About a month ago, I was on a three-day cruise in the Caribbean and pretty much cut off from the Internet, newspapers, television and radio.

That was the same weekend news broke on the Bruce Ivins anthrax story.

The first I heard of it was when I got back and my buddy told me there was some news in Frederick .

He's known for his understatements.

Here I am, working as one of the editors of a mid-size newspaper in Maryland and one of the biggest national stories drops right in our hometown.

And I missed it.

While I was on vacation, my friends and family back home were laying down bets as to whether I would be ticked that I wasn't here for it, or glad to miss all the craziness.

Honestly, it's a little of both.

There's really nothing like the adrenaline rush that comes when a big story breaks and you get to mix it up with the metro newspapers.

On the other hand, when I returned and told my colleagues I was a little tired because of all the sun and a few too many pina coladas, they didn't offer much sympathy.

I guess they had a few long nights of their own.

As I began back-reading our coverage to get caught up, I was incredibly proud of everyone who worked on the stories. While we got beat on some things, we had our fair share of scoops, and from what I understand, it was a team effort.

One aspect of the coverage that we are particularly proud of is that we didn't use a single unnamed source, as many of the larger papers did.

The oft-quoted "sources close to the investigation" was a common sight.

This actually highlights one of the frustrations with our coverage. We don't have well-placed anonymous sources at the FBI or Department of Justice.

Not that we would use them anyway. The Frederick News-Post has a strict policy to not use anonymous sources unless there's absolutely no other way to get at a story. And even then, our reporters need to get approval before doing so.

The idea behind not using anonymous sources is that we understand the media have a credibility problem with news consumers. That's why every measure is taken to have sources be accountable for the information they provide and, in turn, have us be accountable for who we get information from.

If we quoted anonymous sources as a habit, that would only diminish credibility. And we're trying to do the opposite.

Even in our recent seven-part series on domestic violence, in which finding people willing to talk about a sensitive subject was difficult, we didn't use a single anonymous source.

That's OK. There are other ways to skin a cat. We're using the Freedom of Information Act and pursuing other leads to get at this story.

We are not stopping.

Just because the story has subsided nationally in favor of veep nominees and tropical storms that may or may not turn out to be hurricanes, that doesn't mean our work on Ivins is done.

This story has too many questions, too many threads to pull on, and who knows where they lead.

There are already countless conspiracy theories about Ivins and more come each day. Some are far-fetched, but others are worth checking into.

For The Frederick News-Post, unraveling the Ivins mystery will be a marathon, not a sprint. And you'll know just where we obtained every bit of information.

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