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There weren't anonymous leaks regarding the propaganda campaign the NYT had for the Iraq war. That all came from Ahmed Chalabi, who had ties with officials at

by fein 8y ago

There weren't anonymous leaks regarding the propaganda campaign the NYT had for the Iraq war. That all came from Ahmed Chalabi, who had ties with officials at the Pentagon. The guy was a swamp creature.

wahern 8y ago
They didn't all come from Chalabi. But in any event, I actually met the man as an intern at a K Street national security policy think tank. Chalabi was the darling of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other neocons in the administration. To the extent Chalabi was the source, much of it was originally laundered through the administration (particularly Cheney's office) as anonymous leaks.
- fein 8y ago
  Correct, most of the DOD stuff was from 'curveball'. > laundered through the administration (particularly Cheney's office) as anonymous leaks. Aside from the fact that Judith Miller knew who she was getting her data from, doesn't this prove my point about anonymous sources being bullshit? The example you just gave was state sponsored propaganda 'leaked' to the NYT in order to sell the public on a pointless war. Had the public been made savvy who the sources were, we probably would not have had any sort of approval on the war. None the less, that doesn't change what is going on here. Journalists can editorialize any topic they would like and face no repercussions because the sources are anonymous and corroboration is impossible. There is no risk to printing lies when the get out of jail free card is effectively a non verifiable entity.
cmurf 8y ago
Deepthroat was anonymous, not b.s. Snowden was briefly anonymous, not b.s. You're applying an aggressive falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus standard, and while it's not crazy you are by choice considering any unnamed sources as b.s. stories, and worthy of wholesale discarding. You really cannot correlate anonymity of sources to trust or reliability. That's why reputation matters, for good or bad. And it's why triangulation matters.

by fein 8y ago

wahern 8y ago

They didn't all come from Chalabi. But in any event, I actually met the man as an intern at a K Street national security policy think tank. Chalabi was the darling of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other neocons in the administration. To the extent Chalabi was the source, much of it was originally laundered through the administration (particularly Cheney's office) as anonymous leaks.

fein 8y ago
Correct, most of the DOD stuff was from 'curveball'. > laundered through the administration (particularly Cheney's office) as anonymous leaks. Aside from the fact that Judith Miller knew who she was getting her data from, doesn't this prove my point about anonymous sources being bullshit? The example you just gave was state sponsored propaganda 'leaked' to the NYT in order to sell the public on a pointless war. Had the public been made savvy who the sources were, we probably would not have had any sort of approval on the war. None the less, that doesn't change what is going on here. Journalists can editorialize any topic they would like and face no repercussions because the sources are anonymous and corroboration is impossible. There is no risk to printing lies when the get out of jail free card is effectively a non verifiable entity.

cmurf 8y ago

Deepthroat was anonymous, not b.s. Snowden was briefly anonymous, not b.s. You're applying an aggressive falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus standard, and while it's not crazy you are by choice considering any unnamed sources as b.s. stories, and worthy of wholesale discarding. You really cannot correlate anonymity of sources to trust or reliability. That's why reputation matters, for good or bad. And it's why triangulation matters.