Vaughn Ververs at CBS Public Eye writes:
Are we watching a story fall apart before our very eyes? Something is certainly going on with that USA Today front-page splash about the secret NSA program to collect and analyze all the phone calls made within the United States. The story, published last week, sparked a fierce debate about privacy and the government’s ability to spy on Americans. It drew rebukes from even administration allies. There were no blanket denials made by the administration and no protestations of inaccurate reporting by those in the know. And there were no denials made by the phone companies named in the story as having provided information to the NSA – at least until now.
He then notes how the phone companies in varying forms have since denied they gave info to NSA or, in some cases, were asked to turn over info to NSA.
It is curious that these two companies took several days to issue these denials (the story broke last Thursday and the companies did not deny it then). A BellSouth spokesperson said the company wanted to do a thorough review to ensure that no such agreement had been made. It’s also worth considering there have been several class-action lawsuits filed in the wake of the USA Today story, so that could have something to do with the denials.
Still, we’re entering some rocky territory, especially for a story about a “secret� program based entirely on anonymous sources. Given the administration’s refusal to confirm or deny the report, the company denials and the anonymous sources, it may be time to ask how we’ll ever get the truth out of this story.
Read it in its entirety.
Ververs has a point: if the phone companies said to have provided info deny they did or were asked to do so, by the traditional standards of fact-based journalism, a story based on anonymous sources then starts to lose some of its punch. Some sources are anonymous. Yet, the seemingly confirmable aspects — the most important aspects — are not panning out if you write up a checklist of what is established as confirmable fact.
This will indeed mean by the standards of fact-based journalism, it isn’t a certainty. But the the standards of politics and web commentary, it’s likely to stay alive no matter what: believed to be still valid and accurate by those who oppose the administration and/or are deeply concerned over warrantless surveillance programs (their underlying, generally unwritten theory will be that the companies are doing a massive CYA and CTBA’sA because there is no law that requires they acknowledge their involvement to the news media and/or say something that will open themselves up to possible lawsuits); and it’s likely to be believed as exaggerated, wrong or, even if not wrong, necessary to battle terrorism by the administration’s supporters.
And then there’s the context: administration officials defend such secret surveillance programs in general concept as critical in the war on terror. Plus, the track record of the administration (an assertion in public later proves to be inaccurate or just not true) makes the NSA story as published a believable one.
But it’s true: as the table-legs of official confirmation of key details begin to vanish, the story now enters a “rocky” area…since like any table without legs, the table starts to go down.
Yet, the story will still have “legs,” in the political realm more than in the fact-based journalism realm. But from now on every news story must pick up the “boiler plate” recap, which will now include the phone companies’ denials. And it still could have “legs” (even a few additional ones) in the world of fact-based journalism if more details soon surface.
UPDATE: Steve Clemmons notes that Verizon has issued a denial and writes:
This is fascinating, isn’t it? Seems like USA Today’s sources have some explaining to do. I wonder what’s really going on here?…
….[Writing about Qwest]One possibility: they allowed the NSA access to their trunk lines (as described here) and the NSA collected the data themselves. This would allow the telcos to say that they hadn’t “provided” any “customer records” to the NSA, which would be technically true. Still, it’s very odd. The telco denials are pretty flat, and if they’re lying they’re doing it clumsily. Why not just stick with “no comment on national security matters” if the reports are true?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.