Charles Pierce: The New York Times Has a Source Pollution Problem

[phantom power]

Tangential to the issues of rat-fucking, and who is doing it, how goddamned stupid and/or lazy does a reporter have to be, to not just check if "public facebook posts" actually exist or not?

The New York Times has a serious source pollution problem. As is now obvious, somebody fed the paper bad information on San Bernardino murderess Tashfeen Malik's social media habits. It was said that she was posting jihadist screeds on Facebook. The Times hyped the scoop by stating pretty clearly that the government—and the administration running it—slipped up. It was the inspiration for endless bloviating about how "political correctness is killing people" at Tuesday night's Republican debate. Then comes FBI director James Comey to say that, no, there were no public Facebook posts that the government missed because there weren't any at all.

More than a few people have noted that two of the three reporters who were fed this story also had their bylines on the notorious (and thoroughly debunked) piece about how the FBI had launched a "criminal inquiry" into Hillary Rodham Clinton's alleged mishandling of classified materials in her e-mails. Pretty clearly, somebody's peddling bad information and its apparent purpose is to submarine both the current Democratic administration and the prospective one. I'm more concerned about that than I am about the Times' having fallen for it. If the same source is responsible for both of these debacles, then that source should be outed by the reporters who currently are twisting in the wind.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a40605/new-york-times-source-pollution/

[Blue_Tires]

1. k+r

[Proserpina]

2. If they are rats, then they deserve all the rat-****ing that Fate can deal them

Last edited Fri Dec 18, 2015, 01:43 PM - Edit history (1)

A plague on all their houses.

[Scuba]

3. America's free press is bought-and-paid-for.

[tblue37]

4. Well, someone has to do Judith Miller's job now that she is no longer a

NYT reporter. Apparently they needed two bought and paid for reporters to do as much damage as she did.

[2naSalit]

5. +1

[valerief]

6. Agenda before facts in U.S. media. nt

[longship]

7. I have to go along with Charlie here.

The source should be outed, regardless of journalistic ethics. "If you outright lie to me, those ethics evaporate."

[Hekate]

8. KnR Charles Pierce

[TygrBright]

9. I love Pierce, but.... "murderess?"

PLEASE let's abandon gender-alteration of simple nouns that can apply equally regardless of gender. Especially when the use of "she" in the very next sentence makes it perfectly clear that someone female is being discussed.

The gender-alteration of nouns- "actress" instead of "actor," or "songstress" instead of "singer," etc., has long been a way of diminishing and patronizing women.

We don't call female doctors "doctress."

Could we PLEASE give over on the gender-alteration thing, Mr. Pierce?

wearily,
Bright

[Quantess]

10. K & R