The Maverick Conservative

Newsweek is the latest news media outlet to run afoul of the religious faith of journalists that they, AND THEY ALONE, have the right to destroy careers, lives, and people's sacred honor based on anonymous sources.  Yet every time this happens people (yes, conservatives too) start concentrating on things like bias and why each individual incident happened, when the real evil is the way journalists presesntly base most of their "investigative" stories on anonymous sources. 

I am a lawyer.  You can't be convicted of jaywalking in this country based on an anonymous source.  You can't convict a sexual predator based on an anonymous source.   You can't use an anonymous source as evidence for ANYTHING.  In fact, you can't even use hearsay from a DISCLOSED source as evidence unless it is one of the special types of hearsay that has been determined to be sufficiently reliable.  Our Constitution guarantees that we be allowed to confront the witnesses against us.  This is not just some technical rule.  The idea is that there is no way to evaluate the creidibility of facts unless the person asserting the facts is willing to face examination--examination as to how he or she knows the facts; examination as to biases and hidden agendas; examination on inconsistencies; etc.

Yet journalists assert the right to bring down a President; to bring down a cabinet member; to bring down a member of Congress; to trash our military; or to trash the reputation of an ordinary citizen (remember Ricard Jewell, the hero security guard at the Atlanta Olympics trashed by the news media)--all based on anonymous sources.  This is NOT reporting the news. That is because an essential part of the news is who is making the allegations.  Contrary to the assertions of journalists, this is not a matter of trusting the journalist (although you must do that as well).  The journalist is asking you, the reader, to trust the anonymous source without disclosing the essential information you need to make this evaluation.  The NEWS is what the anonymous source is saying, including who is saying it, and not what the journalist is saying.

Yes, that is the very problem with anonymous sources.  The focus is transferred from the source to the journalist.  If you question the story, you are attacking the journalist, and not the source.  This is ridiculous.  The fundamental issue, and the only newsbeing reported (the journalist ordinarily has no firsthand knowledge), is the assertions of the anonymous sources.   By not disclosing this fundamental information, the journalist is making it impossible to evaluate the news (except when it blows up in the face of the journalist, like with Dan Rather or the present Newsweek situation).  Note the insidious evil of this.  It PROHIBITS independent examination of the story.  This not only protects the journalist from scrutiny.  More importantly, IT PROTECTS THE SOURCE FROM SCRUTINY.  We have to rely on the journalist not for the accuracy of the news, but as the SOLE ARBITER of what is credible and what is not.   In other words, the journalist is no longer reporting the news.  He is asserting that he has determined the truth, and if we trust him we will accept it.  I wouldn't trust myself to always know the truth.  I sure don't trust journalists to do so (even if they have no bias at all--a human impossibility).  This makes the journalist the story, instead of an intermediary reporting the facts.  The old (really good) Humphrey Bogart movie, "Deadline U.S.A.", describes the difference between a journalist and a reporter this way:  "A journalist is the hero of his story.  A reporter just reports the facts."

But doesn't a journalist need to rely on anonymous sources?  Well, in the first place wouldn't the police have an easier job if they could do that?   Sure, but it would make them immune from scrutiny.  So it is with journalists.  There is nothing to stop journalists from using anonymous sources (as police do) to develop information from sources that can be disclosed.  But ANY story based on anonymous sources is not credible for the very reason our Constitution refuses to allow that kind of material to be used against a person in court.  Credible information is information that can stand up to scrutiny in the light of day.  Otherwise, it is not credible.

So I believe NO story based on anonymous sources, whether it agrees with my political views or not, unless and until it is confirmed by on the record sources. 

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