The Verge announced this morning that they are cracking down on their allowance of "on background" interviews, and I 100% support and applaud their efforts.
As context for the non-journalists, when a source gives you information "on background," it means the information can be used in the story, but the information cannot be attributed to anyone personally or linked to any personal identifier, often leading to vague source descriptions like "someone familiar with the matter," even when that "someone" was the company's head of PR. That being said, ask ten different journalists what exactly "on background" means, and you'll likely get eleven different responses.
In general, the standard was created to provide some grey area between an "on the record" interview and an "off the record" interview since working with corporate America PR teams often requires compromises of some sort. However, based on the examples cited in The Verge's piece, Big Tech is clearly using this way of qualifying an interview as a liability shield where companies effectively believe any information they deliver on background cannot come back to directly harm them.
This is both utterly ridiculous and dangerous. If Facebook (mhm..."Meta") has taught us anything in the last three months, it is that our country suffers from a debilitating lack of corporate accountability, and stifling the press's muscle to effectively hold corporations accountable is only exacerbating this problem. You can't expect Big Tech to make any significant changes when the government is consistently punting the problem of regulation, and the press cannot get an attributed quote from any of Facebook's small continent of PR employees. Our country's two favorite business buzzkills — the government and the press — are both handcuffed.
Not many outlets covering Big Tech would have the influence to lead such a change, but I think The Verge might genuinely have that sway. I'm hopeful that The Verge's decision will compel other outlets to adopt similar policies, and the press's leverage in holding these companies accountable will be at least slightly stronger given PR teams can no longer hide behind a clock of "on background." But at the end of the day, the balance of power here in controlling the narraitve is still heavily in the favor of Big Tech. Some people will likely read about the new Verge policies on Facebook, and that reeks of irony.
But this is a step forward at least.
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