This book is based primarily on hundreds of interviews in Washington, D.C., and Beijing over the past three years with government officials, former government officials, and the outsiders they ask for advice. Covering government officials in the two capitals is different in many ways, reflecting the different political systems. But in one big way it’s similar: officials and other participants rarely are willing to talk candidly on the record.
To get to the truth we had to assure anonymity. Under the ground rules we established, we could use information from the interviews, but we couldn’t say who provided it. Journalists and officials use different terms for this arrangement—usually “deep background” or “off-the-record.” There is no precise meaning for either term. To try to avoid misunderstanding, we explained to those we interviewed that we planned to use the information they provided although we wouldn’t say who revealed the scenes and information we describe.
If we were doing a story for the Wall Street Journal based on these interviews, we would have attributed many of the anecdotes to “people familiar with the events” or to “senior government officials,” depending on who told us what. We dispense with those attributions in this book.
A journalist we both greatly admire, the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, uses a similar arrangement in his many books about Washington. We generally followed that approach but modified it.
Readers rightly complain that it is difficult to judge the authenticity of works of journalism because sources aren’t identified. But, as we say, to get the truth, we often had to agree to anonymity. If sources are identified in Washington, they could lose their jobs or standing. In Beijing, the punishment could be much worse.
There are times, however, when sources will allow themselves to be quoted on the record. Even if those quotes are sometimes anodyne, we think they help readers judge whether to trust the account. When participants in the events agreed to go on the record, we note it by putting the quote in present tense and generally adding a modifier like, “says in an interview.” We also note the interview in the endnotes.
That doesn’t mean that other times the person is cited or quoted in a scene that the person is the source of the information. Rather the material comes from a combination of government officials, former officials, and the people they talk to, sometimes bolstered by contemporaneous notes.
We realize this isn’t a perfect solution. But we hope that the arrangement gives readers additional assurance of our efforts to get the story right.