@mtaibbi
Here’s a story from the New York Times in February, 2017, sourced to “four current and former American officials”:
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@mtaibbi
No one asked if the reporters on that story were “doing the bidding” of those sources. No one accused them of doing PR for… well, we can talk about who those sources were later.
@mtaibbi
That’s because all reported stories come from sources. They always have notices and you’re always doing a balancing test: is the story newsworthy on its own, or does it just serve someone’s agenda?
@mtaibbi
Also, you’ve got to check to make sure the story’s true. If it’s both true and newsworthy, you print it.
@mtaibbi
The Times story was untrue. They got it wrong. Strangely however there is no troll uproar about the paper doing PR for… certain kinds of sources.
@mtaibbi
Literally every single piece of original reporting comes from a source who has his or her own agenda. In the case of the Twitter Files the stories are all true and all newsworthy. That’s all that matters - the rest of this is just noise.