HastingsChi
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2011
- Messages
- 2,190
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- 102
(modsnip)It's not irresponsible because it is covered under the shield laws. Journalists are allowed to protect sources if the information they are reporting is considered to be for the greater good. But as a retired journalist, I can tell you that the main stream media have policies about who is allowed to be an an unnamed source. It has to be someone of very high rank who they trust when asked to be "off the record." The media can not conspire with LE but they certainly can work together. It is a very fine line and I have no doubt, both media and LE are walking it in this case.
JMO
The information about the blood on the shoe should have received attribution in order to report. Why? The suspect is incarcerated and there is no danger to the community. The information is not critical to report using unnamed sources, it pollutes the jury pool and public opinion. The overuse of unnamed sources in situations like this completely devalue the use of unnamed sources for very important stories.
Then again, journalistic ethics seems to be rare these days... Gone are the days of double sourcing information and the very high standards that must be met in order to use anonymous sources; instead we have the news media that operates under the motto "It's more important to be first than accurate" which has only resulted in an endless amount of incorrect information being reported about every major news story.