{"id":203790,"date":"2021-03-16T22:19:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/washington-post-correction-points-to-larger-issue-with-agenda-driven-anonymous-sources\/"},"modified":"2021-03-16T22:19:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:19:50","slug":"washington-post-correction-points-to-larger-issue-with-agenda-driven-anonymous-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/washington-post-correction-points-to-larger-issue-with-agenda-driven-anonymous-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"#Washington Post correction points to larger issue with agenda-driven anonymous sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Washington Post correction points to larger issue with agenda-driven anonymous sources<\/strong>”
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The Washington Post made a\u00a0massive correction\u00a0Monday to\u00a0a January report about a phone call between then-President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0and a Georgia elections investigator, as the liberal paper admitted multiple quotes attributed to Trump based on an\u00a0anonymous source were inaccurate.<\/p>\n

The corrected story was a\u00a0hot topic on cable news<\/a> and talk shows that helped spread the Post\u2019s flawed report and media<\/a> watchdogs feel it points to larger problems with agenda-driven anonymous sources and liberal outlets that rush to \u201cconfirm\u201d them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis \u2018correction\u2019 is more than a correction, it calls into question the pervasive reliance of the liberal media on anonymous sources in order to attack and undermine Republicans,\u201d Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson told Fox News.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost the entirety of the Russia collusion media effort was based on anonymous sources which turned out to be overblown at best, false at worst, after the Mueller Report was released,\u201d Jacobson continued. \u201cThis raises the question of whether these sources exist at all, or are fed the answers the liberal media wants to create the app<\/a>earance of reporting for what in reality is a regurgitation of media talking points.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hill media columnist and Fox News contributor Joe Concha feels anonymous sources do exist but are often simply political operatives looking to push their preferred narrative regardless of facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re given these conjured-up quotes, and it comes from a nefarious source. Does this all sound familiar? And it\u2019s not Deep Throat we\u2019re talking about here, it\u2019s a political operative that had an agenda,\u201d Concha said Tuesday on \u201cFox & Friends<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like, you go to the beach and you throw up food to seagulls and the seagull doesn\u2019t really check what the food is exactly, they just eat it up. They gobble it up and that\u2019s what happens with the media so often,\u201d Concha said. \u201cDuring the Trump era we had all these unnamed source stories that only seem to go in one direction, negative toward the 45th president.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Post\u00a0initially\u00a0reported\u00a0Trump had told an official working in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger\u2019s office to \u201cfind the fraud\u201d in the state, which he lost narrowly to\u00a0Joe Biden,\u00a0and that she would be a \u201cnational hero\u201d if she did.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0a newly emerged recording<\/a>\u00a0of the Dec. 23 call\u00a0found he didn\u2019t use those words. Instead, Trump\u00a0said\u00a0she would be \u201cpraised\u201d<\/a> when the \u201cright answer comes out\u201d and encouraged her to closely examine mail-in ballots in heavily blue Fulton County.<\/p>\n

Concha added the original story typically gets significantly more coverage than the correction. Grabien Media founder Tom Elliott put together a montage of media outlets promoting the Post\u2019s now-debunked \u201cfind the fraud\u201d tidbit.<\/p>\n

CNN even boasted on air that its own reporter \u201cconfirmed\u201d the bogus details of the call.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill any of these \u2018reporters\u2019 offer corrections? If not, are they \u2018reporters,\u2019 or activists? Yes, these questions are rhetorical,\u201d Elliott\u00a0wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n

Washington Examiner columnist Becket Adams wrote<\/a>\u00a0the \u201creal scandal\u201d is so many news organizations claimed to confirm the phony story with their own anonymous sources. CNN wasn\u2019t alone in confirming the Post\u2019s since-corrected bombshell, as Vox, NBC News, ABC News and USA Today were among the other mainstream outlets to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unrealistic so many sources would be wrong about the same thing. It\u2019s more likely competing news outlets spoke with the same anonymous individual or individuals, which leads to uncomfortable questions about whether the media were merely fed bad information or were intentionally manipulated,\u201d Adams\u00a0wrote. \u201cHow does one \u2018confirm\u2019 something that is not true?\u201d<\/p>\n

University of North Carolina professor and media ethics guru Lois Boynton feels news outlets that used the Post\u2019s \u201cfind the fraud\u201d information need to address the gaffe.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the sake of transparency and credibility, it would behoove them to acknowledge their error, issue a correction and revisit their procedures to verify information. Although it\u2019s one of several statements attributed to Mr. Trump, misquoting or misinterpreting one statement can affect the believability of other attributions,\u201d Boynton told Fox News. \u201cThis kind of issue has a ripple effect on the reputation of all media outlets.\u00a0Trust is hard to come by these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall feels the Post\u2019s correction \u201cis the kind of media malpractice that causes so much of the citizenry to distrust the media\u201d at large.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story should have never run in its original form because it was apparently based solely on \u2018a source.\u2019 Anonymous sources do have a place in journalism, but the reporting organization had darn well make sure such \u2018a source\u2019 is really credible.\u00a0The Post was too eager to detonate this bombshell because it fit an overall\u00a0narrative it wanted to push regarding Trump and election fallout,\u201d McCall told Fox News.<\/p>\n

McCall feels the Post should consider revealing the identity of the source who provided inaccurate information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand news outlets need to protect sources on occasion, but that protection should be for sources that disclose accurate information.\u00a0This source essentially lost its claim to protection by feeding inaccurate information.\u00a0The public deserves to know who the Post was trusting when it shouldn\u2019t have been,\u201d McCall said.<\/p>\n

Media Research Center executive editor Tim Graham echoed McCall\u2019s thoughts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fraudulent story exposes what\u2019s wrong with anonymous sources. They can claim the most hyperbolic things about what a president said, and when an audio recording exposes the fraud, no one knows the identity of who faked the news. At the very least, we should know who this is, so other reporters can know not to use them again,\u201d Graham told Fox News.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shows you how desperate the Post and other Trump-hating media outlets were, that they were so gullible to misinformation, even as they claimed they were the antidote to misinformation,\u201d Graham added. \u201cIf these outlets care about facts and truth at all, they will be investigating how this happened and reporting to us how they got this wrong. Let\u2019s not hold our breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox News\u2019 David Rutz contributed to this report.<\/em>\n <\/div>\n