http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_nortontaylor/2007/02/a_spooky_tale.html
Meaning and motive Investigative journalists like Seymour Hersh should question the agenda of their unnamed sources and the accuracy of the information they provide. Richard Norton-Taylor February 27, 2007 11:30 AM | Seymour Hersh is an American journalist with an extremely good track record. He exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war and was among the first to report on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Now he writes in the New Yorker magazine that President Bush has told the Pentagon to draw up a plan for "a possible bombing attack on Iran". A special planning group had been set up, he says, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan that could be implemented, on orders from the president, within 24 hours. His source was a "former intelligence official". When Hersh talks people sit up and take notice. His New Yorker article was a topic of discussion on the Sunday TV chat shows in the US. He is believed. The trouble is we do not know who his source was, what his motives were. Did he have an agenda? US journalists explain, sometimes in the most prolix way, why they cannot name their sources. Their copy is studded with such phrases as "according to an official who was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media ... " Maybe British reporters should follow suit. For there is a problem, particularly when anonymous sources are attached to provocative and sensitive issues concerning military plans and claims based on intelligence. It is, of course, hardly surprising the sources are anonymous. Any government official would be sacked - and, in Britain, liable to criminal prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, if he or she was discovered to be the source of unauthorised leaks. Journalists are receptacles - of information and disinformation alike. We do not need to share the motives of our sources but at the same time we must be wary of making blind assertions based on their say-so. It boils down to a question of judgment - and trust. Trust, that is, in the reliability of the source. Do journalists writing on intelligence issues question sufficiently the motives of the source? Alas, no. Just look at the reporting, mainly in prestigious US newspapers, of the claims about Iraq's weapons programme. There are two constraining pressures which may help the reader. Serious journalists want to make and preserve a reputation for accuracy, at least not as someone who flies kites. Second, I would like to think, we would soon - or sooner or later: witness the New York Times' mea culpa about its reporting on Iraq before the invasion - discard a source whose information proved to be wrong. And that would not be in a good source's interest. Sometimes the only criterion available, especially reporting on defence and security matters, is plausibility. Actually, that President Bush has ordered a bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented within 24 hours may not be very surprising. Is its disclosure designed to frighten the Iranians or those, in the US and elsewhere, opposed to military action against Iran? For Hersh, I trust, the motive of the source is not as important as its accuracy. +++ ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/hOt0.A/lOaOAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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