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Tracing the use of the anonymous source — 9 Comments

  1. In all fairness, I should have listened to the whole presentation last night. I was betting to myself that Iran was probably not even going to be mentioned, or perhaps maybe in passing reference to the effect of ‘ we heard a report a couple of years ago that there was an incident of human rights violation in Iran’….something along those lines. In light of Dan Rather and Newsweek, one would think AI would tidy up a bit. I think they are fueling the fires of ignorance with blanket condemnations based on ‘reports’ the validity and accuracy of which need to be closely examined for once. This sacred cow needs a swift kick in the udder if based on ‘allegations’ America is then condemned for running a gulag.

  2. I’ll agree with you, Esmay.

    I could probably send a news reporter shopping around my academic Department for gossip/innuendo, and urge that reporter to publicly defame a particular member of the Dept.

    Such is probably true in any organization with more than ten members.

    I wonder, what was the prevalence of anonymous sourcing (or opinion as news) in the heydey of yellow journalism? Or was yellow journalism noted for different abuses of new media?

  3. Goesh–Amnesty and I parted ways some time ago, but they can’t take “no” for an answer. See here.

  4. Talking about anonymous sources, I listened for about 10 minutes to an Amnesty International report on human rights last night. Holy cow! In about every other sentence there was a “it is reported” or “allegedly” or “we were informed” thrown our way, as if there could and should be no doubt at all the horror stories were the absolute gospel truth and the whole world should stop, gnash their teeth, wail and rend their garments because of it. Talk about an organization with a political axe to grind. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Milosovich all look like choir boys compared to evil America, at least according to Amnesty International. The White House had countered the slam by saying roughly 50 million people had been liberated by the US from the taliban and saddam hussein.

  5. The blogosphere, by contrast, is a step in the opposite direction, with the real source just a quick of the mouse away in most cases. Honest people like Roger Simon are posting their original documents right there for all to see. Let us all hope that the blogosphere continues to rise at the expense of the arrogant, deceptive, and hateful MSM.

  6. The most pernicious effect of the anonymous source is that it’s very easy to shop around any company, government office, etc. and find some mid-level person who has a vendetta or an axe to grind, puff him up with feelings of importance, and cajole him to say almost anything you want him to say–or just shop for another such flunky.

    Sy Hersh has made an entire career out of this–and is often fawned over as a “real” journalist by people who love him for the sole reason that he tells them everything they want to hear.

  7. I suspect, in a way, TV had something to do with it too. The rush to have a printed story out to meet or beat the nightly news has caused some sloppy and irresponsible journalism.

  8. Since Terry Moran mentioned the other day that much of this is the result of a “hangover from Viet Nam,” I guess a 12-step program would be fitting.

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