Reporter Who Wrote Sunday Times 'Snowden' Propaganda Admits That He's Just Writing What UK Gov't Tol - Polidicks

[URL="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150615/11565531344/reporter-who-wrote-sunday-times-snowden-propaganda-admits-that-hes-just-writing-what-uk-govt-told-him.shtml"]TECHDIRT.COM[/URL] [quote]So we've already written about the [URL="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150614/23490431337/pulitzer-prize-bullshit-fud-reporting-goes-to-sunday-times-snowden-expose.shtml"]massive problems[/URL] with the Sunday Times' big report claiming that the Russians and Chinese had "cracked" the encryption on the Snowden files (or possibly just been handed those files by Snowden) and that he had "blood on his hands" even though no one has come to any harm. It also argued that David Miranda was detained after he got documents from Snowden in Moscow, despite the fact that he was neither in Moscow, nor had met Snowden (a claim the article quietly deleted). That same report also claimed that UK intelligence agency MI6 had to remove "agents" from Moscow because of this leak, despite the fact that they're not called "agents" and there's no evidence of any actual risk. So far, the only official response from News Corp. the publisher of The Sunday Times (through a variety of subsidiaries) was to [URL="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150615/09463331342/news-corp-sends-dmca-notice-over-glenn-greenwald-trashing-sunday-times-ridiculous-snowden-story.shtml"]try to censor[/URL] the criticism of the story with a DMCA takedown request. Either way, one of the journalists who wrote the story, Tom Harper, gave an [URL="http://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/06/14/tom-harper-nsa-files-snowden-howell-intv-nr.cnn/video/playlists/intl-latest-world-videos/"]interview to CNN which is quite incredible to watch[/URL]. Harper just keeps repeating that he doesn't know what's actually true, and that he was just saying what the government told him -- more or less admitting that his role here was not as a reporter, but as a propagandist or a stenographer. Here's [URL="https://vine.co/v/eedM73dwDzj"]the key snippet[/URL]: If you can't see or hear that, it's Harper saying "we just publish what we believe to be the position of the British government." This is a claim that he repeats throughout the interview, pleading ignorance to anything factual about the story. In short, his argument is that he heard these allegations through a "well placed source" within the UK government and he sought to corroborate the claim... by asking [I]another source[/I] in the UK government who said "that's true!" and Harper ran with it. Some more highlights. CNN's George Howell kicks it off by asking how UK officials could possibly know that the Chinese and Russians got access to the files, and Harper immediately resorts to the "hey, I just write down what they tell me!" defense: [I] Um... well... I don't know the answer to that, George. [I]Um.... All we know is that... um... this is effectively the official position of the British government. Um.... we picked up on it... um... a while ago. And we've been working on it and trying to stand it up through multiple sources. And when we approached the British government late last week with our evidence, they confirmed, effectively, what you read today in the Sunday Times.[/I] Again: government official tells them stuff, and they confirm with another government official -- and that's the story. Note that he says he showed the UK government "evidence" yet there is no evidence in the article itself. Just quotes and speculation. He goes on, trying to downplay the entire point of journalism, which should be to ferret out the truth. But, to Thomas Harper, if you question his report, you should be asking the government about it, not him. That's not his job. [I]It's obviously allegation at the moment, from our point of view. And it's really for the British government to defend it. [/I] ... [/quote]

Breaking: reporter publishes information provided by sources.

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;47981032]Breaking: reporter publishes information provided by sources.[/QUOTE] Reporter publishes information based on request from the same source, getting only confirmation from within the same source. [editline]16th June 2015[/editline] While the source just happens to be in strong conflict of interest on the matter [editline]16th June 2015[/editline] And the information turns out to be contradictory or simply false

In other news, the media quite often doesnt know what the fuck its talking about

Everyone that isn't completely stupid knows most if not all mainstream media is corrupt on most matters.

Crazy that the fp hivemind was boxing everyone who said the report was exaggerated in the last thread. The narrative that the guardian has carefully documented since the beginning completely clashes with what this guys source claims, interviews with snowden have all said he didn't give anything to Russia or china, he destroyed his copies, handed his stuff off to the paper, and fled china, also he was quite vocal about how he didn't steal stuff that compromises agents, only the programs he thought he needed to blow the lid on

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;47981032]Breaking: reporter publishes information provided by sources.[/QUOTE] so if i asked someone who hated you if you were an asshole because i heard from them you were and went around telling everyone you are an asshole with my only evidence being that person who hates you said, you wouldn't see a problem with that?

[QUOTE=Sableye;47981410]Crazy that the fp hivemind was boxing everyone who said the report was exaggerated in the last thread. The narrative that the guardian has carefully documented since the beginning completely clashes with what this guys source claims, interviews with snowden have all said he didn't give anything to Russia or china, he destroyed his copies, handed his stuff off to the paper, and fled china, also he was quite vocal about how he didn't steal stuff that compromises agents, only the programs he thought he needed to blow the lid on[/QUOTE] The "opinion" of the "hivemind" highly varies between which side has the upper hand in the thread, and that's not just people flip flopping, but many simply don't comment or even rate if the thread is already tipped against the favour of their opinion. If you try to follow the opinions of individual people, they are largely consistent, it's more of who do you see where, which changes.

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;47981032]Breaking: reporter publishes information provided by sources.[/QUOTE] You don't report what they want you lose access. Journalism is in a bad situation.

all 1 persons was surprised

[QUOTE=Hyperbole;47981306]Everyone that isn't completely stupid knows most if not all mainstream media is corrupt on most matters.[/QUOTE] Or just extremely lazy and/or cash hungry and incorrigible afterwards. However in this case it's just flat out ridiculous "work" that he did. I hope it will follow him and the publication around for quite a while, even if it's unlikely he can be sued for this. [editline]16th June 2015[/editline] The comments section on the article is pretty funny. It reads like a very cynical version of SH, almost :v:

[QUOTE=Tamschi;47982071]Or just extremely lazy and/or cash hungry and incorrigible afterwards. However in this case it's just flat out ridiculous "work" that he did. I hope it will follow him and the publication around for quite a while, even if it's unlikely he can be sued for this.[/QUOTE] Press is completely unaccountable for everything they say these days pretty much, and doubly so of their particular government supports them.

This claim is totally unsubstantiated and is outright false. [I]This post was sponsored by the UK government.[/I]

Honestly, I eat my words in the previous thread. This is really inexcusable. Explaining the position of the government is one thing, but failing to do basic fact checking to corroborate or question that position makes him a mouthpiece, not a journalist. I think this is the most salient part of the article: [quote]A few times in the interview Harper makes the accurate and reasonable point that when you're dealing with the intelligence community, getting evidence is often quite difficult. That's absolutely true. But then there's a way of presenting that kind of story and it's not the way Harper did so. When you have a story like this, where many of the details seem highly questionable, you don't just talk to government officials, but you try to reach out to other sources who can further the story. But Harper admits that they had no interest in doing this -- they were just presenting the government's side of the story. Even that can be done in a journalistic manner, in which case the article should not present itself as presenting factual information, as it does, but the idle speculation of government officials who won't put their names or positions behind what they're saying. [/quote]

[QUOTE=catbarf;47982536]Honestly, I eat my words in the previous thread. This is really inexcusable. Explaining the position of the government is one thing, but failing to do basic fact checking to corroborate or question that position makes him a mouthpiece, not a journalist. I think this is the most salient part of the article:[/QUOTE] A shed load of journos literally just regurgitate whatever bumf gets given to them by various PR organisations or the PR agents for various organisation. Why bother doing any research, or anything that you might expect a journalist to do, when for the same money you can just publish something someone else kindly wrote for you? I know I repeatedly mention Private Eye but one of the main sections in it, Street of Shame, focuses on the major papers and the people who work for them, and the amount of shit they get up to is incredible sometimes.

[QUOTE=Sableye;47981410]Crazy that the fp hivemind was boxing everyone who said the report was exaggerated in the last thread. The narrative that the guardian has carefully documented since the beginning completely clashes with what this guys source claims, interviews with snowden have all said he didn't give anything to Russia or china, he destroyed his copies, handed his stuff off to the paper, and fled china, also he was quite vocal about how he didn't steal stuff that compromises agents, only the programs he thought he needed to blow the lid on[/QUOTE] As long as it's negative for the West, people will refuse to believe the news or call it false propaganda (because they live there) while they will happily trust the news if it's the identical thing but about the eastern bloc. The best part is how they will try to backpedal later on and go "Yup I knew this was fake all along". It's stupidly easy to manipulate public's opinion here on FP. It basically boils down to people seeing other people's ratings and going along with it (eg if they see 10 dumbs on the post they will likely dumb it without even reading 90% of it and the same goes if it has bunch of winner ratings).

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;47982113]Press is completely unaccountable for everything they say these days pretty much, and doubly so of their particular government supports them.[/QUOTE] Well at least if the involved parties can't enter the country to sue over libel... Otherwise he'd at least have to make sure to not quite report it as fact. I think the larger problem is that way too few press outlets actually do their job now, percentage-wise. I've seen absolutely crazy grape vines lately where I had to dig five articles deep to find a proper source, and even then it can be as little as a random blogger with blatant personal interest in the matter he's reporting on. On the online presences of "reputable" newspapers nonetheless. At least science reporting just turns into an incomprehensible mess that way instead of being flat out wrong :suicide:

[QUOTE=Spirit_Breaker;47983259]As long as it's negative for the West, people will refuse to believe the news or call it false propaganda (because they live there) while they will happily trust the news if it's the identical thing but about the eastern bloc.[/QUOTE] It would help a ton if there were better news sources accessible to us. Since you're at least bilingual: Can you maybe point us to some good ones that don't have blatant bias-reporting/lies (or at least stuff that's not completely disproven by long available counter evidence)? It seems like much of the English-language reporting from the region contains a lot of propaganda (*cough* RT *cough*), and while we can probably at least in part understand the rest thanks to Google Translate, the discoverability is extremely low for those who only speak western languages like me. (Also I think the part about things "negative for the West" is really dishonest of you when we're pretty much constantly mocking terrible US politics here.) [QUOTE]The best part is how they will try to backpedal later on and go "Yup I knew this was fake all along". It's stupidly easy to manipulate public's opinion here on FP. It basically boils down to people seeing other people's ratings and going along with it (eg if they see 10 dumbs on the post they will likely dumb it without even reading 90% of it and the same goes if it has bunch of winner ratings).[/QUOTE] It's usually different people. They don't flip-flop but as Awesomecaek pointed out they are unlikely to bother if a thread already tilts in the opposite direction (which is a shame because it would certainly be interesting). At least you aren't (quite as) silent like that, but iirc your arguments tend to be a bit lacking to say the least. That's probably why you get those huge stacks of boxes. It's not because you're arguing in favour of the "eastern bloc" or whatever it's correctly called now, but because you're absolutely terrible at it and likely do those countries a net disfavour in the process.