The recent problems at the New York Times involving a reporter with a long record of plagiarizing and fabricating stories have touched a nerve with readers of other newspapers, including The Post. Readers who have been writing or calling me say they don’t suspect the same kind of brazen, large-scale deception by a troubled individual. But their concerns add up to a real and growing credibility problem for news organizations, especially in today’s environment.
That environment includes what seems to me, and a fair number of readers, to be a steady increase in the number of major stories attributed to anonymous sources and a sense that intelligence information is being politicized and that reporters aren’t probing hard enough against the defenses of an administration with an effective, disciplined and restrictive attitude toward information control.
The elements of the complaints are these: The United States has just carried out a quick and militarily successful attack on Iraq. Yet major justifications for the attack — the existence of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s link to the al Qaeda terrorist network that carried out the 9/11 attacks — have not been confirmed. Before the war, many stories — some from the administration on the record but others from unnamed sources — pointed with certainty to the existence of these weapons.
In recent weeks, several articles have included allegations against Syria and Iran that are similar to the allegations against Iraq that preceded the war. Another string of stories in a number of papers reported allegedly unfriendly acts by France, which led the opposition to the war.
Some of these stories were based on sources identified only as “intelligence officials” or “senior administration officials” or other such useless descriptions. One Post reader called attention to the administration’s policy on preemptive war, which was used against Iraq and could be used again against Syria or Iran.
Another charged that The Post was, perhaps unwittingly, “abetting the campaign to vilify Iran and to indirectly propagandize the public to accept violence against that country. The campaign is distressingly similar to the run-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq: possession of weapons of mass destruction, harboring of terrorists including members of al Qaeda and having an undemocratic government. In view of the seriousness of these charges and the intent of the sources, The Post should not permit ‘intelligence sources’ or ‘administration sources’ to pass muster.”
Another asked: “Why do you believe the intelligence reports that claim al Qaeda is responsible for a certain event? Why not at least a disclaimer that these are the same sources that gave you [information on the existence of] weapons of mass destruction?”
The Post has done a good job in reporting the denials of these accusations by Syria, Iran and France. Of course, some or all of the allegations may turn out to be true, and conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction may be found in time. But some readers are greatly skeptical, and that skepticism is being reinforced by a lack of confidence caused by the extent of anonymous sourcing.
The Post, like other major news organizations, has rules about sourcing. It is naive to think that very sensitive material can be ferreted out without sometimes allowing sources anonymity. But The Post’s guidelines call for reporters to make every effort to get the material on the record and, failing that, to report the reason for not disclosing identities and to provide as much other information about identity and motivation as possible. My impression is that these rules have largely fallen by the wayside, along with demands by editors to know sources’ identities, because the use of unnamed sources has become so routine. The administration wins simply by refusing to allow the use of any attribution other than “senior administration officials.”
Several other readers believe that The Post “has some problems of its own with the veracity of its reporting,” as one put it. He was referring to the paper’s exclusive April 3 front-page account of how Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, according to “U.S. officials,” fought during an Iraqi ambush, continued firing after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds and being stabbed, and shot several Iraqi soldiers before running out of ammunition. This account, which has remained exclusive to The Post, is by far the story that readers continue to question most. I wrote a column about this on April 20, but the questioning, which has nothing to do with Pfc. Lynch but everything to do with anonymous news sources, continues. In fact, it is increasing as journalism is put in the spotlight. If there is a different version, or a confirming version, of this that is authoritative, I hope somebody will write it, along with a more probing account of her rescue.
