zlacker

How can you call his sources crank without knowing who they are yourself?

>>beaned+(OP)
Easy - they reported things that don't fit into this person's worldview.

>>beaned+(OP)
Because if the best you can do as a whistleblower is to give anonymous info to an independent reporter who won't verify it, you're probably on the crank side of things.

>>beaned+(OP)
I don’t think he’s calling him a crank, anymore than he’s talking about a specific broken clock being right twice a day. It’s just hypothetical to demonstrate a point. If he were a crank journalist, being accidentally right twice could still make him a journalistic legend. Therefore, we can’t trust simply because he’s famous, because a broken clock is right twice a day.

>>asimpl+mR
This piece posits a “crank theory” of Seymour Hersh:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/05/seymour-hershs-u...

>>jonste+691
Of course, it's difficult to tell whether articles like that were written because Hersh is wrong, or because he is right.

There are plenty of powerful people trying to discredit reporters who tell who tell the truth, so we should also be skeptical of attacks on Hersh.

>>leeree+6v1
Seriously. The article's author couldn't think of any reason why they might want to stage the bin Laden assassination? I can think of a bunch of reasons just off the top of my head. Doesn't make the story true, but the author is conspicuously unimaginative.