(2002-11-12) -- The publisher of The New York Times today announced that the paper will begin adding a "source code" to each story it publishes on paper, or on the internet. The code system will help the reader understand how the story came to be written.

"Walter Cronkite used to end his newscasts on CBS with the phrase: 'And that's the way it is,'" said Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., "But that was a lie. What shows up on TV news or in the paper is a highly-subjective list of stories spawned for a variety of reasons from political to mundane. This new coding system, is just the latest in our ongoing efforts to be transparent and vulnerable with our readers."

Here is initial list of codes which will appear just under each headline to explain how the story came to be:

• RIP= Reporter's Investigative Piece: our reporter came up with this idea, did the research and wrote the story.
  
• SH= Something Happened: Some event took place and we reacted by writing this story.
  
• TB= Trial Balloon: person quoted in story is floating an idea to see how our readers will respond.
  
• SRTRQ= Source Reacts to Reporters Question: source in story was forced to comment on some topic by persistent reporters' questions. Story presented as if source had brought up the subject.
  
• NRE= News Release Edited: story is little more than a PR news release edited to make you think we did some actual journalism.
  
• NRU= News Release Unedited: story is verbatim news release. We don't care what you think.
  
• OFI= Old Friend Idea: a former reporter, now doing PR, planted this story. Reporter 'owed him one'.
  
• SND=Slow News Day: speaks for itself.
  
• WUS= Watch Unnamed Source: Anonymous source in story is same as named source, speaking on "background" (see also TB, above)
  
• DBI= Drinking Buddy Idea: speaks for itself.
  
• TDI=Top Down Idea: someone in corporate headquarters emailed an editor and asked, "When's the last time we did a story on...?"
  
• SI=Stolen Idea: some other news organization just did a piece on this, and we were caught with our pants down. Now, we're trying to appear to be more 'in-depth' than them on the topic.
  
• AI=Astrologer Idea: the paper's 'advisor' said it would be a good day for such a story.
  
• TT=Thesis Theme: story is shorter version of reporter's doctoral thesis, and he can't wait to get that Ph.D. so he can get into academia and teach journalism instead of being faced with the daily grind of cranking out garbage that no one reads.