Originally Posted by Hawkeye10
If the track record on the truth is poor, their is no undoing that damage.
Yes
No
Depends
If the track record on the truth is poor, their is no undoing that damage.
No, "We" are not.....though, you, are of course free to believe whatever the media places in front of you.
I prefer to do my own due diligence.
Cute. I answered your question in the framework of your words. Good luck with the diligence.
No. Period.
If an anonymous source claims something, it needs to be independently verified before it can be taken seriously.
In other words, anonymous sources can be indicators and mandate further investigation, but they are never enough by themselves.
Ok, that does it! I waste Professor Plum with the lead pipe.
Oh yeah? Well say hello to my little friend, Colonel Mustard! Candlestick to the face!
This is the last time I'm playing Clue with you two...
I do, because WaPo and NYT usually have many, many sources for their pieces. It's not like, "Bobby Joe's cousin come in last week and told me that Sue Ellen slept with Robert Earl."
You have to be able to trust unnamed sources, if there are enough sources to back up the story. You have to. Otherwise the news media will just die out. Nobody will ever go on record for fear of retribution or retaliation.
Oddly enough, this whole "fake news" and "unnamed sources suck" was never a real issue until this last year. Wonder why that is?
~*~ That's part of your problem: you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. ~*~
Actually...I believe the problem predates our current POTUS, but I do think his ranting has shed more light on the issue.
This article ( one of many you can find on a quick google search) was written in 2013, and lists more than a few stories based upon "unnamed sources" that go back well before Trump was even in the running for POTUS.
I think that through a combination of trumps tirades, news medias self inflicted wounds, the badly bombed election predictions, and many stories that are just plain BS ( I think "conflated" is the new buzzword ), is it any wonder the public holds the media in such low regard?
I think its rather telling when your approval rating is just slightly above congress.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...=.b94d7ac5ae56
Last edited by Polar Bum; 01-03-18 at 04:06 AM.
I would never trust a story based on an anonymous source. No journalist worth his salt would publish a story based on an anonymous source. Every story should be corroborated by other sources, and every fact checked and confirmed by more than one source. In the rush to be first with a story, journalistic best practices have been tossed aside and stories printed with the thinnest veneer of authentication. That's why no one believes the MSM anymore; they can't be trusted to get the story right before they go in front of the cameras. And that's why they get burned.
BTW; Trump is playing you people like a fiddle; read some of Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert comic strip) and authority on the science of persuasion.
Last edited by Waddy; 01-03-18 at 04:01 AM.
It’s not a simple yes/no question and it’s not just about the naming or not of a source. How much credence I might give a particular news report will depend on a whole range of factors (including an unavoidable element of subconscious emotional bias).
I do think that sometimes too much attention can be given to a phrase like “… who didn’t wish to be named… “ when there are a whole load of other sources, some anonymous and some theoretically identified, which should be open to just as much scrutiny. For example, more credit might be given to a named politician rather than anonymous staff despite the fact that the politician has a clear bias and vested interest where the staff might not.
Depends on who is using them and how good is their reputation for vetting what was said.
Sure I do, sometimes. Deep Throat was unnamed.
Do I always? No. Do I never? No to that too. So my answer was "Depends".
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. ~W.C. Fields
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