United States | News & Politics

1922 readers

940 users here now

Welcome to [email protected], where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.

If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.

Rules

Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.

Post anything related to the United States.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

379

The Army says on the record that Trump campaign staff assaulted a civilian Army employee at Arlington (www.npr.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Uhg. No. Well, yes in the most literal sense: if it is recorded there is a record of it, BUT if you ask a journalist to keep something off the record and they agree, then whatever you then disclose is usually not published of otherwise made public. See: journalists like having good relationships with their sources and if the journalist gets a reputation for saying something is off the record and then writing about it, people stop talking to them. OTH, if a journalist happens to see something heinous, you probably won't be able to retroactively get them to let it slide -- but in that case the journalist isn't betraying a trust.

TLDR; You can't force a journalist keep something off the record, but if you ask in advance, they might agree.