Roger L. Simon pretty much bitch-slaps the Washington Post for its article today on Iran's growing nuclear weapons potential:
Today's Washington Post article on a new intelligence report that Iran is ten years away from nuclear weapons is almost a burlesque of the mainstream media reliance on unnamed sources - there at least three, possibly as many as five (hard to tell) in the fifteen-hundred word story. But amongst the miasma of phrases like "Top policymakers are scrutinizing the review, several administration officials said..." (same people? different? who knows?) my absolute favorite for comedy value is:Simon goes on to say:"It's a full look at what we know, what we don't know and what assumptions we have," a U.S. source said.A U. S. source!? They actually printed that with a straight face. (I assume they did anyway.) What, pray tell, is a "U. S. source"? I guess they mean someone in the government, but it could just as well be your Aunt Fanny in Nome, Alaska. And they say bloggers don't have editors!
I find journalism of this sort to be repellent and dangerously close to pure disinformation. When I see a quote atttributed to something like a "U. S. source," I would trust my Aunt Fanny in Nome, Alaska over the speaker or the writer of the article - even though I don't have an Aunt Fanny in Nome or anywhere else. It's time for the Washington Post and the rest of the Mainstream Media establishment to put an end to this nonsense.