A centrepiece of Trump's attack was his contention that the media should not be allowed to quote anonymous sources, insisting that such sources allowed the media to release fake news. Trump said: "I'm against people who make up stories and make up sources."
And yet Trump believes it's okay if he uses anonymous sources to support the stories he makes up. In the afternoon of 8/6/12 Trump tweeted: "An 'extremely credible source' called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud."
And, of course, Trump stuck by his lie for years.
As much as I hate to admit it, in today's news environment there is at least a grain of truth in Voldemort's assertions. News media have always relied on "unnamed sources" for news content. That anonymity being essential to not only protecting the source from retribution but assuring the source continued to be a "reliable" source. This worked well in the heyday of major news organizations such as the Associated Press, New York Times, the three major broadcast news networks, etc because those institutions spent a lot of effort and no small amount of money "verifying" those unnamed sources information, usually with at least two other unrelated sources. Their veracity was their stock in trade!
Unfortunately in today's internet news world, there is too often little or no editorial oversight and fact checking is often "That story fits my personal prejudices, especially the part that I made up to pad the unverified rumor the story is based on." Most of the old line news organizations still make some effort at editorial oversight and fact checking, but ever tighter budgets require more dependence on freelance reporters desperate to get published and perhaps a bit fast and loose with facts. Additionally, they are often overwhelmed by other big organizations catering to specific political viewpoints who believe supporting their agenda overrides any necessity to more than the nearest rumor behind the story and facts be damned. Institutions on all sides of the political spectrum are guilty of that, but from my viewpoint it appears those who support Voldemort are the most egregious by far.
Voldemort's complaints however begin to ring hollow when he excludes any organization that has the temerity to question anything he says. Even those notoriously biased In his favor such as Fox News have been vilified and barred from press briefings. His distorted view of the facts seems to be based on, "I am president emporer, therefore anything I say is by decree factual and to question it is tantamount to treason."
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
