Let me share some thoughts about burning sources. We’re seeing a huge amount of tendentious commentary about CNNs screw up today on that Don Jr email. A lot of it is from Trump loyalists. But you also have been people partisan axes to grind like Greenwald.
2/ The argument is that CNN sources lied to them so it’s their responsibility to out the sources. Does this make sense? Not really. I noticed Greenwald compare this to the Post outing that O’Keefe operative last week. This is not an honest comparison.
3/ In that case you had an operative clearly intentionally setting out to perpetrate a hoax on the Post. That’s a no brainer. The nature of the screw up today certainly left some doubt whether CNN was set up. There’s no way for us to know since we don’t have ...
4/ the details. Far more likely was that it was a mistake. The key thing is that cnn had the email read to them. They didn’t have the email. How exactly the date screw up happened I don’t know. He’s suggesting that since he got the story from ...
5/ multiple sources that it must have been a fabrication. That doesn’t follow. The reason to press this point is that you don’t like the nature of the story and you want to discredit the news organization or want to damage the sources so other sources won’t ...
6/ share information. A source or sources getting some so key wrong is a big deal. Any good journalist would weigh it heavily against the sources trustworthiness. They might not ever trust that source again. It depends on a bunch of facts we simply don’t know.
7/ Outing a source and likely ending their career isn’t merited I’d argue. But there’s a more specific reason journalists are loathe to do this. Unless you’re really certain you were lied to or set up, a journalist who exposes his or her sources for unintentional ...
8/ mistakes will never get another source again. The grey areas are where you think someone may not have been straight with you but you’re not sure. I think most journalists will simply never trust the source again but not burn them.
9/ There’s certainly a strong element of self interest on the journalists part here. That’s why you need to be careful and always scrutinize your sources. Every mistake, even if you were really careful, weighs against your credibility forever.
10/ The reason Glenn is demanding CNN reveal its sources is because he’s deeply invested in the Russia story not being true. And whichever side Glenn is on the other side is evil.
