[crocodiletears]

They are, and some of the greatest journalists alive, such as Sy Hersh have built their very respectable careers on anonymous tips and having privileged information from those they can never cite.

That being said, it's important to be exceedingly leery of them, and use them sparingly, preferably as supporting evidence for a larger story. Lacking the same degree of accountability, they just as easily can be used to launder political narratives to sympathetic journalists who will breathlessly parrot them as they can be used to inform the public of goings-on behind the curtains of corporation and state.

Used too lightly as the primary crux of nearly inconsequential stories which hammer in too small a number of talking points, 'anonymous x familiar with y' can quickly become shorthand for 'this journalist/publication is in bed with a subfaction, and this is the new talking point'.

[slg]

Anonymous sources are a tool that is neither inherently good or bad. You singled them out in your previous comment as being linked to untrustworthy reporting.

[refurb]

That’s because anonymous sources been particularly abused in the past few years - reporters taking a source at their word while doing a minimum of verification.