Why not interview someone willing to go on the record that will speculate the IPO value? There are plenty of articles where they interview professional investors with knowledge about such matters who go on the record.
I think journalists typically prefer nameable sources whenever they can find one. They can't always, or those sources have had bad experiences with other journalists and don't want to bother, etc.
Keep in mind that journalism in the US is itself a very underpaid profession that mostly fails to pay a living wage. Journalists work on tight deadlines with minimal support and don't always have the luxury of doing deep investigative reporting. They might only have a few hours to get a story ready, and if no nameable sources are willing to come forward, well, maybe that anonymous one is better than nothing.
Source: anecdotal only, former journalism major, knew writers in the industry.
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Edit: not defending the practice, just saying it happens. Sometimes there are just lazy or plain bad journalists too. I don't know this writer and won't speculate, but in general it's not unusual to cite anonymous sources.
If we want to discourage that practice, it's not something an individual journalist can fix (short of cultivating long term sources). Most sources have no protection, and even real whistleblowers (like Snowden or Reality Winner) who are supposed to have protections are just left hung out to dry. For a source, talking to the media has a lot of risks and almost no upsides.
solardev|2 years ago
Keep in mind that journalism in the US is itself a very underpaid profession that mostly fails to pay a living wage. Journalists work on tight deadlines with minimal support and don't always have the luxury of doing deep investigative reporting. They might only have a few hours to get a story ready, and if no nameable sources are willing to come forward, well, maybe that anonymous one is better than nothing.
Source: anecdotal only, former journalism major, knew writers in the industry.
---
Edit: not defending the practice, just saying it happens. Sometimes there are just lazy or plain bad journalists too. I don't know this writer and won't speculate, but in general it's not unusual to cite anonymous sources.
If we want to discourage that practice, it's not something an individual journalist can fix (short of cultivating long term sources). Most sources have no protection, and even real whistleblowers (like Snowden or Reality Winner) who are supposed to have protections are just left hung out to dry. For a source, talking to the media has a lot of risks and almost no upsides.