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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 30, 2020)
2 Wednesday, September 30, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Anonymity and accountability By Jim Cornelius Editor in Chief We live in a world awash in information 4 and every day it gets harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. It9s increasingly challenging for people working in good faith to sort out fact from fiction, truth from misinformation, disinformation and outright lies. During Oregon9s recent spate of catastrophic wild- fires, rumors spread as viru- lently as the wind-driven flames. Law enforcement agencies from the FBI to the Douglas and Jackson County sheriff9s offices found it nec- essary to address persistent rumors 4 presented as estab- lished fact 4 that extrem- ists were starting fires. They published statements that the rumors were not only unfounded but categorically false. While arsonists were found to have started some of the fires 4 and arrests were made 4 law enforce- ment investigated claims that extremists were engaged in a concerted campaign of terror- istic arson and found them to be untrue. Which didn9t stop the rumors from spreading. While it9s not in the same category as wild rumor, the over-reliance on anony- mous sources in national media also feeds a climate where information cannot be trusted. A recent article in The Atlantic by editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg cited multiple unnamed sources who claimed that President Donald Trump disparaged American service members as <losers= and <suckers= in the context of an aborted trip to a World War I military cemetery in France in 2018. Those inclined to think the worst of Donald Trump were quick to seize upon the report, which rings true to them: Trump, after all, has mocked and derided lots of people, including his very public disparagement of the late Senator John McCain, who was a POW during the Vietnam War. Trouble is, other people who were present categori- cally reject the report. And those people are not anony- mous. How should a person working in good faith weigh the relative credibility of people who are willing to put their names to their state- ments and those who are not? In his recent memoir, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who is, to put it mildly, not on friendly terms with the President, said the decision not to visit the cemetery was weather-related. Bolton told The New York Times that he did not hear Trump use the disparaging words depicted in Goldberg9s story. <I didn9t hear that. I9m not saying he didn9t say them later in the day or another time, but I was there for that discussion.= Goldberg is arguing that we should trust his report- ing. In a letter to the editor in The Nugget last week, D.S. Findlay said that The Atlantic <retracted the validity of their anonymous 8source.9= That9s not accurate. In an interview with CNN, Goldberg said, <I stand by my reporting, I have mul- tiple sources telling me this is what happened, and so I stand by it.= He also said that he is sure that all of the things that Bolton wrote in his own account are true. We9re unlikely to get the chance to see how Bolton9s account and Goldberg9s report can both be true, because we don9t know who Goldberg talked to. Much has reporting and dilutes the potential impact of his work. It seems he may have a glim- mer of realization to that effect. When Chris Hayes of MSNBC pressed him on anonymous sourcing, he replied: <I share that view that it9s not good enough. But, you know, like other reporters, I9m always balancing out the moral ambiguities and com- plications after anonymous sourcing with the public9s right to know& These are people in the various rooms. But, yeah, obviously it would be better if people would say, attach their names to what they know.= Yeah, obviously, it would. Standards for journalists and for folks posting online or talking with friends really shouldn9t be much differ- ent. If information cannot be verified from a responsible source that has account- ability, it should be treated very carefully 4 and the more inflammatory it is, the more skeptically it should be viewed. We should all do our best to follow verifiable information where it leads 4 and then let the truth will out and the chips fall where they may. been made of reports that the Associated Press and FOX News <confirmed= parts of Goldberg9s reporting. But we should be aware of what <confirmation= means in this context, as noted by Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept: <(J)ournalism is not sup- posed to be grounded in whether something is 8believ- able9 or 8seems like it could be true.9 Its core purpose, the only thing that really makes it matter or have worth, is reporting what is true, or at least what evidence reveals. And that function is com- pletely subverted when news outlets claim that they 8con- firmed9 a previous report when they did nothing more than just talked to the same people who anonymously whispered the same things to them as were whispered to the original outlet.= There are valid reasons to protect the anonymity of sources who provide critical, substantive and verifiable information 4 on tax data, for instance. Saving insiders from owning what amounts to gossip about the boss isn9t one. By relying solely on anon- ymous sources, Goldberg undermines trust in his Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is 10 a.m. Monday. To the Editor: I have been curious of Laird Superfood9s inter- est in Sisters since CEO Paul Hodge announced that the company would build their factory and headquarters here in Sisters and employ about 500 people. Now we see that Hodge and his part- ner, Paul Schneider, have purchased 36 acres of the old U.S. Forest Service property at the west end of town and have requested approval of a plan to build workforce housing for 300-500 new homes there on 25 of those acres. As letter writer Gary Leiser said, (The Nugget, Sept. 23) they should become multi-millionaires almost instantly from selling all those <workforce= homes. And let9s consider this: 500 Laird employees could mean 500 new residents of Sisters. If half of them are married, add 250 more people. If half of them have one child, add 125 more for a total of 875 new residents. And most families these days have two cars, so here comes another 750 cars. Mr. Schneider said, <We don9t want to change the community. We want to expand on it, providing workforce housing.= Well, sir, 875 new residents and 750 more cars will change the community, irreparably. I sincerely hope that the Sisters City Council denies this devastating request. Jim Cline s s Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. s s Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius s To the Editor: I don9t like to write letters to the editor anymore, s See LETTERS on page 4 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Email: editor@nuggetnews.com To the Editor: A message for Jeff Mackey Thank you for your service. Thank you for your patriotism. Thank you for your courage 4 it has not gone unnoticed. And thank you for sharing your common sense 4 a rare commodity these days and apparently a foreign concept to many. God bless you, Jeff. 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