3 ms·
I count a few points: 1. The article is not well-sourced. a. There are many anonymous sources, which is generally a bad practice; SH consequently may over-repr
by foxhedgehog 11y ago
I count a few points:
1. The article is not well-sourced.
a. There are many anonymous sources, which is generally a bad practice; SH consequently may over-represent confidence in his material.
b. It is difficult to track how many anonymous sources there are.
c. It is unlikely that these sources would have access to the information that they claim.
2. The article has internal contradictions.
I'm sure that we can flesh these out more if you would like, but none of these are ad hominem.
Wrapping "exclusively anonymous sources are bad" as a criticism in with "Sy Hersh is an unreliable jerk" is also an argument in bad faith. The two are not equivalent, and the former is a sincere issue with this piece. Including it in with the latter has the effect of encouraging dismissal of both just because the latter is obviously fallacial.
- xyzzy123 11y ago1. It's a pity you stopped reading the article, because addressing the criticism of anonymous sources is about 1/3 of it. 2. A discussion of specific internal contradictions in the article would be interesting and valuable, unlike the original post. [Might make sense to make a new post for it, so it doesn't get buried though]. As to the "facts not comporting with reality", should I assume you have abandoned that claim? That would also be an interesting discussion. This is the whole point of the CJR article - that the media response so far has been largely fact-free.
- anonsource 11y agoNo...it's not the criticism of anonymous sources, it's the lack of consideration given to the possibility that the anonymous source is lying. If you bring out an anonymous source that is making these kind of assertions, you need more than a claim that it's a retired intel officer to achieve credibility.