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Leadpenny, I take your point. I should not paint the media with a broad brush. However, I still believe that the practice of citing unverifiable sources is sloppy journalism, especially in cases like this. If he cannot provide the source, he should leave it out. But in this case, if he had left out all his unverifiable sources, he would have no story. What does that tell you? It tells me that he very likely saw the desire for a hot story as more valuable than the integrity of an ongoing investigation- or the defense of the accused servicemen.

I don't care if he cited a hundred sources close to the investigation "who spoke on condition of anonymity." If he cannot or will not verify the sources, he might just as well have made them up. We have no way of knowing otherwise, do we?

Here's another question: How long would a reporter, especially an embedded reporter, keep any sources in a command if he/she were to violate a non-attribution agreement?

They'd be hung out to dry and the home office would have to bring them home. Not good job security or something they'd want on their resume.