What's wrong with criticizing sources?

[Craig234]

A number of threads, including this one, have been appropriate for a favorite quote:

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John Kennedy

The real 'propaganda' outlets will almost always be controversial when criticized, precisely because good propaganda is believable to many of its targets.

The problem really isn't sources that are just 'factually wrong', and can easily be exposed for that,

The problem is more sites that are ones with a 'biased agenda' that 'spread an ideology' using propaganda - often by people who believe it themselves.

For example, take a site with commentary advocating shifting wealth to the rich based on 'trickle-down economics'. To opponents, that's clearly not credible - debunked by good theory, by decades of experience, by the corrupt motives of the wealthy interests who pay for that ideology to get spread - but its supports don't agree that's clear 'propaganda' at all, just a disagreement with two honest sides, and they think theirs is correct.

So the 'factual' issue isn't really that useful for identifying 'bad sites'. Rather, it's just going to be disputes between people with different views.

So, what do we do with the issue? For example, say for the sake of argument Fox News is a 'bad' source filled with propaganda for the right-wing ideology - but that doesn't mean a lot of factual errors. If someone posts information from them filled with opinion - say, 'Chuck Hagel was clearly shown not to be qualified from his hearings' - there's an issue between people like me who would dismiss that as not worth a response and those would defend it as 'legitimate' because there aren't factual errors.

I think it comes down to that for there to be useful discussion both sides have to have some agreement on common issues. I'll cite Paul Krugman as a good source. If you agree, great, and we can disagree on the specific issue; if not, there might not be much to discuss.

Unfortunately, a lot of discussion is blocked over this. For example, when the improved jobs report came out before the election, the discussion wasn't much about what it meant on policy, but rather it was dominated by the attack by the right that the 'report was false, a lie created to help Obama'. Hard to discuss it without that agreed on.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2...ng_pro_hagel_group_that_doesn_t_actually.html

On February 7, Breitbart News's Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro published an explosive-looking story under the headline "Secret Hagel Donor? White House Ducks Question on 'Friends of Hamas.'" Quoting "Senate sources," Shapiro claimed that crucial documents on Hagel's "foreign funding" might be kept from the Senate Armed Services Committe because "one of the names listed is a group purportedly called "Friends of Hamas."

It was a short item, three paragraphs, the third paragraph consisting of White House assistant communications director Eric Schultz blowing off Shapiro. It caught fire on the right in no time. "That is quite the accusation," wrote Moe Lane at RedState. "All they have to do to debunk it is to have Hagel reveal his foreign donors." In the National Review, Andrew Stiles reported that "rumors abound on Capitol Hill that a full disclosure of Hagel’s professional ties would reveal financial relationships with a number of 'unsavory' groups, including one purportedly called 'Friends of Hamas.'" Arutz Sheva and Algemeiner, conservative pro-Israel news organizations, ran versions of the story based 100 percent on links to the Shapiro original. On February 7, radio host Hugh Hewitt interviewed Sen. Rand Paul about the Hagel nomination and pushed him on the "Friends of Hamas" story.

HH: Let me bring up one piece of information that Ben Shapiro at Breitbart put out today, which is one of the foreign funders behind Senator Hagel that he has not yet disclosed formally is something called Friends Of Hamas. If that is in fact true, Senator, would that lead you to vote against Mr. Hagel?

RP: You know, I saw that information today, also, and that is more and more concerning. With each day, there are new things coming out.

Paul has since come out against cloture on the nomination. Mike Huckabee, on tour in Israel last week, got asked about "Friends of Hamas" at a press conference. "If it proves true the rumors of Chuck Hagel's having received funds from Friends of Hamas," said the 2008 presidential candidate and current Fox News host, "if that's true then on its face that would disqualify him." On Fox Business, Lou Dobbs interviewed National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy about the Hagel quandary, and "Friends of Hamas" came up again.

MCCARTHY: There was a report that came out last week—not confirmed yet, but we're [i.e., the White House] also not denying it very vigorously—that one of the groups behind the speeches may have been an outfit called Friends of Hamas. That is not going to—

DOBBS: That has a ring to it, doesn't it?

MCCARTHY: Catchy.

Here's the problem: There's no proof that "Friends of Hamas" actually exists. At best, it's an organization so secret that nobody in government has thought to mention its existence. At worst, it's as fake as Manti Te'o's girlfriend. The Treasury Department, which designates sponsors of terror, has done so to many charities tied to Hamas. "Friends of Hamas" is not among them. The State Department doesn't designate it, either. And a bit less holistically, a Lexis search for the group reveals absolutely nothing.

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion...lLinksEnabled=false&google_editors_picks=true

The revelation could have doomed President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense: He gave a paid speech to a group called “Friends of Hamas.”

Fortunately for Hagel, this claim, which galloped across the Internet, was bogus. I know, because I was the unwitting source.

In the process, I became part of an inadvertent demonstration of how quickly partisan agendas and the Internet can transform an obvious joke into a Washington talking point used by senators and presidential wannabes.

Here’s what happened: When rumors swirled that Hagel received speaking fees from controversial organizations, I attempted to check them out.

On Feb. 6, I called a Republican aide on Capitol Hill with a question: Did Hagel’s Senate critics know of controversial groups that he had addressed?

Hagel was in hot water for alleged hostility to Israel. So, I asked my source, had Hagel given a speech to, say, the “Junior League of Hezbollah, in France”? And: What about “Friends of Hamas”?

The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed — let alone that a former senator would speak to them.

Or so I thought.

The aide promised to get back to me. I followed up with an e-mail, as a reminder: “Did he get $25K speaking fee from Friends of Hamas?” I asked.

The source never responded, and I moved on.

I couldn’t have imagined what would happen next. On Feb. 7, the conservative web site Breitbart.com screamed this headline:

“SECRET HAGEL DONOR?: WHITE HOUSE SPOX DUCKS QUESTION ON ‘FRIENDS OF HAMAS’”

The story read: “On Thursday, Senate sources told Breitbart News exclusively that they have been informed one of the reasons that President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has not turned over requested documents on his sources of foreign funding is that one of the names listed is a group purportedly called ‘Friends of Hamas.’”

The author, Ben Shapiro, wrote that a White House spokesman hung up on him when he called for comment. That went in the story — to buttress the assertion that the White House didn’t deny the claim.

Shapiro tweeted the link to his nearly 40,000 Twitter followers. Blogs like RedState.com and the National Review’s The Corner linked to it. In Israel, Mike Huckabee said “rumors of Chuck Hagel’s having received funds from Friends of Hamas,” would, if true, “disqualify him.”

Somehow, I was not aware of the firestorm until Sunday, when I glanced at my phone and saw a Slate.com story raising big doubts whether “Friends of Hamas” even exists.

On Monday, I reached my source. The person denied sharing my query with Breitbart but admitted the chance of having mentioned it to others. Since the source knew we spoke under a standard that my questions weren’t for sharing, that’s a problem.

But there was another fail-safe. Since the “Friends of Hamas” speech was imaginary, it was not like another reporter could confirm it, right?

Not quite. Reached Tuesday, Shapiro acknowledged “Friends of Hamas” might not exist. But he said his story used “very, very specific language” to avoid flatly claiming it did.

“The story as reported is correct. Whether the information I was given by the source is correct I am not sure,” he said.

I am, it seems, the creator of the Friends of Hamas myth. Doing my job, I erred in counting on confidentiality and the understanding that my example was farcical — and by assuming no one would print an unchecked rumor.

If anyone didn’t know already: Partisan agendas, Internet reporting and old-fashioned carelessness can move complete crocks fast. If you see a story on Hagel addressing the Junior League of Hezbollah, that’s fake too.

And this is why it's OK to criticize sources.

Edit: It gets even better now with Breitbart.com doubling down on the fiction:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/02/20/NYDaily-source-friends-hamas