Calling all Philistines – the unnamed source/smear file

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2008, Election 2008 Media commentary

Christopher Waddell

Further to Paul Adams’ post earlier this week on unnamed sources and smears, here are the top two paragraphs of a page one story in today’s Globe and Mail written by James Bradshaw:

“TORONTO — In his first detailed defence of $45-million in controversial cuts to arts and culture funding, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper called his party’s decisions good governance and said the government must walk “a fine line” between providing financial stability and “funding things that people actually don’t want.”

In an exclusive telephone interview with The Globe and Mail during a campaign stop at a winery in St-Eustache, Que., Mr. Harper, who many have called a Philistine, also spoke at length about his life-long passion for music and the piano as he denied the cuts were ideologically motivated.”

Who are the “many” who called Mr Harper a Philistine? Readers are never told. If there are so many, it can’t be that hard to find someone who would say it, can it?

Such unnamed source smears are a prime example of the why the public increasingly dismisses the credibility of the mainstream media.  In the absence of any evidence to support the claim, it seems safe to assume the “many” is actually the reporter.

Christopher Waddell is associate director of the school and a former Globe and Mail Ottawa bureau chief, former CBC-TV parliamentary bureau chief and election night executive producer for CBC TV News.