Reliable Sources

by DemFromCT

Nothing earthshattering here, but as we await another installment of empywheel's excellent series, What Judy Miller did as an embed in Iraq (a.k.a "As The Judy Turns"), I thought I'd provide some background (courtesy of TNR and The Nation) on the reliable anonymous sources Washington uses to fill out their stories. From TNR:

As a service to readers, and in an effort to demystify the anonymous source phenomenon, I asked 15 of the finest Bush White House reporters to help assemble a guide to the secret society of sources close to the White House. Despite the swelling ranks of scttwh ["sources close to the White House"], interviews revealed that there is indeed a core membership that might be called the Usual Suspects: a cadre of lobbyists, congressmen, ex-officials, and other hangers-on who seem to be programmed into every cell phone on the White House beat.

For reporters, they represent Washington's shadow White House, a place filled with slightly more accessible sources armed with dramatically less knowledge.

Charles Black, Ed Gillespie, and company can always be counted on to give a good unbiased story that advances everyone's  understanding of what the WH would think and say if they were honest and straightforward, and only had the time to talk to reporters.  The article does allow you to substitute some names into the stories besides Rove, Libby and their lawyers.  Of course, it's not nearly as newsworthy and serious if you think you're talking to Gillespie, but it's much more entertaining to put their names in there, and allows lazy reporters to appear as if they're doing their job.

Speaking of their job, Frances Cerra Whittlesley writing in The Nation has a few pointed words to say about that.

So now we know for sure. Those "highly placed Bush Administration sources" anonymously quoted over and over again in front-page and cover stories are, in fact, the likes of Karl Rove and Lewis Libby. The Valerie Plame affair has not only outed the chronic propaganda leakers in the Bush Administration; it has also exposed for the public to see the corrupt relationship between the White House and leading members of the national press corps.

Why corrupt? Because one of the first things journalists learn is that their job is to put sources on record, by name. They are warned that sources giving background and off-the-record information may well be floating trial balloons, or worse, pushing propaganda designed to build public support for war or any other part of an administration's agenda. What should we think of reporters who, instead, see their jobs as regularly conveying anonymously the whispers of the people closest to the President of the United States? And how should we judge the news outlets that reward those reporters regularly by placing their "exclusive" stories on their front pages?

Welcome to Judy Miller's Washington world. While there are still some terrific reporters plying their trade today, it's unfortunate that this is the standard we have to measure Judy against.  Want to know why reporters are held in such low esteem by the public there days? Start here and finish with emptywheel.

 

Comments

[Kagro X]

My new favorite entry in the anonymous source sweepstakes is the one that runs, "'Blah, blah, blah,' said a source, who agreed to speak only on condition on anonymity, citing strict confidentiality requirements."

The part of the quote most often dropped? "I don't consider it a violation of my confidentiality agreement for me to talk," said the source. "Just to get caught."

[emptywheel]

The thing that frustrates me is how many people STILL buy what they're getting from these anonymous sources. That is, they don't get that the "source" is actually Rove trying to save his own arse. I mean, c'mon. We were played for patsies getting into the war. Let's not get played again as we try and hold someone accountable for lying us into it.

[Meteor Blades]

I don't disagree, of course, that too many reporters rely too often on anonymous sources who are mere conduits for Administration propaganda, trial balloons, vendettas, disinformation and internal political jockeying. Many "leaks" are, obviously, carefully calculated aspects of the overall campaign to sway public opinion. This Administration seems to have taken all the techniques of previous Administrations and sculpted them into an astonishingly effective tool of persuasive lies. (Persuasive, at least, to many people.)

Good reporters know anonymous sources can be problematic for all the above-stated reasons, take this into account, seek out confirmatory and contradictory sources - both named and anonymous - and seek to exercise good judgment based on their experience as journalists. Bad reporters don't; and, of course, propaganda tools posing a reporters don't.

However, and I'm going to become a broken record on this, the growing attack on the media's use of anonymous sources risks not finding out about important matters. Whether it's at the local government level or the national level, some of the best reporting relies on anonymous sources. Including anonymous government insiders with their own devious agendas. Without them I couldn't have broken stories as varied as corrupt cable TV franchises, nuclear evacuation plans, backroom uranium mill licensing arrangements, toxic spill coverups, criminal contracting, disinformational cancer studies, and a fair amount of illegal nepotism.

Far more important exposés by journalists far more skilled than I have been broken as a result of anonymous sources who usually have a personal agenda - often, an agenda with nefarious elements.

Using anonymous sources is risky and shouldn't be taken lightly. And, as I said, reporters of high integrity do everything in their power to determine if the information delivered by those sources bears any relationship to what is actually going on, whether it furthers the goals of powerful people, whether it operates as diversion or decoy. Nonetheless, anonymous sources are crucial to the operation of a free press - and that remains true even in this age of cowardly and lying media giants.

[emptywheel]

MB,

You and I agree there. What I'm bemoaning is the literacy of people that can't read through anonymous sources skeptically. Swopa had a thread discrediting Roger Morris the other day, and even when I pointed out specific facts that he had clearly gotten wrong, people said, "But his narrative is really compelling."

Well, okay then. So is Bush's narrative compelling. I guess that's the standard now.