Posted on 02/12/2007 8:28:21 AM PST by presidio9
Just 28% of Americans say it is ethical for reporters to publish news stories based upon anonymous sources. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll of 1,000 adults found that 45% disagree and say the use of unnamed sources is unethical.
Americans under 40 are more likely to find this journalistic practice acceptable than their elders, but a plurality of younger adults still finds the use of anonymous sources unethical.
The public judgment is even harsher for reporters who publish classified information obtained from an anonymous source. By a three-to-one margin (63% to 21%) American adults believe that publishing such information should be illegal. Women are more likely than men to hold this view.
These findings come at a time when I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is on trial for perjury and obstructing justice in a case growing out of the Valerie Plame incident. No one is on trial directly for leaking the identity of Plame, a CIA operative.
The trial itself has failed to capture the public imagination. Just 17% say they're following the story Very Closely. Another 22% say Somewhat Closely.
Libby is viewed favorably by 24% of Americans and unfavorably by 37%. As you would expect, perceptions of Libby vary significantly across party lines. Among Republicans, 36% have a favorable opinion of Vice-President Cheney's former Chief of Staff. Twenty-seven percent (27%) of the GOP faithful have an unfavorable view.
Among Democrats the numbers are far more negative--14% favorable and 50% unfavorable.
This national telephone survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted by Rasmussen Reports February 10-11, 2007. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information
That's 28% more than should. They probably lack the basic reasoning abilities. You need only ask what stops a journalist from making the entire story up to get the reaction that an "anonymous source" brings as credible evidence.
I never believe anything attributed to an anonymous source.
BTW, 30% of Americans believe Bush was behind or had something to do with 9/11.
The combination of:
Anonymous sources (which are just lies)
Polls (which are just lies)
And biased reports (which are just lies)
shows that the so-called dinosaur media, the death watch media, is still plenty potent and is being underestimated by many.
I don't have an issue with anonymous sources per se. It's the abuse of them by reporters, especially in the WaPo and NYT. Also, whenever I hear the phrases "some experts say" in the WaPo, it usually refers to some Dem hack at the DNC sniping at some major GOP sucess, but by making the "expert" anonymous it makes the criticism sound like honest and unbias reporting, as opposed to the sleazy hit piece it is.
When I read "critics say" I discount everything after it as probably just made up.
Correction:
Instead of 28%, it should be "some say".
Instead of 28%, it should say "a significant percentage," or "experts say."
Agreed. The Internet is fantastic, but it is still a "narrowcast" to groups of like-minded people. The MSM broadcasts to a mixed audience, including people who can be persuaded to adopt a point of view.
As successful as sites such as Free Republic and Little Green Footballs have been in breaking stories, those efforts are pretty meaningless until it gets beyond the "Pajama Belt" and is picked up by a MSM source and broadcast as news. We're fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.
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