Confidential Sources in Journalism

Why do journalists embrace the belief that confidential sources should be protected? Do you agree? Journalists embrace the belief that confidential sources should be protected because they heavily rely on information from these sources to cover their stories. I agree that they should be protected to a certain extent. If the story can be proven true based on the facts connected to the report, then the sources should be allowed to remain anonymous. Sometimes it may be necessary to reveal how certain pieces of information were obtained, especially if there are certain doubts related to the evidence. However, journalist should be able to prove that their story contains factual information without given up their sources identity.