The routine falsity of anonymous sourced reporting
Great column by Glenn Greenwald about how unnamed sourcing often turns out to be wrong:
Aside from falsity — and the fact that they become irreversibly lodged in our political culture as fact — what do all of these deceitful reports have in common? They’re all the by-product of granting anonymity to people and then repeating what they claim as fact, with the falsehood-disseminators protected by “journalists” from any and all accountability for their falsehoods. It’s exactly the same process that caused our leading media outlets to tell Americans about Iraq’s massive WMD program and Al Qaeda connections; Jessica Lynch’s heroic firefight with inhumane Iraqi devils and her “rescue” by our Marines; Pat Tillman’s death at the hands of Al Qaeda monsters; and government tests that “confirmed” the presence of bentonite in the anthrax used to attack the U.S., which meant it was likely that Saddam was behind the attacks.
Unjustified anonymity — especially when mindlessly repeating what shielded government sources claim in secret — is the single greatest enabler of false and deceitful “reporting.” Despite (or, really, because of) its unparalelled record of producing lies, it will never stop, because agreeing to it is how “journalists” end up being selected as favored message-carrying servants for the powerful. This falsehood-producing method isn’t ancillary to American journalism but central to it; the book which is occupying the attention of America’s political and media class is based exclusively on unattributed, shielded sources, and that seems to bother none of them.
The problem is determining when anonymity is justified or unjustified. Every journalist thinks his anonymously sourced report is totally justified — but clearly they can’t all be.
No surprises in “The Tillman Story” for those who have closely followed the Tillman story over the past five years.
If you would like to learn more, I believe the single best short introduction to the Tillman story is Gary Smith’s Sports Illustrated’s (9-11-06) cover story “Remember My Name.” I’ve placed a link to that article in my document “Remember the Iconoclast, Not the Icon” at http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com
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In his book, “Where Men Win Glory,” Jon Krakauer blamed the Bush administration and the Army for the whitewash of Pat Tillman’s death. However, the cover-up has actually been a thoroughly bi-partisan affair.
In particular, the Democratic Congress and the Obama Presidency have protected General Stanley McChrystal from scrutiny and punishment for his central role in the handling of the aftermath of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death.
If you would like to learn more, I’ve posted several detailed documents to the Feral Firefighter blog that focus especially on the actions taken to protect General Stanley McChrystal from punishment for his role in the cover-up by Congressman Henry Waxman, Senator James Webb (along with Senators Carl Levin and John McCain), the New York Times Pentagon Reporter Thom Shanker, and the Washington think-tank Center for a New American Security’s (CNAS) Andrew Exum.
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And,the binder “Battle for the Truth” discusses the parallels between Pat Tillman and Jonathan (Yoni) Netanyahu who died at the Raid on Entebbe in 1976.