The New York Times has decided it is fine to out a confidential source -- provided his name is Tucker Carlson. Its media columnist, Ben Smith, reports

Journalists Hit New Low by Betraying Source

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2021-06-23 22:00:04

The New York Times has decided it is fine to out a confidential source -- provided his name is Tucker Carlson. Its media columnist, Ben Smith, reports that the Fox News star is “the go-to guy for sometimes-unflattering stories about Donald J. Trump and for coverage of the internal politics of Fox News (not to mention stories about Mr. Carlson himself).”

Breaking a cardinal rule of journalistic ethics, Smith identifies Carlson as one of his own “off-the-record” sources. So, too, did “16 other journalists … [who] told me on background that he has been, as three of them put it, ‘a great source.’”

Betraying no self-awareness of his cynicism, Smith underscores the transgressive nature of these disclosures by noting that none of the 16 work at the Times because “it would put my colleagues in a weird position if I asked them” to betray a source. Translation: He’s happy to have his competitors violate sacred rules.

The one offender Smith does name is Brian Stelter, the host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” (and Times alumnus) who routinely casts himself as the conscience of journalism, who told him “you can see Tucker’s fingerprints all over” his anti-Fox book, “Hoax .”