Can We Build A Better Anony-mouse Trap?

Some of what's been passing for news the past few days is resembling NFL free agency – gossip, rumor and insider gossip of job searching and who's going to end up in, out and in different locations. While that's all good and well for water-cooler talk, there's a slightly more serious aspect to it when we're talking about running the country. Too wit:

The Drudge Report today is headlining an item about the possibility that Katie Couric will soon leave NBC News to become the new anchor of the CBS "Evening News." Relax, we're not breaking our longstanding practice of not engaging in rumors of personnel moves or of not trusting everything we see posted on Drudge. Rather, I wanted to use this particular rumor to emphasize another, both featuring the all-knowing "anonymous sources."

Just to sketch out the basics of the Drudge story today – CBS is prepared to offer Couric the anchor job and some "nervous executives" believe that is the wrong thing for the network to do. How do we know this? Because Drudge quotes "a top CBS suit," "one executive" and "a third Couric detractor." Well, three sources to a story, that would almost certainly be taken as near-truth had this appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times or even on a CBS News broadcast.

My question is, what makes those media institutions any more trustworthy than Drudge? Okay, other than the fact Drudge will post just about any kind of untrue, scurrilous, libelous material that fits his agenda?

The Couric-to-CBS rumors have been so rampant over the past several months that it's sort of become assumed among media watchers that it will happen the moment the "Today" show host's contract allows her to this spring. So Drudge is telling us nothing new on that front. His assertion that there is disagreement within the network over the issue is purposely dramatized in a manner to lead readers to believe there is a fundamental and threatening divide over it.

Is it true? Don't ask me, it's not something I'm particularly interested in unless evidence arises that this issue is somehow affecting what CBS News airs. It would be surprising if there weren't differences of opinion over an important matter like this in any company or business. Are the quotes genuine? Impossible to tell. What we're left with is a definite impression, valid or not, that many people will take forward.

From time to time news organizations are bitten by the very practice they routinely hoist upon their audiences, unnamed sources quoted in authoritative-sounding ways. Did anyone at CBS communicate with Drudge? What are their positions at the network? How might they benefit or be harmed by Couric's move to the network? What agendas do they have?

The Drudge Report may occupy a very low rung on the "credibility" ladder but he's not using a technique foreign to those above him. Consider The Washington Post story from Monday which asserted that the White House staff is burned out and in need of replacement. Here's the lead:

Andrew H. Card Jr. wakes at 4:20 in the morning, shows up at the White House an hour or so later, convenes his senior staff at 7:30 and then proceeds to a blur of other meetings that do not let up until long after the sun sets. He gets home at 9 or 10 at night and sometimes fields phone calls until 11 p.m. Then he gets up and does it all over again.

Of all the reasons that President Bush is in trouble these days, not to be overlooked are inadequate REM cycles. Like chief of staff Card, many of the president's top aides have been by his side nonstop for more than five years, not including the first campaign, recount and transition. This is a White House, according to insiders, that is physically and emotionally exhausted, battered by scandal and drained by political setbacks.

"We're all burned out," said one White House official who did not want to be named for fear of angering superiors. "People are just tired."

Like the Drudge story, the premise here is understandable. There has been little turnover in the White House, especially at the top, for this entire presidency. The poll numbers have slipped big-time, which adds to the natural speculation. Is it true? Who knows. Who might leave? Again, hard to tell. The more important questions are: What "insiders" were talking to The Post? Would they benefit from a staff shakeup? Is it an orchestrated effort to begin laying the groundwork for changes? Is it an attempt to try and force the administration to do so?

I'm not naïve, at least not enough to take everything printed or reported as unassailable truth. There is a long history of the government, businesses and prominent individuals using the media for a variety of purposes. The Washington Post story isn't particularly egregious, it's just the latest example of something I had seen in the media that made my eyebrows go up wondering just exactly what agenda was behind it. The media is used all the time, whether for trial balloons to gauge reaction to a policy idea, or by sources with hidden agendas impossible to discern from a reporter's point of view.

But it's one thing for a media organization to, in good faith, report on such things. It's another when they turn their heads and look the other way rather than critically looking at the credibility of their sources. Anonymous sources won't go on the record because they don't want anyone to know who they are. That may be understandable when revealing their identity would cost them their job, or something worse. It's unacceptable when they're simply using anonymity to hide behind to take potshots at enemies or advance a specific agenda. And not being able to tell the difference absolutely is not the same as not asking the questions in the first place. Otherwise, what's the difference between what The Post did and what you read on the Drudge Report?