Why did Tulsi Gabbard resign? You can’t tell from the media’s dueling anonymous sources.
I’m not one to break out the smelling salts when news outlets rely on anonymous sources. Important investigative stories are often based on unnamed insiders, as was the case with The Atlantic’s recent exposé of FBI Director Kash Patel’s drinking and erratic behavior. Reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick interviewed more than two dozen sources and sought comment from both the FBI and the White House.
But I thought some of the sourcing around Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s announcement that she would resign was just plain shoddy. Let’s start with Jonathan Landay and Erin Banco of Reuters, who wrote on Friday: “A source familiar with the matter said that Gabbard had been forced out by the White House.”
Thus on the basis of one anonymous source did Reuters assert that Gabbard was lying when she claimed she was leaving in order to take care of her husband, who, she said, has been diagnosed with bone cancer.
Interestingly, The New York Times account, by Dustin Volz and Julian E. Barnes, directly contradicts Reuters, saying: “Mr. Trump did not force Ms. Gabbard to resign on Friday, according to people familiar with the matter, but her standing and influence within the White House had continued to erode in recent months.”
Now, I don’t know how many sources are covered by “people,” but it’s more than one.
Finally, there’s this Associated Press report, by Meg Kinnard, Will Weissert and David Klepper: “There had been rumblings that Gabbard would split with Trump after the president’s decision to strike Iran, which caused some division within his administration.”
Rumblings? OK. Actually, maybe we can let that go, since we’ve all seen reports in recent months that Gabbard wasn’t on board with the Iran war. Still, the passive-tense construction doesn’t give any indication of where these “rumblings” have been coming from. The White House? The Pentagon? Who knows?
Decisions over when it’s acceptable to rely entirely on anonymous sources are always fuzzy, but the real reason that Gabbard is leaving isn’t important enough to try to report it on the basis of light sourcing in real time. A story based on multiple sources reporting on what really happened would be welcome — and there was no need to try to break that story in the immediate aftermath of her resignation.
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors
Related Knowledge Center: Trust in news media
In ancient media times, when newspapers made money and three network news behemoths roamed the land, a vast majority of Americans trusted what they saw on television and read in the paper. No more: The slide in trust that began in the 1970s continues to this day, with fewer and fewer people believing what they find in the news cacophony.