The Rhetorica Network offers analysis and commentary about the rhetoric, propaganda, and spin of journalism and politics, including analysis of presidential speeches and election campaigns. This site features the Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal web log, comprehensive news media links, a rhetoric textbook, a primer of critical techniques, and information for citizens. The character of Rhetorica represents the purposes and canons of classical rhetoric. --Andrew R. Cline, Ph.D.
Jack Shafer takes another look at anonymous sources following Daniel Okrent’s column in The New York Times on Sunday. I found this interesting:
I haven’t changed my mind since my last anonymous-sources cogitation, but I have come up with a few new ideas on the subject. Anonymous sources appeal to those reporters and readers who believe
Posting Schedule:
Fall 2008
MWF: After 1:00 p.m.
TR: After 8:30 a.m.
SS: When the mood strikes.
Send e-mail to:
dr.cline # rhetorica # net
If you would like to use this button to link to The Rhetorica Network, please feel free to copy it or hotlink to it.
Dr. Andrew R. Cline
Assistant Professor of Journalism
Missouri State University
Fall 2008 Schedule
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License
Tim Porter’s post on this topic is not accepting comments, so here’s my take:
Would journalism be better served if reporters, when unable to verify information on the record, simply stated what they know to be true? Certainly, it’s a radical jump over the river of truth from the bank of objectivity (
Bryan…these are challenging comments, and I’ll be taking them into account in tomorrow’s post.
Yes, the assertion of information (statements about facts in the world) must be based on something exactly as you suppose. I think what Tim is wondering about is how dispensing with the anonymous attribution would shift the burden of proof. Should that burden be shifted?
For me, this is very much a question of the (possibly) shifting rhetoric of journalism. Who gets to be the knower and how do they know?
I’d much rather know that purported information came from an anonymous “White House” source than have a reporter assert it as fact and not know where it came from. Anonymous sourcing is bad. Okrent’s solution is worse.