my skepticism about Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story

[Eric J in MN]

http://www.speakspeak.org/speak-blog/2006/04/13/larisa-alexandrovna-of-raw-story/


She’s written three explosive stories for the website, “Raw Story,” among her other work.

But none of these three explosive stories have named sources for the actual scoop. It seems like too much, too fast.

Larisa Alexandrovna has recently told us that:

- the Bush Administration had a plan to plant WMD in Iraq which didn’t work out (January 5, 2006)

- Valerie Plame was working on WMD in Iran (February 13, 2006)

- today that the US government is funding a terrorist group in Iran (April 13, 2006).

Maybe all these stories are true. Maybe not.

If I saw more run-of-the-mill stories from her with named sources, I’d be more inclined to trust her on the explosive stories with unnamed stories.

When I wrote Raw Story asking for their policy on unnamed sources, I didn’t receive a reply. I wanted to know if the editor is told who her sources are.

At newspapers published on paper, such as the New York Times, there is generally a requirement that the reporter reveal sources to an editor.

I’m well aware that reporters sometimes have to use unnamed sources. But it’s different when a source chooses to go to the New York Times because of its reach, and the use of the source is subject to the policies of that newspaper. It’s unclear why the sources for these stories chose to speak anonymously to Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story, instead of going to the New York Times.

[benburch]

1. And if she outed sources who requested anonymity?

That would sit better with you?

[Eric J in MN]

6. My issue is that if someone knows of a scheme to plant WMD

in Iraq, why not go to the NY Times instead of to Raw Story?

[benburch]

25. Admit it. You are jealous. nt

[Eric J in MN]

11. Also, with a story as huge as a plan to plant WMD in Iraq,

she would ideally convince the source to go on the record.

What could have been a huge story amounted to nothing because it had nameless sources, and no follow-up by her or other reporters.

And because Raw Story won't reveal if the editor even knows who the sources are.

[lala_rawraw]

18. LMAO... go check the second comment

On his blog. I wish I could get that good at telling people how I feel

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[brainshrub]

2. Maybe she is simply a good reporter that people like to talk to?

Agreed that RawStory should have a source requirement on the editor level. But to be fair, RawStory is very, very new. Perhaps it didn't occur to them to write up a policy yet? Perhaps you are the first to ask?

Remember, the NYT sat on the story about Bush wiretapping Americans for over a year. Perhaps the sources Lala uses understand the corporate media is gun-shy about taking on the BFEE?

I would give them the benefit of the doubt. They do very good work. You should have taken this up with them privately first.

ON EDIT: You don't say when you tried to contact the editor. Was it yesterday? Last week? Did you send a follow-up?

Do you have any idea how swamped their inbox might be? How much time did you give them to reply?

Did you PM Lala here on DU? If not, why not?

Cut them a bit of slack.

[Eric J in MN]

7. It was about a month ago that I wrote the editor about the

unnamed sources policy and never got a reply.

[Steve A Play]

3. Isn't Larisa a DUer?

And wouldn't this be considered 'calling her out'? :shrug:

[benburch]

5. Yes she is.

And technically, yes it would.

[evermind]

4. Just looking at today's story (I haven't seen the others) US backing MEK

is not really a "scoop" in itself. Just google for "MEK white-house", and you'll find plenty about that. I don't find it amazing that a couple of ex intel types were prepared to speak off the record to someone like Ms ALexandrovna about them. As always with ex-intel types speaking off the record, you have to exercise due caution with their statements.

It does sometimes happen that smaller press outlets get major scoops, simply because the mainstream press don't want to rush into areas which are unclear or too controversial. An example is the story of Colin Wallace, in the UK. The excellent leftist journalist Paul Foot (now, sadly, no longer with us) talked with Wallace, who was at the time in jail on manslaughter charges, and heard his extraordinary tale of electoral subversion by the British intelligence services, acting against the then sitting labour government. No mainstream press would listen to Wallace, and even Foot thought the story too bizarre, so he passed it on to a couple of friends who ran a small magazine ("Lobster Magazine") with a circulation of around 500 at the time. Lobster published Wallace's story - what should have been a British Watergate, and no less - in the mid eighties, with little consequence other than having some passages from their reporting read into the parliamentary record by rebel labour MP's.

Just as some parts of the mainstream press started to take a little notice, a couple of years later, the injunctions against press coverage of Spycatcher, which contained a hint of confirmation of Wallace's story, effectively gagged the press, so that the Manchester Guardian could only print that Wallace had been asked by Security Service alumni to undertake propaganda actions "against certain organisations", and not "against the ruling labour party", as it would otherwise have read! This really should have been, in UK terms, the scoop of the decade, and yet somehow circumstances conspired to make it little more than a damp squib in media terms. Parts of Wallace's story have been recently confirmed, I believe, by a government spokesman.

As you can see from the above, just having a dramatic and true story to tell does not guarantee space on the front pages of big national newspapers. Other factors are at play.

Sorry for the tangential rambling!

[RagingInMiami]

8. Larisa doesn't make up stories

She uses sources who talk to her on the condition they remain anonymous. Who is to say those same sources did not go to the NY Times "because of its reach" only to be ignored?

[Eric J in MN]

9. Since her January 5, 2006 story that the Bush Admin tried to

plant WMD in Iraq, there has been no corroboration in stories from other journalists or follow-up articles by her with other sources.

[RagingInMiami]

10. They're not exactly sending out press releases to every newspaper

in the country. I understand your skepticism, but in all honesty, has the NY Times proven to be a very credible source these last few years?

Jayson Blair, Judith Miller, refusing to publishing the wiretapping story for a year.

EDIT: Typo

[Eric J in MN]

12. Regarding Jayson Blair,

if a reporter for any newspaper invents details in a story about an actual event, it's going to take a while for him to get caught.

Regarding Judith Miller, her sources weren't checked by edtiors like other reporters for the New York Times. There was one set of rules for her and another for everyone else.

How do we know that the editor of Raw Story checks Larisa Alexandrovna's sources?

[RagingInMiami]

13. Have you contacted Larisa about this concern?

Try this e-mail.

[email protected]

[Eric J in MN]

19. I have posted Comments at Raw Story

under one or more of her articles, but I didn't email her before tonight.

[lala_rawraw]

15. The only email I got was the one sent two hours ago... that said

I don't have to expose my sources to you or anyone and you don't have to read my work, but to create the impression that I owe you an explanation as to why someone would come to me as opposed to the NYT is sad really. As I have said, you need not read my work. Not sure why you need to write a whole blog questioning my credibility based on anon sourcing. And to be clear, I never wrote anyone attempted to "plant" WMD in Iraq. I wrote a ghost team was sent to resolve a political problem and the people they contacted assumed that to mean as you say. So let us be at least clear on what I am saying. As for Plame working on Iran, that has been confirmed by others, including Clemons and Larry Johnson (in his blog). Dr. Cole wrote a whole blog about the Plame/Iran thing. Do I need a man's name on my byline for my reporting to be credible? Amazing, every time I write a story it is not taken seriously until a man confirms it. Odd really. In any case, feel free not to read my work, but if you need more traffic for your blog, please find another person to swift boat, because most respected journo in MSM and out of MSM respect my work, even if you don't think it is well sourced enough for your reading pleasure.

[lala_rawraw]

16. Because he told you and by the way

I take issue with your statement that I only reported "three important pieces." I think my work on pre-war bombings in Iraq, Downing Street Memos, Gang of 8 and Roberts, are all equally good and should be added to the list.:)

[flyarm]

30. you might want to check this out..and do not say there is no

corroboration of other journalists of planting of wmd..unless you know that for "fact"!

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/266752.shtml

CIA and DOD Attempted To Plant WMD In Iraq
author: Iraqwar.ru
A DOD whistleblower detail an attempt by a covert U.S. team to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The team was later killed by friendly fire due to CIA incompetence.
Pentagon Whistleblower Reveals CIA/ DoD Fiascos
20.06.2003 <08:07>

[rawstory]

14. RAW STORY responds / Sourcing and Corroboration

I'm not going to get into detail -- Larisa can get into this more if she wants.

I got no email asking about sources, if I did I missed it. Everything we print is double sourced. This article in particular had more than five sources. With regard to MEK, the framework of this was fingered in Cobra II (that cheney wanted to take this option) and we learned that they did.

Plame working on Iran is no secret -- I've struggled to explain myself why the press hasn't reported it.

The third article I don't know if it's been reported on before.

Larisa also reported that Rove was cooperating in the Fitz probe, which Steve Clemons / Washington Note confirmed.

In terms of source policy, we require double sources and I vet the sources before we print anything. We do this very critically, as our reputation is critical. The difficulty is always this: should we stop reporting on a certain subject just because MSM won't cover it? That's the problem. Sometimes we actually have dropped stories because we feel they are "too far" ahead of the curve. But it's my general opinion that it's a really a stupid idea just to stop reporting because MSM can't catch up.

Why do we get the sources? I'll tell you. Because a lot of people are afraid of the New York Times and the Washington Post. They've seen people get burned badly. We don't expose our sources, we don't play games with people, we don't have a hidden corporate agenda -- we believe in what we're writing about, we believe reporting can affect positive change.

Anyway, my two cents. Appreciate the criticism.

[OzarkDem]

17. Good enough for me

I've not found reason to doubt their stories, they're usually confirmed later in the MSM. Apparently they have good sources; its no surprise that there are people in DC who want to be able to share valid information with a news outlet they can trust.

Its not hard to imagine there are few newspapers, magazines or other MSM sources in DC who wouldn't reveal to Bushco or the GOP the identity of a source who shared information critical of their policies or revealing their dirty secrets.

[Clark2008]

21. Five sources - that's well above par

Most major newspapers only require two - and the papers I worked for required three. To have five is phenomenal.

Thank you for your explanation.

[spuddonna]

29. Wow, I've been seeing a lot of threads questioning Rawstory lately...

:sarcasm:
I'm sure the rw would never try to attack Rawstory. I mean, Rawstory is just investigating the lies and illegal maneuvers of this administration. Why would there be any attempt to defame or undermine confidence in its reporting?

[peacetheonlyway]

22. larisa alexandrovna is a reporter with the highest ethical standards..

of anyone I've ever come in contact with in the entire media world.
Larisa is the future of 'real' democracy based media....

Having worked with her in the past I found she is 'anal' about sources,
will check 2 or 3 times to ensure the source information is correct

protects like crazy the donor of the info. considering her paper breaks things before any other paper
and probably has the cia reading every inbound/outbound email feels an extra responsibility considering hers is a paper they are monitoring....

Larisa fights being treated badly in the fakestream media world with plagiarism of her stuff, so she knows she has to get it right and the plagiarism by AP is proof that they feel her writing is both credible and worth copying (congrats Larisa on being so credible they want to copy you outright, and you should consider suing them for copyright or intellectual property violations)....

anyway, I think anyone that says what you said about Larisa must be either a. badly informed or b. have not seen all the stories Larisa has broken early that turned out to be dead square hitting the nail on the head.

all 3 stories you mention, indeed, are so early you can hardly believe it, but if Larisa wrote it you should believe it.
Why should she waste her time and energy on run of the mill stories when she has made a name for herself as a kick butt and take names 'big story' news breaker?

and yes, Rawstory is quite different than the old world 'fakestream' media, they break things faster and stories may be less embellished with corporate paid propaganda, but that's all very good for us the reader..

there is only thing you can criticize raw story or larisa of.... not delivering their wonderful newspaper to my front doorstep.

If I had earthshattering news, I'd pick Rawstory and miss larisa to give the scoop to and I probably will as long as I am in the politcal world.

peace out!

[Name removed]

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[benburch]

24. Ditto.

What you said.

[dubyaD40web]

26. **YAWN**

Can't we find something else to b*tch about?

Raw Story provides a good service. If you don't like it, don't read it.

[benburch]

27. Looks like there is confirmation of Larisa's story now

http://wotisitgood4.blogspot.com/2006/04/we-are-already-at-war-with-iran.html

Are we going to see an apology?

[benburch]

31. Waiting.... nt

[benburch]

33. Still waiting for a decent and sincere apology... nt

[cyberpj]

28. Well, if Bush would paint a US plane as a UN plane hoping to instigate war

why would it be hard to believe he would plant WMDs?

In fact, why is it hard to believe they were in on Sept 11?

Answer: it's not.