- ....and electrical demand would fall if only substantiated items were published and broadcast.
- Don Martin: PMO reaps press treatment it sowed
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There's quite the ruckus erupting inside the parliamentary bubble over the use of anonymous sources, including a protest against them from a former prime ministerial communications director who is basically hollering ‘black' at the proverbial kettle.
This debate was unleashed by an unsourced Toronto Star story on alleged Liberal MP defections this week, a person ultimately unmasked by the PMO as a Conservative minister's sidekick talking through his hat with no access to that sort of top-level insight.
"The whole sorry affair reveals some of the more questionable techniques practiced by journalists covering politics in Ottawa - namely the reliance on unnamed sources," Kory Teneycke wrote on nationalnewswatch.com.
"I know, this sounds a bit hypocritical," he admits, correctly, but Ottawa is "frequently a cesspool of partisan gossip" where rumours are "frequently half-baked and designed to damage a political opponent".
Let's revolt against anonymity
Many important stories would never see the light of day were it not for the use of anonymous sources by journalists.
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