The "Washington Insider" is a MSM Fabrication.

Hello ATS.

I've been seeing the recent threads about this "Washington Insider", who apparently every couple of weeks has some new and disturbing information about the state of affairs at the white house among other things.

Now it's always an unnamed source, there's never any substance to these stories, yet the MSM have been pushing them and using them as a tool to further the left vs right paradigm.

Has anybody else noticed this clear and present hoax on Americans?

Here are those threads that I can find with this supposed insider.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...


~Keeper


As given to me by ATS Member rogerstigers here is a website that seems to fact check and discuss anonymous sources in journalism.

Anonymous Sources

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I often thought the same thing then I saw some uncut feed footage of a press conferance that ultimately attributed the speakers as "anonymous sources". It ended up being a senator and a general who were speaking. I really wish I could remember what the conference was about.

In any case, it is not always a hoax and likely it is never some back room conversation with a low level assistant.

reply to post by rogerstigers


Yeah I had been contemplating that idea for a bit, but I would not image some low level assistance would be privy to this kind of information would they?

I mean some of the stuff coming out of these reports are simply ridiculous.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


The links aren't working TTTP..

and i would really like to read them...

yes..i have seen some of this too...

Wow.. check this site out www.anonymoussources.org...

reply to post by baddmove


Just copy and paste the links into your browser window.

Usually pasted links just show up as actual links, but in this case not it seems.

~Keeper

Originally posted by rogerstigers
Wow.. check this site out www.anonymoussources.org...

WOW!

That site is incredible if I think it is what it is.

I'm gonna put that in the OP so people can see it.

Thanks for posting!

~Keeper

my concern was every day this would be reposted by a new person on here, right up until the election was over, then they have vanished.

it seems to me like it was a dedicated program to bring news of obama's gayness and laziness to ATS daily.
my guess is it was just a smear campaign. i dont care what pollie you like, they all suck. and we deserve what we get for continuously engaging in their games by voting.

however, hijacking our forum to plug thier agenda just ticks me off..

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Down from 200 mil a day to just 5 mil a day..(see link up there)

I sure feel better now..

And i did what you said and it worked just fine..

reply to post by baddmove


Yeah that story was ridiculous. It became a Republican talking point for a week until people starting pointing out blatantly false it was.

I had to put https in front of the links for them to work apparently lol

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Did you hear the current excuse? That the Pentagon and the government can't be trusted anyway so therefor their denial of this makes the story more so true. Amazing aint it? You know it costs $200 million to maintain the Iraq war a day. I cannot for the life of me understand how anybody can use the logic that this much money can be spent on a trip. But then again most people are just eager to take and throw anything.

Here is another link.. a sidebar from the earlier site. inkstainedwretch.org...

it shows a breakdown of the usage of anonymouse sources.. I cannot tell what the time range of the query is, however it really shows an interesting slice of the data.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


I agree.

Anything that pokes fun or can be used as criticism of the white house or "spending" in general takes off like wildfire.

And I wonder if any of those publications who enforced this idea printed retractions? My gut tells me no.

Honest journalism isn't what it used to be.

I suggest you check out the website I linked above though, some very interesting information from some people who seem to care about journalism.

~Keeper

Originally posted by rogerstigers
Here is another link.. a sidebar from the earlier site. inkstainedwretch.org...

it shows a breakdown of the usage of anonymouse sources.. I cannot tell what the time range of the query is, however it really shows an interesting slice of the data.

Another great site.

It seems if you click on the publication, it time stamps the stories that that they used anonymous sources. A good way to track.

Although it's no surprise that the more popular ones use TONS of anonymous sources.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I wonder if that is a side effect of the volume of stories they have or simply that their integrity drops to allow them to keep up.

I also have to wonder, though, how much of those stories are Rueters or AP sourced and thus counted more than once (once for every paper that uses it)

reply to post by tothetenthpower


There is this idea going around that the media and the government are the only sources of propaganda and misinformation running around. In all honesty, over my time spent here, I have found that the vast majority of the propaganda and lies being spread tends to come from blogs and unauthenticated websites. Theres this idea that it is perfectly ok to take an article from a blog or a website for face value and anything else is tainted (unless in many cases it's Fox news). It is hypocritical and when you make light of this, most members just brush it away.

It appears that members on this forum on willing participants in the current environment of misinformation, and yet they want to whine and complain about transparency and honesty in the government. You know that say, "we get the government we deserve".

reply to post by rogerstigers


I would think that the larger the publication, there will be more anonymous sources that's for sure. Just by volume alone.

Although I do believe the integrity level has dropped because nobody is there to say that you MUST tell the truth when writting news stories.

As far as how many of them are counted twice, that's a good point, although if they are just continually echoing the same information as other sources, without adding additional content I don't think I would consider that quality journalism either.

~Keeper

reply to post by Southern Guardian


In agreement once again.

A lot of the problem as stated in a previous post, there is no accountability or overight in journalism. A lot of the time people see those words as "censorship" though. That's not at all what I mean.

I don't remember when, but I will try and find the story, there's a court in the US, I'm not sure if it was Supreme Court or not, which states that journalists don't HAVE to tell the truth as this would be a violation of Freedom Of Speech.

I can't say I completely disagree with the ruling, but when media outlets and journalists are the ones that "decide" what the truth is in this day and age, I would be happy to support a program that requires them to at least fact check and prove that stories are either true or false.

~Keeper

Now that you guys are done pointing out the obvious, what do you think of Politico using anonymous sources?

What do you think of ALL sides of the media using anonymous sources?

Just wondering.

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower


Anonymous sources are essential in proper journalism, nobody can argue that point.

It's the misuse of those that are the problem. Historically unnamed sources were able to provide some form of document or something like that which would legitimize their information.

Today it's just hearsay, about issues that are really non issues.

Just more fuel for the MSM to divide the country.

The snarky remark was unnecessarry I will add.

~Keeper