The anonymous ‘heroes’ of the Resistance (the news media and their "anonymous" sources)

Washington Times ^ | May 17, 2017

[lowbridge]

Anonymous sources may not always be reliable, but they’re always convenient. More than that, anonymous accounts are usually made of putty, soft and easily shaped. Not only that, an anonymous source never claims he was misquoted. He never demands a correction or a retraction. The Washington Post, which deals in anonymous sources for many of its blockbuster disclosures, is particularly skilled at working with anonymous sources, and gets more out of them than almost any other newspaper.

Bob Woodward, of Woodward and Bernstein fame, once based a blockbuster on an interview with a man in a deep coma, and at the point of death. He wasn’t actually anonymous, but he never disputed anything in Mr. Woodward’s version of their “conversation.”

The Post put Washington into one of its periodic fits of hysteria this week with a disclosure — a suggestion, actually — that President Trump shared the nation’s most valuable intelligence secrets with the Russians in an Oval Office conversation with the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador. The Post’s source was an anonymous tipster who was actually not there. He, whoever (and if) he was, certainly hasn’t and surely won’t dispute any of the particulars of The Post’s big scoop.

H.R. McMaster, the president’s National Security Adviser, says The Post’s story is a bunch of hooey, that nothing like that happened and that the president’s conversation with the Russians was “wholly appropriate,” that “at no time, no time, were intelligence or intelligence or methods discussed.” But Mr. McMaster’s version cannot be credited because he was actually in the room during the meeting. The Post’s anonymous source is regarded by the press claque as credible because he was not in the room.

[lowbridge]

"The Post’s anonymous source is regarded by the press claque as credible because he was not in the room."

Hmmmm. I wasnt in the room either.

[DoughtyOne]

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[Vehmgericht]

Harry Reid’s anonymous sources are not credible. If you depend on them you lose your credibility. The only people who believe the Post are those that want to believe. The really know it is bs.

[Kid Shelleen]

I give the Post’s anonymous sources about as much credibility as the local high school “Mean Girls”.