Conditions of anonymity have to be respected. If the news the anonymous source reports is specific enough, the source might not matter.

"A Mar-A-Lago source speaking on condition of anonymity said that after Mr. Trump was served roasted beet salad by an elderly waitress, he said, "No servers over the age of 30 willever be hired in America again, that's it, final, only 25 year old waitresses with big sparkly tits."

These are excellent questions. To be honest, I take everything with a huge-ass grain of salt these days, no matter the source. This comes from (my perception of) what happened during the primaries, with Bernie being systematically left out of many of the sources I used to trust. When I say this, I am often met with backlash but... it is what it is. Everything you raise in this post deserves a lot more good, hard thinkng.

The much-bashed MSM has a lot of motivation to get the story right.

For one - their subscribers and advertisers demand it.

If the NYTimes made up stories and got busted - and they will - they kill their own integrity. It's devastating - subscribers to the Times, the Washington Post, watchers of the evening news and CNN, etc. are expecting the stories they read/see to be accurate. The more stories they botch, the more subscribers and advertisers they lose. To most media outlets that actually make money, journalistic integrity isn't just a plaque on a wall - it's the core of their survival.

In other words: they have accountability.

Super-partisan outlets, from Fox News to PoliticusUsa, care less about accuracy and more about making their readers happy. Their audience wants to be told they are right, and so the stories will be skewed in that direction. Accuracy isn't as importance as obsiquiousness. (That's why I don't consider Fox News a news outlet.) Still, they have advertisers too, and if they're humiliated repeatedly with bad stories, even people who pay their bills will rebel.

Sure, the Times, Washington Post, etc. are going to make sure Trump takes a punch or two in their stories. It's only fair - he started it. But there's a reason the Times has started the much-derided practice of "positive stories about Trump every Sunday" - they need to show to the dunderheads that "liberal bias" doesn't define them. It's easy to find cases where the NYT uncovered stories that hurt the "left" - they broke the story about Hillary's ill-fated email server, after all.

Now, none of this is to suggest that the MSM doesn't get it wrong sometimes. It happens. Reporters manufacture stories (sup, Stephen Glass) or get fooled by bad intel (the final season of The Wire was based on the true story of cops "inventing" a serial killer in order to direct funding to the department; this really happened). Sometimes the reporters misunderstand the information in front of them. Or sometimes, they're simply lied to - this happened to the Wilmington News Journal, who retracted an entire dynamic story based on the subject's delusional lies. (I know the subject. She lied.)

But reputable media sources point out their errors and clean up the story, and make it clear they were wrong. "Alt" media doesn't bother - they justify their error by saying "well, it COULD have been true."

I think it's our responsibility to take stories at face value. The recent story about Trump spilling a crucial piece of intel to the Russians was carefully parsed by the Times; they framed it as "our sources say this." But it's clear they have FAITH in their sources, and that's the crux of Jill's question: should she have faith in their sources, too?

To decide, look at the track record. Look at their win/loss record. That's your best bet. It won't be 1.000, but the MSM is still doing a bang-up job.

By now, the Times story been corroborated - by Trump himself - and several sources claim Israel is the country that has been providing us with great intel. Israel is reportedly quite furious about Trump's leak.

Is that true? We'll see. If so, it's a feather in the MSM's cap - and another reason to trust them.

Here's the thing, though. The Trump campaign really did change the rules. Before him, truth mattered. But he proved you can absolutely lie, contradict yourself, and lie again and it doesn't matter WITH A CERTAIN CROWD. (What motivates that crowd? Everything from extreme right politics to a need to feel like their memes actually make a difference.) Truth doesn't matter - an effective lie is as desirable as just telling the truth. But THEY HAVE NO ACCOUNTABILITY. If they're wrong, they ignore it and move on.

BUT. These people in Washington? The ones with jobs who have to deal with the NYTimes reports? When reporters ask them to comment on a story they know is damaging, they're in a tough spot. If they deny it and it turns out to be true, their credibility gets damaged - at best. Look at McMaster - his first statement was a bit of Nathan Thurm wordplay, but then he was more blunt in his denials. There's a consequence to that. McMaster is now widely considered a liar. That's not a great look for a Trump staffer at this moment.

And that's the final step on the circle of journalistic life. Real people are asked to confirm the news. In the real world - er, rather, DC - people take a huge political risk denying what they know to be true. Especially when there are so many staffers who WANT to leak Trump's Follies to the press. (Along these lines - WaPo and NYT have both said they've dealt with lots of deliberate fake "intel" from people who want to discredit them. It's a tricky business. Everyone thinks they're the Joker.)

Oh - and sources have been anonymous since the inception of American journalism. They HAVE to be. Their bosses don't want people talking to the press. But they do it, because they need the press to get the word out there and stop the madness. People who cry "reveal your sources or GTFO!" can be defined in one word:

Un-American.

So Buzzfeed is that site that makes you answer questions about tacos to tell you what narwhal you are. But they are actually great for long-term stories - Ben Smith is widely respected for his political journalism. And yes, they lead the way in clickbaity headlines, but I think that's just the way of the present - it's a fight to the death for clicks out there. So get used to it. But Buzzfeed is no joke when it comes to reporting that makes a difference - look how they raised the hood on the alt-right dogwhistling of Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace, causing Adult Swim to cancel them. The author got heavily attacked and threatened by the sniveling fans of the show (and ultimately, geez, who cares), but it was excellent, informative, sourced journalism.

There are many "journalists" who don't answer to anybody. They have no accountability. That doesn't make them always wrong - sometimes they have sources too (Mike Cernovich has "his people" inside the WH, after all). But it literally doesn't matter when he's wrong. He loses nothing. Not like the MSM.

This was a long and serious post. Sorry about that. Let me make it up to you: An old woman goes to the doctor. "Doc, I have a problem with gas. I fart 10 times a day. Fortunately they're silent and don't stink - in fact, I've farted twice and you have no idea." The Doc says "I see. Take these pills and see me next week." Next week: "Doc, my farts are still silent, but now they stink! What the hell?" Doc says "Great! Now that we've cleared up your sinuses, let's work on your hearing."

I could give you an answer to this, but why reinvent the wheel? UW offers an entire university course on the subject now.

The syllabus, all of the lectures and homework, and a bunch of additional resources are all available for free online.

http://callingbullshit.org/index.html

There's also the idea of emotional appeal. For example, WaPo and NYTimes don't care about feelings, just facts. If the facts evoke an emotional reaction, great. Click bait news sites tend to hyperbolize with emotionally charged language.

Have you seen that things going around from Oatmeal about beliefs &changing your mind? ... Thing thingy (I googled it for ya) http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

I instinctively eye roll for pretty much everything from the Right. I don't _want_ to. For a while, I looked for a source that I could 'trust' and get some balance. I wasn't able to find one. I'm uncertain how much of that is a failure on my own part to not respond with a knee jerk reaction as soon as I started reading.

For a little while, I got really high on my horse about it though. This seemed like 'proof' of the wrongness of the Right. "They can't even write a simple article anywhere that just states facts. It's all emotional bullshit."

But in the end, I'm not that naive. "We're" doing it too.

Even valued papers like WaPo and NYTimes. Because here's the thing: their job isn't to be unbiased. It's to sell newspapers. In a world where that's getting harder and harder to do, even they are succumbing to the 'cheap shots' that are click bate-y headlines and emotional wording. Leading their audience to an emotional response. Because people who get worked up about something link to their articles.

One of the podcasts I listen to This Week in Google ( https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google ) or TWiG has a regular contributor by the name of Jeff Jarvis. He's long been a journalist and is doing work on a number of things involved with the theme of "How do we 'fix' journalism and hold news sources accountable in the digital age?" He's a bit curmudgeonly (in a way that I think you would adore) and while I don't always agree with him, I give him extreme props for being well thought out and forward thinking.

Bottom line is that I don't have a good answer, unfortunately. My own 'solution' is completely unacceptable. Burying your head in the sand does nothing. It helps nothing. It improves nothing.

So I commend you for trying to figure out a set of criteria for more valid sources. It's a great goal. I'm going to do some more thinkin' on the subject and if I come up with anything, I'll let you know.

I look for specificity and source citations.

Bad example: "A source close to the White House said that a sealed envelope containing personal information was delivered to the Russian consulate."

Good example: "Wendy Higgerton, White House chief of flatware, said that she sent a thank you note to Sascha Bierlislubovitz of the Russian Consulate, for their gift of seven oyster forks."