894. Never say anything to a news reporter that you don't want to see on the front page of your local paper. Comments made "off the record" seldom are.
— Life's Little Instruction Book, Volume II
In works of fiction, the Intrepid Reporter character is often faced with sources that are less-than-willing to divulge their information. Unless they are an Anti-Hero wishing to resort to unconventional tactics, the character is typically at a loss for options. Until, that is, their source mutters three simple words: "off the record". After that, the journalist is typically given some crucial clue or piece of evidence that they can't outright publish but will typically lead them one step further in their hunt for the big story.
The use of this trope is close to Truth in Television, but fiction works tend to treat these three words as a legally binding contract. In Real Life, a journalist's code of ethics, and the code of the agency they work for, typically prevents them from revealing "off the record" sources and information, and any journalist that does reveal their confidential sources or information can easily find themselves without a job. However, those three words don't legally prevent the journalist from revealing anything, and "off the record" information is still commonly published, especially when the information is especially revealing or damaging. In addition, a journalist is usually not considered to be under any obligation unless the "off the record" nature of the talk was agreed to beforehand. If someone says too much and then says "whoops, that was off the record" when he realizes his mistake, a good journalist may reply "I didn't agree to that."
A variant of "Off The Record" is "On Background," where a source and reporter agree in advance that the information may be used provided the source isn't identified. This is why there are stories attributed only to a Senior Government Official or a Senior Official On The Secretary's Plane. There's also "Deep Background" and "Not For Attribution" - but all of these terms except for "On The Record" are not universally agreed on among news outlets, or even necessarily among reporters for the same outlet. As a general guide, the following definitions are from the AP news agency
:
- On The Record: "The information can be used with no caveats, quoting the source by name."
- Off The Record: "The information cannot be used for publication."
- Background: "The information can be published but only under conditions negotiated with the source. Generally, the sources do not want their names published but will agree to a description of their position. AP reporters should object vigorously when a source wants to brief a group of reporters on background and try to persuade the source to put the briefing on the record. These background briefings have become routine in many venues, especially with government officials."
- Deep Background: "The information can be used but without attribution. The source does not want to be identified in any way, even on condition of anonymity."
AP does not define "Not For Attribution", but that might typically be taken to mean, "Quote me exactly, but don't identify who said it."
Expect this trope to pop up predominantly in crime dramas, but may make its appearances any time detectives and/or reporters are involved.
Examples:
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Film
- In All the President's Men, Ben Bradlee gets pretty wound up about the fact that everyone Woodward and Bernstein have interviewed is always on Deep Background or Off-The-Record: "Goddammit, when is somebody going to go on the record in this story? You guys are about to write a story that says the former Attorney General, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook! Just be sure you're right."
- In Godzilla (1998), Audrey Timmonds, who spends the whole film trying to show her chops as an Intrepid Reporter and briefly dips into the pool of Immoral Journalist by stealing classified information about Godzilla from her ex-boyfriend Nick (her boss Charles Caiman then shows he is even more immoral by stealing the credit of the leak from her) tries (quite feebly) to defend herself in the inevitable chewing out by Nick by telling him that he did not asked her to keep it off the record. Nick only gets more upset.
- In John Wick 1, when Jimmy the police officer comes to investigate the noise complaint, he's acting like a police officer. Upon seeing the corpses in John's house, he takes off his officer hat before asking if John is back in business, implying this trope. He then puts his officer hat back as he leaves John to his devices.
- In Thank You for Smoking, Nick Naylor thought most of the information he gave a reporter was in confidence. It wasn't.
- In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, April O'Neil asks the police chief for information about who or what caused the damage in downtown New York, and then uses this phrase. The attempt was unsuccessful; the police chief refused to divulge any information.
Chief: Miss O'Neil, my record, on-the-record, clearly shows that I have no off-the-record record. Make a record of that.
- At the end of The Life of David Gale, after the video proving Gale's innocence is revealed to the public, the female protagonist receives a videotape proving that he framed himself and was part of a conspiracy to undermine capital punishment. Naturally, it's marked "Off The Record". Given an earlier conversation with him in which she promises to keep "off the record" statements off the record, it's implied that this video will never reach the public.
- In Patton, George is fond of making controversial claims to large groups of reporters "off the record".
- Discussed Trope in Yankee Doodle Dandy, in which George Cohan, playing Franklin D. Roosevelt, sings a song called "Off the Record" from the musical I'd Rather Be Right (see Theatre below). The lyrics of the song have FDR dropping all sorts of choice bits of information for reporters, but always finishing with "that's off the record." The play ran in 1937, but the movie, which came out in 1942, subverts the trope with a new verse at the end.
George M. Cohan: I can't forget how Lafayette helped give us our first chance
To win our fight for liberty, and now they've taken France
We'll take it back from Hitler, and put ants in his Japants
And that's FOR the record - In Zig Zag (2002), Detective Hawke interviews fifteen-year-old ZigZag off the record because he doesn't have either permission from a parent or verification that he's eighteen. Later, Hawke tells ZigZag "strictly off the record" that if he puts his face next to the two-way mirror that Mr. Walters uses to spy on his employees, he can look into Walters' office.
Literature
- In Death: Eve Dallas and Nadine Furst use this trope many times. It is a testament to Nadine's integrity that she always adheres to her agreements with Eve and is willing to hold onto sensitive information until Eve gives her the go-ahead to take it public - and it's because Eve knows that she can trust Nadine to do this that she bothers to work with Nadine at all, when normally she has little but scorn for the media. Nadine says at one point that she ought to pay professional stylist Trina a thousand bucks to tattoo the words "Off The Record" on Eve's ass.
- In ''Golden the Ship Was—Oh! Oh! Oh!" by Cordwainer Smith, some Corrupt Politicians are having a meeting. After candidly admitting what bribes they've been taking from an alien power, we have this line.
The chairman turned to the secretary. “Enter the bribes in the record and then mark the record off-the-record.”
- Happens several times in The Millennium Trilogy. The greatest example is when at the end of Dragon Tattoo, Blomkvist decides not to publish anything about what he uncovered about the Vanger family.
- In Arthur Hailey's Overload, a reporter on a bus with the others covering the opening of a power plant asks if there's any booze at the meal the electric company is providing. The public relations flack on the bus asks all the reporters if that item will be off the record, and they all agree. Basically, if the electric company can afford to give reporters free booze, it might look (to the public) like they are spendthrifts when it comes time to ask for a rate increase, so they have to ask the reporters to keep that point about the availability of booze to themselves.
- A beautiful example in Trail of Glory.
Bryant: I was sure deploying militia outside the U.S. was illegal in peacetime?
Shreve: That ain't no militia! Jes' Crittenden's boys!
Bryant: Freebooters, then. Can I quote you to that effect?
Shreve: You sure as Sam Hill can't! If they find out, my life ain't worth spit!
Bryant: Even better! "A knowledgeable local source, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from the butcher Crittenden and his band of renegades, who would stoop to anything to conceal their depredations...." - The Golden Hamster Saga: In Freddy to the Rescue, an automobile factory is scheduled to be built in a wheat field inhabited by endangered field hamsters. The mayor claims there are no hamsters in the field, but when Mr. John and Linda go to interview him, he admits off the record that he's willing to kill a few dozen hamsters in order to create hundreds of jobs.
- Spenser occasionally ends up asking reporters for information about a case he's working on (or they ask him); "this is background, ok?" will sometimes be brought up, especially if Spenser doesn't want immediate word to get back to the person or group he's asking questions about.
- In The Truth, with the newspaper as a recent invention, both William de Worde and the City Watch are figuring this out from first principles, including William asking "Can I write down that you told me not to write that down?"
Live-Action TV
- CSI: This trope makes an appearance in almost every episodes, many times more than once
- Veronica Mars: She is the school's reporter, so much of her information comes in the form of this trope
- Supernatural: Sam and Dean sometimes pose as reporters to gather information about possible cases. Off The Record is an easy way for them to get the cop/victim/coroner/etc. to admit something they wouldn't otherwise say for fear of public humiliation -Which, given some of the strange and demented ways the monsters in the Supernatural Verse kill, isn't all that ridiculous.
- The West Wing makes regular use of this trope, normally in the person of White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg.
- Yes, Minister. After being doorstopped by journalists on the way to Number 10, Bernard tries this after he's already answered their questions, and is smugly told it doesn't work after the event. Hacker tells Bernard off and lists several better ways of fobbing off the Press.
- Torchwood: Children of Earth. The British government is trying to conceal from the rest of the world that they've had prior dealings with 456, so use this quote when asking to speak to the alien privately despite an agreement not to do so without foreign delegates present. This becomes an Ironic Echo when 456 reveals why it wants the children. It then plays a recording of the "off the record" discussion to the rest of the delegates.
- Not criminal related, but in Gilmore Girls, Lorelai runs into trouble with a misunderstanding of "off the record" etiquette. When she gets interviewed about her inn for a travel magazine, she spends most of the interview at ease with the reporter lightheartedly complaining about her mother. When she talks to Rory (who's in school for journalism) after the fact, Rory's mortified because she didn't use the magic words, but Lorelai assures her that none of her jokes will be in the article because they aren't relevant to the topic. Rory convinces her to follow up with the reporter, who reveals that she did in fact (for some reason) work the jokes into the article. Since it's too late to rewrite, Lorelai tells her to pull the article. She doesn't, and Lorelai has to deal with the fallout.
- In Father Ted, after Tod Unctious is exposed as an imposter he asks the police officer arresting him if it's off the record, and when he agrees gives a highly incriminating Motive Rant to Ted. Then the officer tells him that it wasn't off the record, and it'll be used against him.
Theatre
- The musical I'd Rather Be Right had the song "Off The Record," in which President Roosevelt drops many revealing tidbits about himself and his administration, always being careful to add, "Don't print that — it's strictly off the record." (This number was also featured in the Bio Pic Yankee Doodle Dandy.)
Western Animation
- In Central Park, Season 1 "Hat Luncheon", when Paige questions Councilman Leon in the steam room on why he voted against renewing the Park League's contract, he told her the mayor told him to do it and that's off the record. Paige tells him he can't do that, but a lawyer who overheard their conversion points out he's allow to do that and argues that the source was in an altered state because of the steam room.
- Godzilla: The Series, the episode S.C.A.L.E. is done in documentary style where the the title terrorists have their actions filmed. Near the end of the episode, Alexandra Springer, the leader begged Audrey Timmonds to tell the world her world, claiming "The World has a right to know. However, in the end Audrey decided not to tell the story and chooses to instead throw the Tape in the fire, saying there are some stories that are best left untold, as she and Nick watch the tape burn and melt in the fire.
- Lois Lane seemed to ask for "off-the-record" quite a lot in Superman: The Animated Series.
Real Life
- As explained by Officer George Bruch about 12 minutes into this video, when speaking to a police officer, "Off The Record" is like the Unicorn: it does not exist.
- The mistake exists partly because of a misunderstanding of Miranda Rights: everyone has the right to remain silent, and anything they say can be held against them, whether or not they are under arrest at the time.
- Bottom line: "Off the record" applies only to journalists and those in a similar line of work. Nobody else.
- Lawyers in depositions may ask the stenographer at some point to go "off the record", which in this case means "to stop typing down everything that's being said in the back and forth between the parties at the table." Typically, it's seen as a dirty tactic to bury things that one side doesn't want to have come back to bite them at a later deposition or in court, but sometimes—perhaps even more commonly—it’s used to avoid cluttering the transcript with discussions of logistical minutiae or wrangling about how much longer this will take.
- In an example of people treating the phrase as magic words, Elon Musk sent an email to a Buzzfeed reporter in 2018 that started by saying it was "off the record". It fell to the reporter to explain that it is an agreement, and one party can't unilaterally declare the information they're sending all in a single email to be off the record.
- In October of 2025 Lindsey Halligan, at the time serving as an interim US attorney, engaged in an extended text conversation with legal journalist Anna Bower, complaining about her reporting and making accusations that it was biased and inaccurate while declining to ever specify what was wrong. Eventually, as Bower prepared to publish a story on the bizarre exchange, Halligan declared that the whole thing had been off the record. When Bower pointed out that not only had she never agreed to that, but Halligan never asked it to be, Halligan insisted that she did get to retroactively declare it so, and that it should have been obvious it was because their exchange had taken place through self-deleting Signal messages - despite also accusing Bower of not being a journalist, and so not someone required respect an "off the record" comment or know a protocol about such messages automatically being off the record, especially because there isn't one.
- Some places known as journalistic hangouts are either officially or unofficially considered "off the record" zones, where nothing said within the walls is supposed to be repeated outside. This is especially common for press clubs, like the Pen & Pencil Club in Philadelphia.