Playing The Unname Game

By Cernig

This is what happens when reporters in the mainstream media are too willing to cite deliberate leaks by administration officials on an unattributed basis:

A senior U.S. military officer is disputing reports in two major U.S. newspapers, which said Friday that the U.S. commander in Iraq may be willing to send several thousands of his troops home by January. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says the U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, told him the stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post are "not accurate." The officer, who works closely with General Petraeus, says the general told him newspapers should not trust the unnamed officials quoted in those reports in the future, because their information is "off base."

Have you got that? An unnamed Pentagon officer says unnamed White House officials are lying - but Petreaus himself hasn't said a single word on the record.

At what point will the serious professional journalists of the nations serious professional media figure out they are being spun like tops simply because they are too ready to grant the cloak of unaccountability and anonymity to those with a political agenda?