All tagged washington post

Georgia phone call: Washington Post admits their Trump quotes were wrong

Georgia phone call: Washington Post admits their Trump quotes were wrong

Tatiana Prophet
Anonymous Sources

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.

Incomplete facts: Washington Post says anti-malaria drug increasingly linked to deaths, omitting available screening protocols

Incomplete facts: Washington Post says anti-malaria drug increasingly linked to deaths, omitting available screening protocols

Tatiana Prophet
Health Care

Friday May 15, 2020.

The Washington Post, always on the lookout to protect your health, published a pre-emptive strike against anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, citing as the news hook “a growing cache of data linking the anti-malaria drug to serious cardiac problems.” (Oddly, they must have expected Trump to “tout” the drug at least one more time, and he did not disappoint, announcing to a gobsmacked press corps on Monday May 18 that he himself had been taking the drug under the guidance of the White House doctor, for a week and a half as a preventive measure).

Read the article here: Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths

Alarmed by this growing data cache, “some drug safety experts are now calling for even more forceful action by the government to discourage its use,” the authors wrote. Several have called for the FDA to revoke its emergency use authorization, given hydroxychloroquine’s documented risks.” The first forceful action was when the FDA on April 30 warned against use of the drug outside a hospital setting due to the potential for cardiac problems.

That warning came on the heels of a study from the Veterans Administration hospital that was widely publicized by multiple media outlets. The study was observational and not double-blinded, randomized or controlled as the medical community has been calling for. And it was retrospective, meaning it looked at records after resolution of a patient’s case.

Rod Rosenstein: Anonymous sources conflict with the man himself

Rod Rosenstein: Anonymous sources conflict with the man himself

Tatiana Prophet
Anonymous Sources

By TATIANA PROPHET

Last Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the Washington Post published a detailed account of what led to the firing.

"Inside Trump’s anger and impatience — and his sudden decision to fire Comey," read the headline.

For four paragraphs, the authors -- Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Sari Horwitz and Robert Costa, described an agitated and infuriated Trump, who was trying desperately to avoid the worst subject to him: Russia.

In the fourth paragraph, an anonymous source was mentioned. Trump was ready to fire the "sanctimonious" Comey. (Isn't that too big a word for Trump to use?)

"Trump summoned the two of them [Attorney General Jeff Sessions and newly appointed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein] to the White House for a meeting, according to a person close to the White House," stated the article.

The president gave the two Justice Department officials a directive, said the article: to explain in writing the case against Comey.

"The pair quickly fulfilled the boss’s orders, and the next day Trump fired Comey — a breathtaking move that thrust a White House already accustomed to chaos into a new level of tumult, one that has legal as well as political consequences," the four repoters wrote.

Democracy dies in daylight

Democracy dies in daylight

Tatiana Prophet
National Security

By TATIANA PROPHET

Democracy dies in darkness. And wars begin in the light of day.

The first sentence is the new motto of the Washington Post. The second, a description of what happened in 2002 when the media relied on anonymous sources in or allied with the U.S. government.

"In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium," wrote Judith Miller and Michael Gordon on September 8, 2002. "American officials said several efforts to arrange the shipment of the aluminum tubes were blocked or intercepted but declined to say, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence, where they came from or how they were stopped.”