- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Keller's policy re anonymous sourcing seems reasonable enough, doesn't it? It's interesting to compare/contrast what goes on under his guidance with what Hersh does, though. Hersh also uses a lot of unnamed sources; but he also goes to great lengths to qualify their positions, finds multiple sources that corroborate, or have opposing information, and adds people who will go on the record, even if only to say yeah, that's likely, or it's more likely something else.
That takes a lot more legwork than what Gordon turned in today. It takes access to a larger number of sources who are ... main point ... at pay grades beneath the 'high level government sources' that (some) reporters would rather deal with, because it brings them in closer proximity to power (and saves them some time). Kids and whores, as the saying used to go ...
Even if you aren't intentionally a government shill (or alternatively, even if you absolutely one hundred percent believe what's in it), you'd have to have a sense, looking at your piece (if it's Gordon's), that it's rather thinly sourced relative to the consequences of what you're reporting. Hersh clearly internalized that ethic; Gordon didn't.
