Anonymous Sources, Slippery Slopes.

Charles G. Bakaly 3d, the spokesman for Mr. Starr, declined to discuss the matter. "We will not discuss the plans of this office or the plans of the grand jury in any way, shape, or form," he said.

These two declarative sentences appeared in a page-one exclusive by Don Van Natta Jr.

in The New York Times on January 31. The story arrived at the height of the Senate impeachment trial and created a stir. It said that Kenneth Starr had concluded that he "has the constitutional authority to seek a grand jury indictment of President Clinton before he leaves the White House." This was attributed to "several" sources, none of them, apparently, Charles G. Bakaly III.

On March 12 came another story, this one widely covered: Bakaly abruptly resigned and hired a lawyer as Starr turned over to the Justice Department results of an internal investigation into the leak of that January 31 Times story. As the Times itself put it, "there was no doubt that Mr. Bakaly's departure and the unauthorized disclosures were linked."

What gives?

On one level, this situation is murky. The independent counsel has been under investigation by federal judge Norma Holloway Johnson about possible leaks related to grand jury investigations, and why he might toss Bakaly off the sled on this non-grand-jury story is hard to say.

From a narrower, journalistic angle, however, two possibilities present themselves. Either Bakaly did not leak, just as he asserted via Van Natta. Or he did, and persuaded the newspaper of record to falsely quote him saying he didn't.

Exactly what happened can't be known without more information, which may never arrive. (Van Natta's bureau chief, Michael Oreskes, says he can't discuss "who the source was or who it wasn't." He also says that the use of a false no-comment would violate Times standards. He has yet to hear from Justice.) But the incident serves as a departure point for thinking about how we bargain with our anonymous sources.

Not long ago at The Philadelphia Inquirer, reporters and editors engaged in a yearlong series of flank, small-group conversations about fairness and accuracy. Editors were surprised to hear one of their columnists describe how she had put into a story that X had no comment when, in fact, X was a source. "She didn't see anything wrong with it," says Gene Foreman, former managing editor, now teaching at Penn State. Some Inquirer sportswriters admitted using deceptive I.D.s for their sources. Such practices were strongly discouraged. "I get quite exercised about it," Foreman says.