Surprise! NY Post & Newsmax fail the sourcing test

The New York Post is reporting — via Newsmax TV — that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is about to be indicted on charges stemming from her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

This is a bombshell that could rock the presidential campaign — or it would be if the story wasnt something that would get an “F” from most any journalism professor I know.
Forget the partisan conspiracies — I know there are those who will assume I am writing this because I’m a Clinton supporter (I’m not, just to be clear). My criticisms are not about politics, but about journalism.
Consider the first four paragraphs of the Post story:

The FBI is seeking an indictment of Hillary Clinton in the ever-growing email scandal that has dogged her Democratic presidential bid, according to a former US House majority leader. 

“I have friends that are in the FBI and they tell me they’re ready to indict [her],” former Texas Republican Congressman Tom DeLay told Newsmax TV. 

DeLay then clarified his statement, saying that if the Justice Department does not hand down an indictment, the FBI will revolt. 

“They’re ready to recommend an indictment and they also say that if the attorney general does not indict, they’re going public,” DeLay warned.

Let’s start with the sourcing: Tom DeLay, a former Republican House majority leader who has no obvious ties to the Justice Department. DeLay’s history is problematic — he was indicted on and convicted of election law violations that were later overturned. But we could live with this. The problem is that he is relating information from unnamed “friends that are in the FBI” — unverifiable hearsay that has no business serving as the primary sourcing for a story about the local dogcatcher, let alone one about a presidential candidate. If one of my reporters came to me with such a loosely soured story, I would have sent him back to do more work — or I would have killed it outright.
There are other issues with this sorry — the biased lede paragraph, which proclaims with certainty that an indictment is coming, and the choice of photos chief among them. Clinton is pictured in a “crazy-eye” photo, while DeLay gets a flattering headshot — choices that leave the reader to assume one is unhinged and untrustworthy and the other is rational and believable.
I know that expecting more from the Post is asking a lot, but we should as a lot of our news sources.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.
Unknown's avatar

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Leave a comment