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October 16, 2005

If Your Sources Are Wrong, You Are Wrong

J.D. Considine on music writers:

Now, there’s nothing wrong with daily paper reporters on short deadline filing stories that essentially amount to This Is What the Person Said. The news is frequently like that. Unfortunately, where news reporters sometimes follow up their quote-driven stories with investigative pieces that confirm or contradict what was said, pop music writers almost never do. Worse, other writers then reiterate those quotes without bothering to check their veracity, and before you know it, conversational bullshit has been enshrined as historical fact.

Judith Miller on her WMD story: "W.M.D. -- I got it totally wrong. The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could."

Posted by timothompson at October 16, 2005 08:26 PM