>That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles

Are they just making up these "normal journalistic principles"? I see different newspapers publishing quotes anonymously under similar conditions all the time.

The author explains it in the next sentence.

> It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable.

In general, you can spot this kind of propaganda by realizing that the anonymous source is actually promoting the government's position and so isn't actually in danger. I.E. they aren't a whistleblower, they have no reason to fear repercussions.

Wouldn't there be repercussions for discussing an ongoing investigation with a journalist?

Not if people higher in the agency the employee works with are aware of the contact and have blessed it as a useful conduit to establish a narrative.

They are obviously allowed to discuss certain aspects, "We have a suspect," "We have our best detective, Sherlock Holmes, working on the case," "Here is a photograph of our suspect, please contact us if you have any information regarding the suspect."

Then there are other aspects that they would be prohibited from sharing in some legal jurisdictions, that hinge on privacy law (divulging sensitive but irrelevant details regarding the suspects alibi that they learned by interviewing the suspect) or on affecting potential jury members.

Instead they use the idea that they aren't allowed to share any information to just avoid answering questions.

You’re so close to completing the thought

Yes, most newspapers are publishing anonymous quotes from government officials without scrutiny; quotes that are later found to have been completely bogus.

We live in an age of constant memetic warfare and a majority of our content distribution channels have been compromised.

Also seems to be the first time NYT has used that form of words according to Google

`site:nytimes.com “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”` has no earlier results

Other outlets have used “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation” before though.

`site:nytimes.com “anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation"` shows more than one hit.

Just in a cursory check into some of the other articles using the phrase, it seems like they're mostly cases where an investigator might encounter retaliation for speaking out. It's hard to imagine that happening for the present example.

Usually it's not allowed for people involved in an ongoing investigation to talk about said investigation. Maybe the US is different.

The wording I often see is along the lines of "a source who was not authorised to discuss the case publicly".

That's a long enough phrase to be unique. Journalists often agree to speak to all kinds of sources "on condition of anonymity". Even if you just don't want to be sued by your employer you might not be comfortable being named.

Overall I found the substack author to tell a good story and speak with what seems to be relevant technical experience so I reposted the link that I saw in another hn thread as a separate story, but as other commentors have pointed out it's possible that both he and the original journalist are hyping up conspiracies in both directions (compromised press vs state actor hackers) and actually the truth is often a more boring mid ground (Journalists hyping up stories and shady people doing shady things)