Your lies shall be revealed, anon.

With all the respect Mr. Pierce is due: He needs to knock it off.

Pretty clearly, somebody’s peddling bad information and its apparent purpose is to submarine both the current Democratic administration and the prospective one. I’m more concerned about that than I am about the Times‘ having fallen for it.

I know it sometimes seems this isn’t the case, but filtering out bad information really is an essential part of what a reporter does. Removing that bit from the job description leaves what? An ability to ask a few questions, arrange words in a way that doesn’t enrage the editor and meet deadlines, I guess.

Since Apuzzo was part of a team that won a Pulitzer for a series of stories about the NYPD spying on Muslims, I’m going to assume he at least understands how reporting works. For Pierce (who also  knows how reporting works) to suggest the problem is anything other than people failing to do their jobs in a spectacular manner whiffs of the kind of defensive denial that people exhibit when they can’t tolerate criticism of their corner of the universe.

This sort of posturing makes that corner of the universe look vain, cliquish and more concerned with appearances than actions, and while it’s a universally obnoxious attitude, it’s a particularly bad fit for journalism.

And this is just … petulant? Yes, I think the word I want is petulant.

If the same source is responsible for both of these debacles, then that source should be outed by the reporters who currently are twisting in the wind.

Please. Try to imagine a scenario in which Apuzzo and Schmidt (and their editor) going back to the same person could be blamed on anything but Apuzzo’s, Schmidt’s and their editor’s disregard for facts.

Er.

Hmm.

OK … The Shadowy Doom Merchant, in furtherance of his Evil Plan to Destroy all Democrats … stole their pets and … will make them into house slippers if they don’t repeat his lies (mwahahaha)!

Yeah … no. Lifting comments from RedState or unsigned missives scrawled in crayon are both more plausible. That they’re sitting around making this stuff up is a more plausible conspiracy.

Because contrary to the sexified image of reporting, the risks of using anonymous sources aren’t limited to being arrested and jailed. In most cases what the reporter (and the editor and the organization running the story) risks is looking really stupid and being unable to name the person who swore that Obama was a giant hookworm in a human suit, because she agreed and the editor agreed and by extension the organization running the story agreed, that the source would be anonymous.

If you want to understand the use of anonymous sources, the AP’s guidelines are a great place to start. They are echoed in the NYT’s report on Assuring our Credibility. Written by Bill Keller, the discussion of unidentified sources starts on p. 4 and ends:

But here’s my subjective standard of success: A year from now, I would like reporters to feel that the use of anonymous sources is not a routine, but an exception, and that if the justification is not clear in the story they will be challenged. A year from now, I would like every backfielder and copy editor to feel it is a right and a responsibility to challenge the use of an unnamed source when it does not measure up to our standards. I would like this to be central in our orientation of new reporters and editors, and a critical component in our mid-career training workshops. I would like care in the use of anonymous sources to be one of the criteria used in evaluating the work of reporters and editors.

So 10 years ago (a few weeks before Miller went to jail) the executive editor of the NYT explicitly placed the onus for vetting anonymous sources and maintaining accuracy where it belongs – On the people producing the stories. It appears a lot of people at the NYT didn’t get the training Keller mentioned, but that still doesn’t mean outing sources in retaliation for bad information is a rational response for the paper’s screw up.

Of course, if one is more interested in pointing the finger of blame in any direction save the member of The Tribe who screwed up, it makes perfect sense.