Politico Has Already Botched Another “Anonymous Sources Say” Story

The ink isn’t even dry on the released copy of the Mueller and the media are back at it again. As streiff covered earlier today, they didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory in handling all the anonymous “bombshells” throughout the ordeal.

Apparently developing no future caution, Politico decided to run with another anonymously sourced story last night before even allowing time to get a single comment from the other side.

Trump campaign dumps Don McGahn’s law firm, Jones Day, in a move some cast as punishment for disloyalty via ⁦@nancook⁩ – https://t.co/j917S7dmuJ

— Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) April 19, 2019

Notice the difference between the actual headline and the writer’s twitter blurb. One presents the idea of punishment as fact, while she’s clearly hedging in her tweet that only some say that.

This appears to not actually be true though – or at best misleading – and we know because of Politico’s own past reporting.

.@politico completely botched this story. We have not fired Jones Day. They are a trusted partner and a key ally against the triggered Democrats. We have hired our own in-house counsel months ago in partnership to lower costs for compliance work, which they reported! #FakeNews pic.twitter.com/E8MAgVrvzH

— Brad Parscale (@parscale) April 19, 2019

Politico’s report is based on nothing more than anonymous “advisors,” of which only one is quoted. No official documents and not even a statement from Jones Day, who would have no reason to hide it if they were fired. In fact, it’d probably help their business for that information to go public. Politico’s answer would be that they didn’t comment within the few hours the writer asked for a statement before publishing. Then don’t run the story because as it stands, it’s terribly sourced and there’s no actual evidence to back up the claims.

But we all know why they ran it. It furthers to palace intrigue angle they are so obsessed with and it paints Trump as doing something impulsively over a grievance. That’s one of their favorite narratives. In reality, Trump’s campaign manager says they weren’t fired at all and are still part of the team. Politico themselves reported months ago that the in-house lawyer was coming in just to do compliance work. So who’s telling the truth? At least in Trump’s case, his campaign manager is willing to go on the record, knowing that if he’s lying Jones Day will contradict him.

The media have learned absolutely nothing from their myriad of failures the past two years. They’ll still run with absolutely anything they think will hurt the current administration. It doesn’t matter if it’s one source, 3rd hand sources, or random gossip. It’s all fit to print in their eyes. They have no standards anymore and it’s why their credibility is at all time lows.

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