A Times dispatch from Ramallah about the swearing in of a new Palestinian Authority government includes the following paragraph:
"Same thing, just different faces," scoffed a 47-year-old shawarma seller in Ramallah who gave his name only as Ibrahim.
Times reporters and editors had several options here. They could have interviewed more shwarma sellers until they were able to find one willing to be quoted by name. They could have killed the paragraph and run the article without it. Or they could have published the article as is, with the anonymous quote, which violates the newspaper's stated policy on anonymous sources. Looks like it's time for another edition of the Times public editor's anonymous source watch.