I never could find out if a reporter has to share info with her bosses. Did Watkins give the info to the NYT ?
If so, everything the NYT has written about any of this are pretty much lies.
Generally no, but sometimes yes on a case-by-case basis.
The institution protects leakers by allowing the reporter to shield them from everybody. There are plenty of cases of reporters getting away with making things up out of whole cloth, so one would think that at least usually, the bosses are ignorant of the non-existence of the sources. Typically a sob-story with made up victim. See the movie "Meet John Doe."
Based on Q posts 1807 the spiderweb images of the multiple levels of communication between the fbi and the media, post 1808 listing the WikiLeaks info of reporters that were collaborating with the Hillary campaign, and the recent white house meeting with Trump and the NY times
Trump tweeted that the two discussed “the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, “Enemy of the People.” Sad!”
and Q post 1822
[Fake News]
Fake News collaborating and pushing knowingly false information?
Fake News ‘KNOWINGLY FALSE’ narrative pushes.
I have no doubt we should be hearing more about this shortly.