magnet
5628
A lot of what we have read about Trump has come from anonymous sources. I don’t recall anyone on the record telling us that Trump spends most of this day watching TV, for example. Or every time someone reports that morale at the White House has fallen to a new low.
Just today, we discussed the following:
And who is the source on this fascinating story? That’s right, anonymous White House officials.
If this new book has something worth discussing, why should we suddenly turn up our noses just because it’s another anonymous report?
You guys really don’t see the difference between an anonymous source for a reporter and some guy who claims he’s trying to fix things from the inside and expects to be regarded as some sort of hero or stopgap or courageous boy with his finger in the dike, all the while publishing op eds and books?
Anonymous sources and whistleblowers work through existing channels. They don’t try to carve out a place for themselves out of some sense of self-aggrandizement. An anonymous source has to establish credibility with a reporter, and a whistleblower has to report to some regulatory body. But someone trying to sell me a tell-all book who’s not willing to put his name out there to establish credibility? His word is hardly worth the paper it’s printed on. And if he thinks he’s effecting some sort of change by tattling, why doesn’t he do it publicly with the full weight of whatever authority he has?
Also, it just smacks of cowards like Mitt Romney hiding behind fake Twitter accounts. We don’t really need any more of that. We know how bad it is. People need to come forth and stand against it, not loiter in the shadows because they want to see which way the wind will blow.
-Tom
There’s a byline on that story for a reason. He’s vouching for the anonymous source, along with the publication who employs him. Those elements are a fundamental part of the equation.
-Tom
ShivaX
5631
But that’s easy to determine by watching Fox News. Whatever is on the screen, Trump will Tweet about it. It’s like clockwork.
Also this.
Tim_N
5632
I feel you guys read the first sentence and then stopped. Of course we can see a difference and distinguish between these different types of people. Wanting to be anonymous is not one of the differences, obviously.
Whenever we have been told that some person in the administration is in fact a good person and is there as part of some personal patriotic effort to mitigate the badness of Trump, that person has gone on to be an agent of the badness of Trump. Are there any exceptions? I can’t think of any. So I doubt that this anonymous secret resistance person is any different.
ShivaX
5634
Speaking of which:
He does this… basically every day. You don’t really need someone on the record to figure it out.
Well, compare Bill Taylor or Fiona Hill against John Bolton here. Taylor and Hill raises issues as things were happening and are testifying to try to get the facts out. Bolton is writing a book. The real moral difference is whether you are doing it to profit or doing it to advance the public good. Anonymity is a valid shield to protect yourself either way, but protecting yourself so you can make a quick buck is not exactly noble.
Guap
5636
Here is a semi serious question. Is there any way to get Trump to take a break from watching Fox News? If he can reset his head after a few weeks off I think it may cause some self reflection…
Hahahahahah just kidding. It’s a perfect storm here. A media giant that directly controls the thoughts of POTUS. What a win!
ShivaX
5637
He’d just watch OANN or something worse.
Eh, I’d rather not, since I was specifically addressing a specific comparison between the whistleblower and the anonymous source of last spring’s op-ed who also will apparently remain anonymous while authoring a book covering the same subject matter.
Good point? I guess each case is unique and other cases don’t help us form consistent reactions. The next person deciding whether to speak or not, anonymously or not, for profit or not, will just have to wing and see how we feel once they’ve decided.
Again, there is a massive, massive gulf of difference between following an institutionally created rule and law to whistleblow and call out suspicious activity or impropriety within an organization…and deciding to write an op ed for a major newspaper about the situation and using that observered impropriety and anonymity for personal gain.
People unable to distinguish between those two things are exercising such deliberate obtuse-ness that it makes me uninterested in continuing that particular line of discussion here. It’s disingenuous.
No one is arguing that there isn’t a massive gulf between those things. The gulf isn’t due to the anonymity, though, it’s due to the difference between “for profit / take my word for it” and “for the public good / here’s my evidence”. Calling it cowardly is just as dumb when it’s in reference to the anonymous author as it is in reference to the whistleblower. The anonymous author isn’t cowardly, they are shady.
magnet
5642
Forget the whistle-blower for a moment.
Do you think there is a massive difference between an anonymous official who speaks to a reporter for an article or book and an anonymous official who simply writes an article or a book?
Ok, so the former is hearsay filtered through a third party. I don’t see why that’s an improvement.
Do you think it’s better to listen to the Democratic debate, or only listen to Nate Silver talk about it the next day? Yes, you have to hear more grandstanding in the former case that Nate might edit out of his podcast. But I think it is wrong to dismiss something because there is nobody to spoon feed it to you.
I would say both are ignoring their duty.
magnet
5644
That’s fine, but like I said we routinely devour the former stories and beg for more.
Maybe you do. What I do is shout at the screen name the fucking source you wanker!
magnet
5646
Ok, that’s fine.
But here in the forum, I think this particular anonymous source is the only one who is provoking people to complain about anonymous sources. Which is just weird, given our past reception of articles with anonymous sources.
antlers
5647
The problem with the Anonymous op-ed writer (the Times should never have published their piece) is that their mission isn’t to oppose Trump but to normalize him. Everyone who works in politics knows that some elected officials are idiots and have to be corralled into sensible actions by their staffs; Anonymous is trying to put Trump in the same box, as just another elected moron instead of the deadly threat to U.S. democracy that he actually is.
Many anonymous administration sources that reporters use have the same agenda, but the reporters’ job is in part to edit out or contextualize the self-serving spin.
