Anonymous sources out of hand covering Microsoft-Yahoo

Jonathan Berr of BloggingStocks.com writes Monday that the use of anonymous sources in covering the now-dead Microsoft Corp. deal to acquire Yahoo Inc. was too much.

Berr writes, “Investors would be nauseated by the amount of butts that get kissed behind the scenes during these drawn-out sagas. Reporters suck up to companies, public relations people and investment bankers and vice versa. I saw some of this first hand when I worked for Bloomberg and would write about deals from time to time.

“Since the number of people who actually know anything about an acquisition is fairly small, members of the media contort themselves into rhetorical knots to protect the identities of the people who are spilling the beans. That’s why these types of stories are filled with phrases that no one would ever utter in daily conversation such as a ‘person familiar with the situation’ or a ‘person familiar with (insert executive’s or company’s name) thinking’ or my personal favorite ‘a person close to the company.’

“Investors should demand that the media explain something — anything — about why the identities of these sources are being kept secret. The New York Times does a pretty good job of this already, though I was puzzled by a passage in the story by Miguel Helft: ‘People close to Yahoo said that Mr. Yang and his team greeted Microsoft’s decision as a victory. High-fives were exchanged Saturday afternoon when they learned Microsoft was backing down.'”

Read more here.