openknot

From The New Yorker [0]:

"The story was sourced to “two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.” However, once it was published, other federal officials spoke up. Mueller’s office released a rare public statement, saying that “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate.” BuzzFeed, and its editor, Ben Smith, have stood by the story."

[...]

"I recently spoke by phone with Leopold about his reporting of this story and his other work on the Trump-Russia affair. Leopold, who was previously at Vice News, is considered an expert at using Freedom of Information Act requests and was part of a team of BuzzFeed reporters who were Pulitzer Prize finalists in 2018. He has also been the subject of controversy. In 2002, Salon removed an article from its Web site after Leopold was accused of inaccuracy and plagiarism. Four years later, he incorrectly reported that Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, had been indicted in the investigation into the outing of the C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame. (Leopold was open about past substance abuse and mental health issues in a 2006 memoir, “News Junkie.”)"

I still respect the outlet's FIFA story, but BuzzFeed News remained a step below mainstream outlets with investigations like The Washington Post.

In general, you're right about the principle of keeping sources anonymous to avoid harm. One principle in journalism ethics [2] is to "identify sources clearly" so the public can better understand a source's motives. But the other is to minimize harm ("Balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort.") to both the sources and the public, motivating anonymity in certain cases.

However, in this instance, Weiner didn't name the informant in the article.

In the military, one of the values is supposed to be integrity. The value of integrity isn't just idealistic: it's pragmatically important to military strategy to avoid committing war crimes, as it lessens public support for the military action among the citizenry. The public can then vote out the administration, where a future one can scale back the war effort. As evidence this is a value, the Navy SEALs in particular says [0]: "Uncompromising integrity is my standard. My character and honor are steadfast. My word is my bond."

On the health risk to recruits, from the NYTimes article : "It is hard to say what role performance-enhancing drugs played in one death when there are so many other complicating factors, said Dr. Matthew Fedoruk, the chief science officer of the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Even so, he said, the chemicals some sailors are relying on can interfere with the function of the heart, liver and other critical organs that are already under incredible stress from the brutal training.

"If enough people in a community are doping, he said, it spreads risk even to those who are clean, as the level of competition rises and more people are pushed to exhaustion and injury.

"“It makes it that much harder for the people doing the right thing to shine,” he said."

The military can either allow performance-enhancing drugs for all and provide adequate medical monitoring to avoid unnecessary deaths, or enforce the rules as written and test for it. Unnecessary deaths are in no one's interests within the country.

McKinsey separately reported that there has since been another boom in the biotech sector in the 2020s [1].