As a former reporter I have always been interested in the difference between the sourcing terms “off the record,” “on background,” and the ever-unclear, “deep background.” As I understand it, there are no hard-and-fast rules or definitions of these terms, and reporters in the States are supposed to clarify how they are going to refer to a source on a case-by-case basis.
Wouldn’t you know, in Germany there are more strictly defined and numbered categories for these things. I ran across the term “unter drei” (under three) in an email, and was interested to discover the following system:
- “under 1″: interviewee may be quoted by name
- “under 2″: the interviewee may be cited, but not by name; rather with a term such as “a member of the Board” or “from a reliable source”
- “under 3″: the information may not be published, and is only to be used as “background info” for the journalist.
I doubt this system is any clearer in practice than the American one, but it at least sounds more organized.
