By Tatiana Prophet

Some of our readers who have followed this site from the beginning already know that we have discussed anonymous sources extensively — the right way and the wrong way to use them. When we say “right” and “wrong,” we mean “how not to look like an idiot eventually.”

In fact, The New York Times and Washington Post’s own guidelines caution against using unnamed sources more than very rarely. One of the biggest no-no’s is directly quoting the anonymous source, or further, using direct quotes allegedly by another person that were conveyed by a third party in the article because doing so could involve some embellishment or other distortion that may reflect someone’s vendetta.

Ideally, unnamed sources should be used to direct further research, to enable the reporter to find documentation through the Freedom of Information Act, as well as to confront other sources.

Yet both of our national papers have been using anonymous sources extensively for years, during both the Obama and Trump administrations, after getting spanked for their bunk, anonymously sourced research on Iraq and WMDs. It didn’t take long, however, for the national political writers to start basing their exclusives on unnamed sources once again — “people familiar with the matter” becoming a favorite phrase.

Often, the bombshells generated by these exclusives end up driving both the news cycle and government policy. Seems the ombudsmen appointed after the Iraq War fiasco have disappeared into the cubicle walls — or look the other way.

With that preface, we have a delightful tidbit about what happens when you try to rule the news cycle with hearsay:

The Washington Post was caught flat-footed last week after one of the Georgia election officials on the December phone call was revealed to have a recording in her trash folder, the paper was forced to report. The discovery came after a Freedom of Information Act request.

After the Wall Street Journal obtained the recording and published details on Thursday, the Post was forced to issue a stunning yet subdued correction about exact words attributed to Trump. Apparently the President did NOT tell the then-unnamed investigator to “find the fraud” or that she would be a “national hero” if she did. So WaPo indicated nothing in the headline about the correction, just ran a correction in italics under the byline. And they made sure to double down that unnamed experts say the phone call itself may be cause for a probe into obstruction of justice.

According to the Washington Post, the person who conveyed the quotes to the paper had heard about the phone call from one of the participants who had been unnamed till now. Her name is Frances Watson, and according to the Post, she conveyed some of the elements of the phone call to Georgia deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs, who then got on her toy phone to convey the botched quotes to the Post. Originally having cited the sensitivity of the material as the reason for her anonymity, the Post threw Fuchs under the bus once they were caught publishing the fake quotes.

Corrections are quite rare among national media — and even then, they rarely deal with claims as major as the quotes attributed to President Trump.

The correction about this phone call is an unprecedented reveal about how the Washington Post (and likely others) receive their information, and how definitively they present it. It is similar to the story after story written about that Ukraine phone call, with endless interpretations about what Trump meant, as told by sources second and thirdhand “familiar with the phone call.” Good thing there was a transcript — and even that was placed in doubt by writers and their sources eager to convict.

Back in September, The Atlantic was caught lying about Trump’s reason for staying in Paris rather than going to the ceremony at Belleau Woods with the other heads of state. The Atlantic even stated unequivocally, that Trump had been worried about his hair in the rain (according to several people familiar with the conversation). Even after a Buzzfeed reporter obtained emails proving that Trump was barred from flying by his team, to this day many dispute the idea that Trump was following the guidance of his security apparatus. Armchair critics ask why Trump was unable to attend when Macron, Trudeau and the gang were able to drive there. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has a thorny history with Trump, nevertheless went out of his way to explain that the commander in chief of the United States, by definition, has different considerations than the other heads of state at the event.

These things appear small against the very real backdrop of the pandemic, election and schism in our country. Maybe they are symptoms of the larger enigmas that currently plague us. Indeed, the pattern is enough to make one wonder, “If our most valued sources lie about these small things, what else are they lying about?” Maybe, after all, these small falsehoods are the dropped stitches in the fabric that lead to the rending of the veil. And by that, I very much mean, that no matter who is in power, the veil must absolutely be rent.