Lesson learned?
Earlier today we noted that in today’s papers the Post passed on a claim from a “senior Bush official” that “as of Saturday [i.e.,Sept.4], [Gov.]Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency.”
As TPM — and probably half the blogosphere — pointed out, there is voluminous information in the public record showing this to be demonstrably false.
The Post just ran this correction …
A Sept. 4 article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina incorrectly said that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) had not declared a state of emergency. She declared an emergency on Aug. 26.
Good for them for correcting the record. But are they going to be taking more blind quotes from this senior official who got them to pass on misinformation to their readers?
And one other point: for all the truly foolish chattering about anonymous sources and blind quotes a few months ago, this is a terrific example of the worst sort of anonymous sourcing. This claim by the administration official was obviously meant to place blame on Gov. Blanco. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. Maybe she deserved blame. Reporters frequently have to rely on interested parties to bring key information to their attention.
But in this case, this is a straightforward factual assertion. What you do in such a case is find out whether it’s true or not. If it is, you don’t need to source it to your tipster. You run it as a fact. What you don’t do is take an interested party’s say-so on an easily verifiable claim and run it as a blind quote.
