ah ah, hello, i'm manila chad. you are tuned into modus operandi. in recent years, there's been one term that seems to have been popping up more and more frequently anonymous sources. if anonymous sources were a single person, they would be the most quoted individual in media since 2020. now this week, whether we're talking about coven policy, or the conflict in ukraine, media outlets around the world site, so called anonymous sources,

and government officials react coincidence, or a feature for new modes to enact policies impacting us all. we'll discuss it. all right, let's get into the m. o. ah, they're quoted all over the media on tv, newspapers, magazines, anywhere. there's a story to be told, anonymous sources. sometimes they're the benefactor to breaking some of the worst actions a government other times. they're the reason for the bad actions taken by those in power. the tremendous power of anonymous sources in journalism cannot be underestimated, but also shouldn't be taken as gospel. in this day and age, every purported leeker has a purpose, and every government has a responsibility to verify before reacting. take the bogus a p report. the missile that had poland,

killing 2 farmers. the initial report by an alleged anonymous source at the pentagon, blamed russia only to later be revealed that it came from ukrainian forces. but nonetheless, world leaders reacted to that 1st flawed report to talk more with us about the role of anonymous sources and how they can shape global policy. is a veteran investigative reporter with a resume from the likes of the boston globe news week. and so many others, he is now the editor in chief at consortium news dot com, mr. joe loria is here. jo, thank you for being with us joe. my 1st question is, i'd like to know how important to you, how important are anonymous sources in the world of journalism? well, they've become increasingly important over the last few years. although i study i was just looking at showed, was it 2011 study, it showed that the peak,

the 19 seventies and declined up to 2011. i don't know the data from then 2011 to now, but it's an integral part, particularly of foreign policy and international relations and national security reporting. so it's a very, very tricky subject. i'm glad you have me on to talk about it. because it's fraught with lots of difficulties and dangerous for the profession. if you rely on anonymous sources too much, you are in trouble and you could also be misled by them, or you can willingly participate in basically this information for a variety of reasons. so if it's a big topic, now some argue that quoting anonymous sources in a story actually removes accountability. what's your view on that? do some sources actually warrant staying anonymous? yes, obviously certain stories, they weren't remaining anonymous. this is the judgment that

a reporter and editor has to make it. so it's a you shouldn't abuse and use too much. i mean, if you're, let's say you're covering a negotiation, whether that be a union manager, negotiation or diplomatic negotiated countries. and you have somebody who's in the room, you know, they're in the room and they're willing to talk to you. but obviously they cannot be they cannot be identified because they done for a whole number of reasons. they would be hurting their own position with their government or what their company or the law firm or they would, they could screw up the negotiations if it's known that one side is leaking in the other. so what you really want to get story, the only way you know what's going on in that room is if you talk to somebody who's in there, when they are a direct witness, you can rely on the fact that they have were present. and they probably know what's going on, of course they could mislead you. this is the tricky part. since they're anonymous,

they can get away with being. after i say disingenuous were misleading or outright lying to you to get to favor their position. that's why you've got to be very careful when you use only one on the source of the story, you'd want to get somebody from the other side in that negotiation and ask the same questions. if you can't get the other side, you've got to make a decision, whether you actually believe this person or not. and the way you could do that is not only by talking to another source, but trying to find other avenues to verify what they're saying. again, you verified that they are in a position to know they were in the wrong. ok, that's fine. what you're telling you does a job with what was, let's say, said previously by his side or our side of the negotiation, was that close to the positions that they've taken earlier or is a completely off the wall completely new direction. and you'd have to follow up and ask for how this change. so you can sus, out from interviewing the source, whether he's telling you, or she's telling you the truth or not. i can tell you

a story where i got slightly burned once by my bureau chief. i was at, i will be 25 years at the united nations headquarters in new york. i was the wall street journal corresponding to the boston gloves correspondence and for time for the german press agency in the english service. and there was some behind the scenes close door meeting that the secretary general had with his top political advisors. i can't remember exactly what the issue was. it was just a big story of the day of the un. it was sometime in the mid ninety's about was 30 years ago. so if you forget him, but i did speak someone who was in the room and he told me something and i had to make a decision. i believed him. it seemed to be valid based on what i already knew about the story in the context. and i put it out when you're in a wire. so if you want even more pressure, especially those days, because newspapers had really gone on the internet the way they are today, where they're almost acting like why services themselves since they want to get the

story out on the, on the internet and those days it was in the next day's newspaper, so you could take more time as a daily news reported to actually mailed out a story. you had an old database that again story for you are normally 6 pm deadline. even after that you can add stuff, but the pressure, by the way, this paper is being on the internet now is the same as on a wire or so i published a story. un spokesman for the sector general denied it. my bureau chief got furious, they denied it. he said, i said, well, it doesn't mean it's not true. so just because, you know, a official source denied something doesn't mean that the source was not telling you the truth. so you report that they denied it. you leave it out there and they do as much capital form the reader of the context of the story. and they can decide whether the official source denying it is telling the truth whether the source telling the truth. yeah, i do and you want to sources but you can't and you think it's vital and that you

feel secure enough in it. i think you can go one source but you can be burned. so you going to be very careful about that. just one example of my own experience and i can tell you. so the a p story regarding the ukranian missile that struck poland. it killed 2 the a p reporter quoted, a, suppose it anonymous. d o d official. when that story broke, alleging russia had struck poland bloomers, zalinski ran with that story. as did many other leaders, effectively calling for a full scale nato response against russia. now this could have led to a nuclear winter for the world. within 48 hours, it turned out the reporter lied about the anonymous source. after investigations on the ground revealed that the missile was actually ukrainian. now had that story been allowed to further propagate. this really could have changed life on this planet as we know it, your thoughts on that one? well, this is really the matter about the source because you've got rich routinely people

inside the government, particularly the intelligence agencies, but also the pentagon. in this case, that will tell report is things that further the interests of the us will be a gender of the us. well, you've got to be very, very careful. we've got a situation now careers i'm in journalism. pressure to get it right to get it 1st rather than get it right. and this mentality that permeates corporate media, that of trust of government source. and instead of the opposite, we should be more skeptical of people in government, particularly in intelligence. because i mean part of their job description is disinformation. this is what they do. so you going to be very careful when someone in the c i a, or the f b i, or the n a se tells you something. well, the department of defense, or anyone and got a high level on an international story of this kind of importance. again, i said there are instances where you could go with one source in my opinion. if

it's not that vital to restore the more important it gets in terms of the consequences to the public. in this case, yes, the possibility that it could have spark orbiting nato and russia, which could have gotten out of hand up to even including maybe a nuclear exchange. this is a store you really better make sure it's correct and the idea that this report or what was one source was outrageous ab worse for me, was that his added b editors agreed they signed off on it. somebody leaked that those emails to the washington post and we learned that the editor said, though i actually wanted it, it was quoted saying, i can't imagine that a u. s. official would not be telling the truth about this. that was the clearest admission in decades of, of the problem of stablish rent media globally going along with what the u. s. officials say they believe in the red, white and blue that the u. s. is always telling the truth that the u. s. interests

around the world, a noble that was spreading democracy, not just strategic and economic interests, et cetera. and this is where this is the major problem we've got here with the report is not what these anonymous sources because you know what they know. they know that journalist what the scoop, they can easily manipulate a reporter and telling them what they want to hear in order to get the story out there. if the cia made a statement or the pentagon directly, you know, especially not tells agency, it may not be believed by the public. because as i said, they were involved in this information as part of their job. but if they filter it or launder it through the new york times, so shaded press, the public is assuming, well, the journals did your job and vetted this information. so this more likely to be true than if they said it directly. so this is why you have to be so damn careful, not to just take what you ask, the governor or any government official tells you. this is a situation of my view where reporters are vicariously living through

powerful people that they cover. they want a piece of this political power, and they don't realize that journals and has a different power and is human. some ways more powerful than them is we can hold those powerful people to work out on behalf of the public. this is the crux of the issue. are you, is your audience, the reader, are you serving their interests or are you serving the interest of powerful government like united states, this will every port has to ask themselves and it's gone. i mean, we did see that maybe in the $907.00 is more but right now the prevailing oh, attitude amongst corporate reports and i worked 25 years and it's, i know is to believe the government source. and in this instance, it was joe biden, who was at the summit in indonesia, within hours, who said no, we don't think it was russia. i mean for him to come out and say that because he knew that what this could mean,

what this could lead to. so was the president united states or respond to this 8 p storm and the a p. fired this reporter. i don't know that he admitted that he lied and we, and i don't know that he ever released all the sources. but i do know that he was fired in those editors apparently got away with it and it's their ultimate responsibility because they was post. do i just read before this interview? the rules are using anonymous sources and the report a must reveal to the editor who that sources. i don't know if that happened in this instance. but if he, if the reporter did the editor, then his response, ultimately for this story going out, because the editor can kill the story reporter cannot. so i blame the editors more, but they got away with it. we don't know the names of the editors or we do know the name of the reporter. he lost his job. this is a textbook example of what goes wrong with anonymous sauce. it could be in no better one than that. probably prompted you to have this program because this story

will go down as why you have to be careful and how you should not just take government sources at face value unless you can get in that instance at least another source. and you may be from nato, maybe from a polish government, from ukraine. what are they saying now? we know what your claim was. same zalinski ran with it. and this story had the benefit on the side of showing what a liar zalinski can be, because even have to bind said, no, it wasn't russia. it was ukraine. zalinski continued to say it was russia. why? because they knew they screwed up, that they sent that missile into poland by mistake. they kill people. so i, my god, they gotta admit this. they're a bit trouble. so that's basically russia. i mean, isn't that the refrain, let's blame russian. whatever goes wrong, hillary, clint lose electric. let's blame russia. so this is what he did there, and he was exposed only bought by by themself only because of the ultimate consequences could have led to. so we are, we got

a real understanding of how ukrainian government lies. governments lie this instance ukraine and how the gullibility or the, the desire to believe government. so you could be doing their job for them helping the u. s. government spread amongst i'm, it's pitiful. the state of american corporate, mainstream journalism and this store to pitt. emma's is what can go wrong when you don't know what you're doing in terms of using an anonymous source. i jo loria, is gonna stay with us coming up next. now, more than ever, governments are cracking down on journalists to reveal their sources and methods killing, assigned as a prime example. we'll discuss it when we return. that type mammo will be right back. ah, a letter the leaves are an acute state of anxiety in america. there is a state sanctioned effort to destroy trumping his followers, europe, basis,

mass protests and economic dislocation when it comes to foreign policy. western gemini, hinges on the fate of ukraine. overall, the outlook is bleak. ah little worn ukraine is a proxy or it's a war against russia. it's a war where the expectation was that russia would collapse under the sheer weight of thousands of sanctions, not only from the u. s, but from the u. and there was the expectation that the whole world would join in that for us, lost sight of their slipping power. and really the great majority of the population of the world did not go with ah,

welcome back to the ammo. i'm manila chan, joe loria decided to stick around. thank you for staying with us, joe. so can you think of other examples where anonymous sources are maybe bad sources got published in those in power use that information as a pretext to implement that policy or something like that. i mean, w and d's come to mind for me. yeah, that was curve ball, this anonymous source that everybody ran with it about the w in deep, but in the iraq lead up to the iraq invasion, we had government official saying on the record like rumsfeld, cheney and condo, lisa rice, that they had, they had a w n d, remember the mushroom cloud statement by candle is a right. so that was so disgusting. the need to get the public onside in order to go to war. they don't want them interfering with the conduct of war. we see this

now in ukraine. how anybody who challenges the official narrative about ukraine is kicked off a twitter is is hounded by trolls. is a, has their paypal account suspended as ours did a concert of news because they didn't like our training coverage. it gotten news guard gave us a red mark. they said that we published false content about ukraine a that there was a cool 2014 at the, the u. s. at a role in a and b that notches and has an influence, a large influence in your credit society, nobody knows anything about your grade. would deny that, except this is how this information works. it is to deny the obvious facts and stick with the myths that the people have been drawn drummed into their heads. so, but a curve ball is the example there. they built up a frenzy in this country before the, in the united states. and before that invasion, it was the most chilling period that i could remember, even worse than now, the lead up to the invasion of iraq, but people will find, look good. so donna,

you have the highest rated show on m s, n, b, c. he started, he was skeptical, and the guy was on a journal really he would have a proxy and he was more skeptical. new york times that scene and then all of them because he said wait a minute, do they really m w m d on the yes got river on yet people i thought it was the un weapons inspector was saying, we don't have evidence and he should not he contradicted rumsfeld, he contradicted, but she can't contradict. cheney. and so did. phil donahue, in his show, was cancelled. it was the highest rated show, which was sometimes even politics when it comes to war and creating a war fever. it trumps even a profit at a private news channel, but it is an extraordinary statement right there. so that was one example where anonymous sources, i played a role but they also went on the record with this. there are probably many also don't come to mind immediately. right now. we're on

a lesser we're talking about war and possible nuclear war. when on the sources can be dangerous, but we saw hold washer get comes to mind. so many dam where roney a story, somebody made a list of like 50 articles in the mainstream media that turned out later to be absolutely false and most of them had to be retracted. and there was one by and, and be see he and he got fired a long time, nbc intelligence reporter, who wrote something about a russia being involved. i can't remember what it was and he got fired. i mean, there are tons, i would say russia gate is full of a fertile i would stories that was leaked to the mainstream press, the turn out to be absolute rubbish because they had an agenda and they were pushing hard. and this is a great example of how long the sources can abuse reporters who want to be abused. because they want to run with the story because it helps their careers. they get

scoops, they know a diplomats government officials, the competition between reporters, they play one of one off against the other. they'll leaked $11.00 time the link to another, the other time they're fighting one another. and the, by the way, i should mentioned before, i forget this very important part about circular consummation. because if you don't try to get 2 sources as you should, and if from the same agency or even other agencies, if there is an agreement amongst the intelligence agencies or the ministration about what the story is going to be, what the story is full of lies as it might be, or emitting information or partially true, if they all have that and you get it from one source in one agency and then you call another one and it'll say the same thing. oh yeah, it's true. you have to sources not telling you things that aren't true. so it's impossible to go outside of government sometimes when these, when we're in the policy formulation stage. so sometimes you get the cycle, i'm not going to run the story. i'd rather be beaten than put out something false,

particularly once a question of peace and war. now there appears to be a rise in the use of anonymous sources in media these days, and i can't find any precise data on that matter. but if you look at places like the new york times or cnn, stories are littered with quotes from anonymous sources. should the public be wary of those stories? well, there is the study by duffy and freeman to professors 2011, which said that it peaked in the seventy's and gone down. but that since 2011 and may have gone up again. so it does seem like there is an enormous amount of on the sources being used all the editors at the times in the post. and so we don't want to use it. we're trying to cut it down. apparently it's like 20 percent of the stores contain anonymous sources now or lease at the time of that study. and i came down from like 30 to 40 percent. so it exists the public asked to be has to be skeptical. now that's not their job. their jobs,

whatever their job is, they don't have the time to find out they relying on journalists to spend their full time getting information and vetting that information. being scammed down to being spewed by the government through the mainstream press. the newspaper has vetted this information and they wouldn't put it in the paper if it weren't true. so they, this is what it's all based on. but i think the publics become more and more skeptical of the report is who should be skeptical of the government. and that's why the skepticism should be at the level of the government of the reporter with the government source, not public having to be skeptical of the reporter and of the newspaper. but that's where we're at right now. i think the polls show that people have lost all interest or faith in mainstream media and we'll see how poorly they do in terms of, of the social media. look on social media. this is opened up a huge problem for the mainstream press. there's a lot of crap on social media,

lot of garbage and stuff that's not vetted, it's not true and this and that. but people are able to speak up now and they do not trust big newspapers, particularly on these big stories like peace and war, where we are intelligence matters where they, they've seen too many failures. and the story being, as i said, the peer to me of this, but there were many, many want all the rush against or is it turned out not to be true. all the w n. d story, of course, in iraq. that wasn't true. and there doesn't seem to be any consequences suffered by the ministry media except in terms of being fired by their companies. they sell the one at one instance i mentioned nbc, but the washington post editorial got fred hide who is now passed away in the last year he worked all kinds of lies about w, m d. and he got promoted. i mean, these people are ridiculous, but we've got the public losing trust. so there's a real crisis here. and at the center of this credit is the use of anonymous

sources that turn out to be peddling false information. another aspect to anonymous sources are those things that go viral on social media, right? it's often and vetted many times untrue. those stories or tropes, they get traction almost instantly online through social media. we might even call them fake news. but we've seen world leaders such as justin, true, know, the canadian prime minister by into something he saw on twitter about iran and acted almost reflexively to fake twitter news. how dangerous is this sort of behavior from somebody in his position? you would assume that the prime minister nato member is going to get prefix on his intelligence and he will be told that's true or not that he or someone in his office. i don't think it's up. and he said that someone in his office just ran with that shows that the mentality is there and i want to do whatever they kept to undermine the rain and government to proper of these protesters. so that kind of

a thing, it was about $15000.00. i believe so much we did, they just immediately we're actually did it. that's really negative side of social media. there are lots of positive i mentioned before the public can weigh in now. but the negative side is that if you could put out anything you want and the intelligence agencies and others are putting out garbage, they have whole teams working on social media, facebook and twitter, putting out this information trolling people, people are paid to do that. so this assess pool social media, if prime minister can be fooled, you can imagine anyone can be full. going to be very careful about that through about seeing a tweet. looking about who said it, especially if there's not a name, i long to cry. the idea that you can put up an account on facebook, twitter, without using your real name. you can just give yourself any handle at all that to me. i'm right away. i'm skeptical that doesn't want to use the real name. so it's,

yes, twitter has just especially twitter as just exacerbated this issue of dis, information getting after it's circulated. and as i say, it tells you services use twitter to help promote this information. and you also get drowned out when you say something that's true. if you don't have the followers, right? if you don't get really, we tweeted so, and then somebody puts are alive. he has people who can between people think that if, because you're big because you have a blue check that therefore you are trustworthy. i mean, this is, you have to be w, skeptical on social media that you do even of dementia press, which at this point, one must be really, really skeptical because they're not skeptical of their sources. all right, be intrepid an award winning jo loria of consortium news. thank you for being with us and that's going to do it for this weeks episode of modus operandi the show that dig deep into foreign policy. i'm your host manila chan. thank you for tuning in.

we'll see you again next week to figure out the ammo ah ah operation, the aerodynamic began shortly after well was too lost it almost 3 decades. it wasn't a major effort to try and split the ukraine off from the soviet union, u. s. intelligence. together with hypnos, executioners drained hundreds of saboteurs to be deployed and the soviet union is focused on the use of bundle. so we'll have started with a gm service shooting more than yes. today, security service of ukraine use is not only the statistic message,

but almost the ideology of the nationalist, a with a ah, russia claim. so leak of classified pentagon documents about the war and ukraine reveal nothing new that those questions remain about the authenticity of the file. the u. s. could pull its support for ukraine and leave europe to face the conflict on its own. that the warning to the french president from a republican senator entering choppy water is attention spike in the pacific region. as

a u. s. navy vessel sale through the south trying to see all big old major drills all around taiwan.