Althouse: "Was Times ‘Disgusting’ to Grant Anonymity to Al Qaeda Source?"

January 17, 2015

"Was Times ‘Disgusting’ to Grant Anonymity to Al Qaeda Source?"

NYT "public" editor responds to FBI director James B. Comey.

16 comments:

m stone said...: There's another law in the journalism universe: do not use anonymous sources.

If the Times sets the bar at a certain level, another paper will set one at a different level. Who's to say?

The PE should know better.; 1/17/15, 8:32 AM
Sebastian said...: They have been on the other side for a while. Why be surprised now?; 1/17/15, 8:36 AM
chickelit said...: The NYT will coddle and support terrorism six ways to Sunday. The response is not to chide nor rebuke them -- rather, it is to read something else. But for Heaven's sake stop giving them your money and attention unless you too believe in their cause. This will only become clearer over time.; 1/17/15, 8:43 AM
Scott said...: From an earlier article linked in the piece by Margaret Sullivan:

Michael Slackman, the international managing editor for The New York Times, defended the decision to use anonymity.

“The individual quoted anonymously has for several weeks provided accurate insight and information into the thinking and actions of AQAP,” Mr. Slackman said.

Contrast with Sullivan's note:

Here’s a law of the journalism universe: Sources always talk to news outlets for a reason, and that reason is seldom altruistic; it certainly isn’t in this case. That has to be top of mind.

Anonymous sources have ulterior motives. So how can the statement of an anonymous source ever provide "accurate insight and information into the thinking and actions"? It can't be accurate. it can only reflect what they want you to hear. The Times is not providing insight; it's just acting as a cipher for the benefit of some nasty people. Phone-it-in style journalism must be the new norm for the Times.; 1/17/15, 8:46 AM
Big Mike said...: Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: they're hoping that Al Qaeda murders everyone in their newsroom last.; 1/17/15, 8:47 AM
F said...: "All the news that's useful to our readers."

The NYTimes new masthead slogan.; 1/17/15, 8:51 AM
narciso said...: isn't that how you got your job, Jim, for those with understanding,
he complained to the Times, about the terrorist surveillance program, and he hired the Special prosecutor after Libby, even though they already knew Armitage was the leaker,; 1/17/15, 9:03 AM
narciso said...: so one wonders was this Al Rubbaish, 'the poet' that was released from Gitmo, who was their source,; 1/17/15, 9:11 AM
MayBee said...: No, it wasn't. As long as they aren't just publishing propaganda from him.

Comey creeps me out with this kind of criticism and his claims that companies that create unbreakable inscription are pro-pedophile.; 1/17/15, 9:26 AM
narciso said...: I respectfully differ, they get the scoop because they didn't publish the cartoons, likely from one who likely was in the decision tree to endorse the attack; 1/17/15, 9:34 AM
n.n said...: Journolistic privacy. Perhaps stupid but constitutional.; 1/17/15, 11:09 AM
jr565 said...: I don't mind them protecting their source in public if behind the scenes they are helping the NSA get the name so they can start monitoring his every communication.; 1/17/15, 11:41 AM
jr565 said...: At least the Times is also putting this out:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?_r=0

So, um, I guess there were WMD's in Iraq after all? Thanks for telling us that NOW NYT years after the left excoriated Bush for LYING.; 1/17/15, 11:45 AM
jr565 said...: "Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of “wounds that never happened” from “that stuff that didn’t exist.” The public, he said, was misled for a decade. “I love it when I hear, ‘Oh there weren’t any chemical weapons in Iraq,’ ” he said. “There were plenty.”; 1/17/15, 11:47 AM
n.n said...: jr565:

There was WMD before there wasn't. The consensus changed with the election of Bush. Or perhaps with exposure of Clinton's adultery.

Something similar happened when Gosnell's little clinic of horrors destroyed the privacy layers and exposed the abortion industry and Party to public scrutiny. The strategy and tactics to debase human life changed to focus on women's rights (and rites) and a "rape culture".; 1/17/15, 12:33 PM
tim maguire said...: The public editors at the Times have been very uneven, and rarely do they tackle the big issues before penning their final column.

In this case, Sullivan does not challenge Comey's characterization of the al Queda source as clarifying the role of his group in certain murders, so I'll accept it as true. Well, it's hard to see the news value in that; in fact, it sounds exactly like the propaganda that Sullivan insists it isn't.

I'm going to score this for Comey, and another shame point for a New York Times that has been racking up shame points like it's 4:00 am at Walmart on Black Friday.; 1/17/15, 6:13 PM