Chagal4's Blog

Why do we let them get away with it? I don’t know how many stories I’ve read in the media over the past few years where the reporter…or editor insisted on telling us that a source spoke “on the condition of anonymity” or my favourite…”source cannot be named because he/she is not authorized to speak” or just plain “source not authorized to speak”. What is this? We’re supposed to depend on the integrity of the diligent reporter who risked some sort  of danger to seduce this “source” into revealing the facts of the matter? What fucking source?” It’s getting really annoying. Where were all these diligent reporters and their unauthorized sources when the gossip capital of the free world on Wall Street were planning on gutting the global economy? This isn’t Julie Assange territory. This is just do-your-job-and-tell-us-what’s-going-on journalism.

There are two possibilities (among many, maybe)that spring to mind…one is dead simple and the other more complex. The simple version goes like this. A reporter is sitting in a bar frequented by police, politicians, bankers, lawyers, hookers and other reporters. Did I mention bureaucrats from all directions? no…well they’re never authorized to speak so they have to be included. These are all “sources” and our reporter listens carefully…maybe buys a few drinks and turns on the pocket recorder. Having secretly recorded the source they cannot now admit this illegal activity and they roll out the old “source not authorized etc.” Even simpler, as we’ve seen with some fairly high profile magazine stories, is the ghost source. No, it’s not a source who recently became departed. It’s no source at all. Actually I have a little sympathy for the reporters who do this shit. It’s hugely risky so it requires creativity and balls. Given that our media has become so fond of the profits from propaganda…I think these reporters, who may have done good research before they wrote a good fiction…deserve some credit. And if truth is stranger than fiction…maybe fiction is truer than truth…certainly more truthful than some of the “not authorized” crap we’re fed by government and corporate shills.

The more complicated situation requires more understanding of mass media and where the money goes. Or rather where the money comes from. Subscribers haven’t paid the whole bill since never. Advertisers pay the bills. When print media was much bigger, back in the day, a lot of advertising dollars flowed through the doors. This offered a number of advantages that were good for all of us. A wide variety of advertisers insured that no single group of interests could control or overly influence editorial policy…At least they were easier to resist. It also meant that there was more money to pay “hard” reporters to pursue tough stories. These were journalists who were loathe to use those weasel words…”not authorized to speak”, yet they still found ways to tell the story, verify facts and avoid exposing valuable sources. Now the corporate legal departments want that extra caveat…bogus as it may be. These days advertisers spread their money around, T.V. the internet, print media…and oh yes…”product placement” in movies. (You thought Omega got that watch on James Bond’s wrist for free?). That all means much less revenue for print media…and even for the new divisions of T.V. networks. And these corporate heavy weights have become organs of political and corporate propaganda…and editorial policy often follows a pretty obvious line at election time. Many big newspapers have abandoned investigative journalism altogether. It’s expensive, the stories take a lot of time and travel to cover…the issues are often big enough to be surrounded by lawyers and vested interests in powerful places. Now we have generations of “multi facetted” journalists fresh out of journalism school suffering their first tragic defeats at the hands of cynical, brutal, bitter and occasionally corrupted editors. Who are these people? They think we want to know about the Kardashians…about Bruce Jenner (From a jock to a thong…what could go wrong?) No wonder they can’t name a source…and every time we read that shit we should toss the paper into the sky because the whole story is unreliable.

So what? Well…so, whomever IS able to authorize should be the source. And if they won’t talk, name them and shame them…”Jim says we’re not supposed to know” . O.K. don’t publish the story…or make it clear that some totalitarian regimes, corporate or government prefer to operate in secret. Be up front…say “we can’t tell you the full story or somebody will get killed” They must be able to come up with some suitable buzz words to cover that concept. Oh wait…they already have…

“source not authorized to speak”

This entry was posted on January 16, 2016 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.