It sounds more like CIA spies wanted to go poking around in foreign countries, interviewing people and photographing things, which being an NYT reporter allowed them to do.
The newspaper owners, though? The point of a newspaper is to obtain political power, both direct and through favours. The CIA was willing to overthrow a democratic government and replace it with a military dictatorship to help out a banana company - who wouldn't want to be owed favours like that?
That basically takes away a major tool of journalists and allows you to paint whoever you disagree with as wrong simply because they don't wish to go public.
Very, very dangerous way of thinking. Allowing sourcesto stay anonymous is a major tool for journalists.
I'm a daily reader of NYT and I can't count the number of times I see them use it each year. It's become standard practice enough to not be just some edge case to protect people.
It's like how the government classifies everything because it makes their job easier.
Not knowing the person, agency, level of access, etc behind a quote makes it extremely difficult to take seriously. A ton of trust is being put on NYT that it's not just purposefully fed information or gossip.
Or that administration/agency using "anonymous source" nonsense to gatekeep - wanting to reward particular reporters/outlets that 'play by the rules'.
You'll see a reporter ask something at a press conference, and there will be a refusal or non-answer. But then the press secretary pulls aside a few reporters after the press conference and gives them details.
Unfortunately because the press are willing to do this, more and more information simply does not come out through official channels, which means politicians, agencies, administrations, etc have accountability - their reputation simply isn't on the line.
