You realize that XKCD is mocking people who do that, right? It's completely ridiculous to ask for citations in the context of a speech and only an idiot would d

You realize that XKCD is mocking people who do that, right? It's completely ridiculous to ask for citations in the context of a speech and only an idiot would do that. In the context of writing, it is certainly appropriate to cite sources. Which is precisely why I cited my source. In turn, the source I cited, cites other sources in addition to doing investigative journalism and speaking to credentialed experts, who in their turn cite their sources. As a writer, it is not my job to prove the veracity of my sources. That is the job of the reader. My job is to cite them; it is the reader's job to determine the "provenance" of my sources if they think provenance is the most important thing here (it's emphatically not). If you're stuck up on provenance, you could have googled and discovered that the provenance of this is Arte France, a French-German TV producer, which in turn is owned by Arte Group, a French-German media corporation. They are relatively small players--Wikipedia reports they have about a 1% audience share. Having said all that, in any good research the least important question is provenance. The most important question is research methods and findings. If you were to do your due diligence as a reader, and actually check the citation in question which is your duty as the reader, you would find out that their research methods are disgustingly rigorous and beyond any reasonable doubt. Their research is of the extremely boring variety that unearths extremely obvious facts. They also speak to credentialed, published experts to put these facts in context. In conclusion, your objection is completely without merit, you have failed to engage in good faith, you have failed to do your due diligence that is your duty as a critic. In academia, it falls to the reader to follow up citations. An academic who would criticize the sources of another academic without actually checking those sources would be laughed out of the room. In this way, I too laugh at you.