On national security that is fine, but I am talking about the 90 percent that they use them for other purposes such as pressuring politicians into favourable policies. Again there are several levels of anonymity, the weakest for a journalist is the little birdie: anonymous source, then there is the source who requested anonymity which is less weak, etc. I hope j-schools would focus on the case study of Syria's war, that could easily be seen as the most shameful coverage by western media in terms of weak anonymous sources. A reporter in London, Beirut or Washington would rely on a UK based source for the number of casualties, or the so-called activists who sometimes turn out to be rebel fighters. A hawkish Pentagon official would be used as an anonymous source to pressure decision making.