In 2020, with the sports media industrial complex at large constantly handing out anonymity like its Halloween candy to agents and team executives looking to push their chosen narrative at the back end of a scoop tweet, the constant veil of secrecy without accountability has created an environment where some content consumers have been conditioned to see a person who won’t put their name to something as more credible than someone saying the same thing in broad daylight.
This is true in all forms of media, but especially in sports, something I’ve been thinking about a lot since my friend Basquiatball pointed it out anonymously on Twitter this morning:
I feel like we on this platform tend to grant more authority to "Anonymous [Job Title]" than we would to those same sources if they were identified, which is pretty backwards
— Contrarian Stentorian (@basquiatball) December 11, 2020
But jokes aside, this is a reality that I was also struck by while reading a story from Sam Amick of The Athletic this morning, in which anonymous personnel from around the league were given a large platform to share their opinions on the Lakers’ and Clippers’ offseasons without having their names attached.