When Cowardly Journalists Abuse Anonymous Sourcing |
Journalists love to proclaim that they bring transparency to democracy, but it's far too often the exact opposite. They try to run our democracy by exploiting anonymous sources.
So when Trump is president, "senior administration officials" say "he's coming seriously unglued." When Biden was president, "senior administration officials" said, "he's quite lucid in private meetings." Journalists use anonymous sources to underline and reinforce the narrative they're selling.
But this abusive manipulation is most ridiculous when it's journalists quoting other journalists anonymously. Brian Stelter wrote entire books about Fox News with heavy doses of anonymous Foxers. It's a similar formula to politics: sling mud at people you don't like, with zero damage to your career, or even benefit your career.
After the firing of Scott Pelley, Stelter anonymously quoted someone channeling Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss: "It's also about ensuring that '60 Minutes' — and its DNA of hard-hitting interviews, probing........