Journalists have, in the past, informed me that the ability to out sources who lie to them is their superpower that prevents sources from lying to them. Take that away, and you presumably get more lying sources.
Of course that's a bit undercut by the fact that it's a superpower that is never used, but giving people license to lie with impunity, and having lies granted additional weight through the authority granting "anonymous source" process and then pasted onto the front pages of our nation's most respected newspapers, without any possible negative consequences, doesn't seem like an especially good idea.
And if you have high level sources in government who are attempting to leak lies for partisan purposes, that's actually the important story. "Top NSA (or whatever) staffer attempts to use press to manipulate election results." Kind of a big deal, really. Bring that story to your editor!
