Part of our core mission? Exposing the Left's blatant hypocrisy. Help us continue the fight and support the 2024 Year-End Campaign now.

March 8, 2017

The Media’s Anonymous-Sources Hypocrisy

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders exposed a notable bit of hypocrisy on ABC’s “This Week.” As the liberal media boiled over President Trump accusing former President Obama of wiretapping him, ABC host Martha Raddatz spat at Sanders about a conservative blog’s reporting, saying: “And Heat Street, they have two sources with links to the counterintelligence community. That’s it. Anonymous sources.”

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders exposed a notable bit of hypocrisy on ABC’s “This Week.” As the liberal media boiled over President Trump accusing former President Obama of wiretapping him, ABC host Martha Raddatz spat at Sanders about a conservative blog’s reporting, saying: “And Heat Street, they have two sources with links to the counterintelligence community. That’s it. Anonymous sources.”

Sanders shot back: “I love how anonymous sources don’t count when it’s something that’s positive in this administration and against the former one. You guys use anonymous sources every single day. … But now that there are new anonymous sources, it doesn’t matter.”

Bravo! We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. We don’t see evidence yet that Obama ordered a wiretap on Trump or his aides, but we know this: Arrogant Old Media outlets think their sources are automatically impeccable, eternally credible and nonpartisan. Indeed, Raddatz bit down on that notion, replying to Sanders: “Yes, we do. … The Washington Post says this morning that ‘senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the wide-ranging federal investigation into Russian interference into the election said there had been no wiretap.’”

So why are we all supposed to genuflect to The Washington Post and The New York Times when they publish breathless stories taking on the White House relying on their favored “senior U.S. officials”? After all, in August, the Times put a columnist on its front page declaring that the press needed to be “oppositional” and defeat Trump since he is a “demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies” who “cozies up to anti-American dictators and … would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes.”

The Post imagines itself as forever taking down the latest Nixons. One anti-Trump column was headlined “In the angry face of Trumpism, media must speak truth to glower.”

It’s beyond ironic that the press that champions transparency also advocates relying on completely opaque sources on a daily basis. In political combat over allegations that the Obama administration holdovers in the intelligence community tried to take down Trump, wouldn’t it help to know whether these liberal newspapers are relying on the holdovers and granting them all the benefits of anonymity? Isn’t it possible that “senior officials” are offering talking points authored by Barack Obama himself? We’ll never know. But we know we can’t trust liberal newspapers given their political tilt.

The Post openly knocked Trump for decrying anonymous sources even as his own officials demanded anonymity. “Two of those officials spoke on the condition of anonymity — a practice President Trump has condemned,” wrote Greg Miller and Adam Entous. But they don’t note their own daily hypocrisy.

These media outlets can even fail to disclose biographical facts when an official is named. The Post ran an op-ed (and a three-minute video, or negative ad) by Edward Price headlined “I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.” Price presented himself as an intelligence pro who worked for administrations of both parties, saying, “To be clear, my decision had nothing to do with politics, and I would have been proud to again work under a Republican administration open to intelligence analysis.”

But he was quickly exposed. He’s registered to vote in Washington, DC, as a Democrat, and last August, he gave a total of $5,000 in donations to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. The Post added a line to Price’s column online saying that the donations should have been disclosed.

But we never know the donation records of “senior U.S. officials” placed anonymously on the front page, do we? The liberal media merely insists, “Trust us.”

COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.