Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/03/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 12:16 AM 3/12/98 -0000, Claes Bjerner wrote: >More important, as a journalist, I take personal offence if someone asks for my source. Actually, asking for the name of a news source or any other attempt to disclose the name of a news source is a serious violation of my country=B4s constitution. And I don=B4t think the American constitution is v= ery different in this respect. So when a Leica repairman confides in me and complains about recent quality deterioration I=B4m obliged by the ethics of journalism to protect his identity. > >BTW, do you turn down all stories in for instance NYT or Washington Post if they don=B4t print the names of their sources? Would those stories in you= r opinion therefore be "worthless"? Deep Throat certainly had quite an impact on the future of Nixon, didn=B4t he?=20 Claes, you raise a fascinating point, and one that rings hard with me, as I spent a few years as a journalist. In the US, a story rarely gets printed without a source -- that was one of the primary gripes the press had with the Military during Viet-Nam, that so many officers and EM's would reveal something, but not wish to be quoted. The Deep Throat thing is dead on target: it took five or six months of constant iteration before Deep Throat was perceived as being legitimate, precisely because his or her real identity was never released. You will almost never see a story in the Washington Post or New York Times without the source being set out in full. It is normal practice for both papers to decline stories where they cannot obtain a source willing to have their names printed. The Washington Post runs an OMBUDSMAN column every Sunday on the Editorial Page, where this issue is discussed in detail, and you might wish to review some of these. In short, innuendo and rumour are cheap slams unworthy of this forum. If folks have something to say, then say it and CITE YOUR SOURCES. Otherwise, pray, keep silence. Incidentally, one LUG member detailed to me by private E-mail the repairmen he had cited as saying Leica quality was down; another detailed the two shops he stated had told him that quality control was a problem. This adds a great deal of credibility to the charges both have raised; though I haven't the energy to double-check their stories, I do have the opportunity to do so. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!