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Originally Posted by fjtorres
They had actual documentary evidence, no?
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Maybe once in a while. But most of their stories were not based on documents. And lots were based on a single anonymous source (Deep Throat/Mark Felt).
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
They weren't just publishing unverified allegations, they followed protocol they way it is supposed to be followed and they had actual evidence of law breaking.
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According to Post editor
Barry Sussman, this was the protocol:
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The two-source rule, usually referred to reverentially, is a smug way of suggesting that Washington Post editors were 100 percent sure of what we were printing. We did, of course, try to confirm and expand on leads, and that often meant going to two, three, four or even more sources. What responsible reporter or editor would want to run some unconfirmed assertion from a shaky source?
There was no two-source rule. There was only, as with most news organizations, an attempt to find reliable sources.
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The descriptions of Amazon's hardball negotiating tactics are closer to verified than Deep Throat leaks were. The check is to see if actual prices and policies on the Amazon web site are consistent with what the anonymous source is saying.