More McCain-New York Times drama

By Jennifer J. Foster

Anonymous sources are back in the news.

Actually, I wish I could say they are back in the news; that would imply that they had disappeared.

Alas, not so.

Today’s example of irresponsible, sloppy and it’s-sad-we-actually-have-to-call-it-reporting comes to us from that bastion of journalistic integrity, that guardian of reader confidence, The New York “At least we made Jayson Blair resign” Times.

You remember earlier this year when the Times was panned, even by its old friends in the traditional media establishment, when it ran with a report that insinuated that John McCain had been romantically involved with a lobbyist. As I noted on my blog the morning the story broke, the reporters couldn’t even get through three full sentences before invoking “several people involved in the campaign” who spoke “on the condition of anonymity.“

Well, the Times either didn’t learn its lesson, or its editors are willfully ignoring it.

Today, the Times tells us about the monthly payments that toppled mortgage giant Freddie Mac made from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis.

“Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis & Manafort for the presidential campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to benefit from its income. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf,“ the Times reported.

The McCain campaign has fired back and called the report “demonstrably false.”

From Fox News:

But a McCain campaign aide disputed the claim that Davis has received any compensation from the firm since taking his leave in December 2006. The aide told FOX News that Davis stopped taking a salary and draws no partnership distribution from the firm.

“Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006,” said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb.

OK, well, it looks like we have a difference of opinion here. Let’s check the veracity of the sources in the Times report, shall we?

Oh, that’s right; we can’t, because the Times doesn’t name anyone who provided the information on the payments.

Did you get that?

The Times reporters did not name a single source on which they based this story.

Here’s how they referred to their sources:

“Two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement;”

“The people;”

“They;” and

“The people familiar with the arrangement.“

Even if the Times hadn’t been under fire for showing perceived favoritism to Barack Obama (this is the latest in a long-running series of volleys between McCain and the Times), its editors should know better than to base an entire story about a presidential candidate on anonymous sources.

A college student barely through his first year of study knows better.

Once verboten, anonymous sourcing has become ubiquitous in the media, the product of the problem of reporting on national security issues. Just a few years ago, anonymity was reserved only for the highest-placed sources who provided information on the most sensitive of issues. But as readers got used to seeing anonymous sources in their news, they stopped noticing that they didn’t know who was giving them their information.

And so, the gradual recurrence of anonymous sources became a slow credibility bleed.

The irony is that this trend has eroded the main pillar that the traditional media maintains separates it – insulates it – from the down-in-the-pit reporting being done by bloggers – and a certain supermarket tabloid.

We’re the traditional media, they sniff. You can trust us.

But since an anonymous source is an anonymous source, whether it’s in the Times or the Enquirer, they’re just giving themselves airs.

See also:

McCain v. NYT—update, from Feb. 21

Superfriends and the NYT, from Feb. 22

John McCain and the New York Times, from Feb. 22