statement, saying that a source wouldn't reveal his or her name because he or she was "not authorized to speak publicly."

These sort of things are all over in the news. We get a fair amount of news from anonymous sources. Journalists debate the use of anonymous sources, but their concerns center around credibility and reliability.

To me, this practice raises bigger questions about integrity. What does it do to our society to have people in powerful government positions compromising their integrity: revealing things that were presumed to be private, speaking when they are not authorized to speak, etc.? And then their breach of integrity is broadcast in the news when we report the information they shared and we explain why we can't quote them. Now everyone knows that there is someone in this realm of government who is not entirely trustworthy--in the truest sense of that word. They are not worthy of the trust placed in them. How does that affect our society's trust in government? How does it affect our children, to whom we try to teach integrity? How does it affect the behavior of society at large? If people in those sorts of positions are violating trust, maybe it's not that big of a deal. What is the ripple effect of a simple breach of confidence on the moral fabric of our society?

On the flip side of this, the same story included an AP photo of those who were in that White House meeting (see link). As I looked at the picture, I noted the coffee/tea cups in front of the various people sitting there at the table and I thought about all those people drinking their coffee/tea while they talked. But then I noticed that the cup in front of Harry Reid looked different. Look closely. It's upside down. There's our Mormon in high places--holding true to the principles of his belief. Very cool.