Former Blogger Wins Award

Howard Owens, an old friend of The Blog from the Core, recently won an award for VenturaCountyStar.com (quoted ellipsis in original):

This is another story of David defeating Goliath, except that David won the fight without even knowing it. At the recent Online Journalism Awards banquet in Hollywood, the finalists for General Excellence (Small Sites) included the Center for Public Integrity, Congressional Quarterly's CQ.com, PBS' Frontline World, PBS' POV, and the VenturaCountyStar.com.

While the latter site is indeed owned by the E.W. Scripps Co. newspaper chain, it certainly didn't have the national cachet or reputation of its prominent opponents for the award. So when the announcement came — "And the winner is ... VenturaCountyStar.com!" — there was a pregnant pause as heads turned in search of the winner. It turns out the honcho of the site, 42-year-old Howard Owens, skipped the awards dinner, not expecting to win....

At his former weblog, Howard has posted an article on rampant anonymous sourcing in mainstream media:

.... Anonymous source-reporting, as I’ve said many times, is the crack cocaine of beltway journalists. They can’t kick the habit and show no desire to do so. In fact, many of the junkies defend it, like creepy heroin addicts jonesing for another fix.

The unnamed-source junkies want us to believe that their sources are impeccable and should be affixed with the modifier “reliable.” I am convinced anonymous sources are anything but. When I read, “according to an administration official,” and don’t find that official’s name within a sentence or two, I immediately rewrite the copy to put the assertion or quote in proper context: “according to a probable liar within the administration.” Now I can proceed reading the story with the proper amount of skepticism — the kind of skepticism the reporter should have exercised before including dubious allegations or assertions.

Here’s the problem with anonymous sources, and why the news consuming public should look askance at all such-sourced news reporting:

1) We have no way of verifying the source’s motivations, propensity of truth-telling, allegiances or agendas. When the reporter withholds a sources name, he is withholding a vital piece of information that is necessary to make a sound judgment about whether we’re getting snookered.

2) Anonymous sources have all kinds of motivations for making any number of allegations that have nothing to do with a desire for truth telling. First, there is the fun of being an anonymous source to a major-media reporter, which feeds the source’s ego; second, there is the ability to anonymously disseminate false information to feed a partisan or personal agenda; third, there is the ability to feed the reporter false information as part of an official disinformation campaign. Beltway reporters never seem to ask themselves why a source insists on anonymity — if the story is juicy enough, they just run with it.

3) When news organizations use anonymous sources, readers and viewers have very little knowledge or understanding of what policies the news organization has for use of such sources — what standards must be met, and are those standards being followed. The news organization may have no standards, which impeaches the credibility of all such stories, or the standards may be ignored with caprice and such reporting can’t be trusted....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 11/23/04 05:34:16 PM
Categorized as Media.