Editor & Publisher is the trade/industry magazine of North America's print and wire journalism business.
When you see a newsroom employee reading the house copy of E&P, chances are the employee is cruising the Help Wanted ads in the back and is looking for a new job.
This is a somewhat remarkable story. In Washington DC, the press is starving for news, and it's a common practice for federal government officials as elevated as cabinet secretaries to toss the sharks a little red meat -- enough to generate a news story -- but on the strict condition of anonymity.
The problem comes, of course, if the anonymous source doesn't want to help the press inform the American people with authentic, substantive news, but rather wants to use and manipulate the press to disseminate lies or fantasies or hallucinations which will help the anonymous official or the administration spread a particular self-serving political flavor or aroma.
The "Scooter" Libby trial is all about this intimate relationship between the Washington press and senior Bush administration officials who toss hot stuff to pet reporters on this unnamed, unacredited basis. The press gets a red-hot story (often of dubious credibility), and the White House gets what it wants: In this case, revenge against a former Clinton administration official who, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, publicly discredited the factual basis for Bush's claim that Sadaam Hussein was secretly trying to buy fissile uranium for his weapons program from the African nation of Niger.
Libby is accused of anonymously leaking the news tip that the wife of the official who publicly called the Iraq-Niger uranium story a bunch of crap was a covert CIA operative.
In the Vietnam War era, anti-war radical activists were so infuriated with the worldwide activities of the Central Intelligence Agency that they began publicly identifying CIA operatives abroad. One instance of this "outing" may have led to an assassination of a covert CIA operative. Congress quickly made it a federal felony for anyone to "out" the identity of a CIA undercover operative.
Libby isn't charged with this crime, but with lying about these anonymous news tips under oath before a federal grand jury. Libby allegedly manipulated the Washington press corps' feeding frenzy for news from top government sources so the White House could strike back at a public accusation that its pre-Iraq intelligence was knowingly skewed to convince Congress and the American people to support a war against Iraq. Until his perjury indictment, Libby had served as chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney.
Oddly enough, perjury (and not extramarital fellatio) was the accusation at the heart of the Bill Clinton impeachment. Republicans who screamed for Clinton's impeachment repeatedly had to insist that they weren't trying to remove a sitting president for an extramarital sexual affair, but for lying under oath about it.
Agence-Vleeptron Presse wishes to thank a gentleman from a large nation to the north of the United States (don't jump to conclusions, it could be France) for his un-anonymous tip (he used his name) which led to this E&P story about a radio station news director in New Mexico who says:
No More Anonymous
Driveby News Sources.
Driveby News Sources.
Notice how it mirrors Vleeptron's policy:
No More Anonymous Driveby Comments.
(Unless they say flattering things about Vleeptron.)
If there's something corrupt or dangerous or sleazoid about unnamed government sources and the Washington press corps' feeding frenzy, it's the responsibility of the media to put itself on a diet, and demand that government officials who have important news for the American people use their fucking names.
The National Public Radio station KSFR in Santa Fe, New Mexico, just put its news department on a diet. They're fighting back and protecting their listeners, and the integrity and credibility of their news broadcasts, by not biting, unless the red meat has a government official's name on it.
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Editor and Publisher
(trade/industry magazine, USA)
Tuesday 13 February 2007
Radio Station Cries 'Enough'
Won't Quote From Certain News Stories
Relying on Unnamed Officials
by Greg Mitchell
NEW YORK -- After the latest widely-publicized stories in national newspapers about weapons from Iran allegedly killing Americans in Iraq -- based completely on unnamed sources -- at least one smaller news outlet has had enough of it.
The news director of the public radio station in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has directed his staff to "ignore national stories quoting unnamed sources." He also called on other news outlets to join this policy.
Bill Dupuy sent the following to his news staff.
***
Effectively immediately and until further notice, it is the policy of KSFR's news department to ignore and not repeat any wire service or nationally published story about Iran, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia or any other foreign power that quotes an "unnamed" U.S. official.
What we have suspected and talked about at length before is now becoming clear. "High administration officials speaking on the condition of anonymity," "Usually reliable Washington sources," and others of the like were behind the publicity that added credibility to the need to go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Our news department covers local news. But, like local newspapers and others, we occassionally are taken in by national stories that we have no way to verify.
This is a small news department with a small reach. We cannot research these stories ourselves. But we can take steps not to compromise our integrity. We should not dutifully parrot whatever comes out of Washington, on the wire or by whatever means, no matter how intriguing and urgent it sounds, when the source is unnamed.
I am also calling on our colleagues in other local news departments -- broadcast and print -- to take the same professional approach.
***
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor.
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