Axios, an online news site, posted an article on February 3rd detailing the leak of 51 days worth of President Trump’s private schedules. It is an interesting take on how he spends his day and is really worth a read. (You can find the article here.)
No matter what you think about what happens during unstructured ‘executive time’, something should stand out, the fact that the source of the leak was anonymous.
Anonymous sources are important, something that everyone should understand. But without proper vetting, an anonymous source can lead to trouble. A recent example of this would be the story of ‘Jackie’, published in Rolling Stone. This story led to a lawsuit, with Rolling Stone having to pay over one million dollars in damages.
(For more information on the Rolling Stone article, check out this piece in The Guardian and the report that the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism published about the story.)
When you read an article that cites an anonymous source, you need to consider the answer to this question: why did the source reveal the information? A follow-up would be whether the source gave the information on their own initiative or on the request of the writer of the article.
In the case of the Axios article, the source appears to be a leak and not a request for information. This is a reasonable conclusion given some of the wording used in the article, especially in the lede.
“A White House source has leaked nearly every day of President Trump’s private schedule for the past three months.”
This alone isn’t something worth worrying about.
What should stand out is this:
“To protect our source, we retyped the schedules in the same format that the West Wing staff receives them.”
In today’s day of technology, there are many ways to electronically redact portions of a document. Even if these documents weren’t electronically leaked, making a copy of the paper documents in order to use a black permanent marker to redact identifying information and scanning after that would be easier and less prone to errors in typing.
There is a possibility that the schedules were originally handwritten into someone’s own schedule for their personal reference but why hide that fact when explaining why they were typed up?
In the end, it is an interesting piece based on leaked information that can give us a bit more information on our current president, but the motive of the leak should be considered. This line in the piece stands out, as to why one should carefully consider leaks:
Regarding the fact that the published schedules do not document all of Trump’s meetings, noting that “the president sometimes has meetings during Executive Time that he doesn’t want most West Wing staff to know about for fear of leaks.
Maybe President Trump is concerned about leaks like this one.
It is up to you, the reader, to make your own decisions about stories that rely on anonymous sources. Consider whether the information was requested or freely given, and if given, remember to ask why.
Sources:
“Scoop: Insider leaks Trump’s ‘Executive Time’-filled private schedules” Alexi McCammond, Jonathan Swan, Axios, https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-private-schedules-leak-executive-time-34e67fbb-3af6-48df-aefb-52e02c334255.html
“Rolling Stone’s investigation: ‘A failure that was avoidable'” Sheila Coronel, Steve Coll, Derek Kravitz, Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/investigation/rolling_stone_investigation.php
“Rolling Stone apologises and removes UVA alleged rape story after review” Lauren Gambino, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/05/rolling-stone-uva-rape-story-columbia-school-journalism-review
“Anonymous Sources” Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee, https://www.spj.org/ethics-papers-anonymity.asp
The Mill Review 