Some basics of journalism to evaluate these CSIS stories
Have professional guidelines been followed here?
Since the Canadian media engulfed itself in a Sinophobic panic fueled by some probably racist CSIS leaker and credulous reporters (that I have referred to previously as CSIS-GM) a small number of people in independent media have tried to create some kind of response. While we have at least a couple of good pieces in e.g. The Canada Files and in Passage, we are definitely talking about, if not voices in the wilderness, honourable exceptions to a dishonourable unanimity. There is no debate going on here, at least not yet.
On the other hand, there is nothing that upsets a monopolist more than the slightest sign of a crack in their racist wall of anti-China coverage. And so it is that we are treated not only to the unfolding defamation campaign against Chinese-Canadians, but also to several of the most fervent of the campaigners sniveling - because of the lack of credulity in these little pockets of twitter about what CSIS-GM is selling - about how the public doesn’t understand the complexity of journalism.
Like the ungrateful public that refuses to understand how what looks like food prices being driven up by monopoly is actually much more complex, the ungrateful public refuses to understand how what looks like fiction from a racist spy agency is actually the apogee of professional journalism. If they only knew.
Shall we take up the challenge? Shall we pick up the gauntlet thrown down by the Canadian media? Perhaps we can take a look at some foundational resources for journalists, from the place you know all Canadian journalists look for foundational resources - the US.
How does the CSIS-GM reporting of the past few months stack up against, for example, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics? Here are some principles from the code for you to compare with the behavior of the Canadian media in recent weeks. They include:
Verify information before releasing it.
Consider sources’ motives before promising anonymity.
Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing.
Provide access to source material when it is relevant and appropriate.
In recent years there have been real journalists and sources who have suffered real persecution by the US and its allies for reporting within the above code of ethics. Wikileaks, after a painstaking process of harm reduction to ensure no danger would come to US spies and military personnel, published whole troves of source documents - the Iraq War Diary, the Afghan War Diary, Cablegate - so that the public, journalists, researchers could do their own analysis and their own verification on the documents directly. The source, Chelsea Manning, was punished severely and the publisher, Julian Assange, is in jail, his life in danger. Edward Snowden, after getting himself to safety, came out in his own name and defended his decision to become a source on the NSA’s universal surveillance program.
Meanwhile the CSIS leaker was given space in the Globe and Mail to defend his honor as well - to defend, that is, his decision to engage in political manipulation and defamation behind a cloak of anonymity. He will continue to be defended by the journalists who published his narratives and by the spy agency that employs him, even as Assange languishes in prison.
Let’s go over now to the Comittee of Concerned Journalists. There we find similar ideas about sources and verification, which is “a consistent method of testing information — a transparent approach to evidence — precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work.” How is that working out in Canada? Also in the CCJ principles you will find the idea of publishing in the public interest: “journalists must continually ask what information has most value to citizens and in what form.” The more the CSIS-GM leak material that seems by perfect coincidence to vindicate their approach and assumptions, the more it’s revealed that the goal is narrow political and personal agendas and not what “has most value to citizens”.
A third resource. While I wouldn’t want to imply that Associated Press follows its own ethics, it too has guidelines that are being mocked by the CSIS-GM operation.
“ Under AP's rules, material from anonymous sources may be used only if: 1. The material is information and not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the report. 2. The information is not available except under the conditions of anonymity imposed by the source. 3. The source is reliable, and in a position to have direct knowledge of the information.”
If the CSIS-GM information has passed these tests, there is no way to know it from the story. It doesn’t look like information (#1 failed) and the source says things that make absolutely no sense (#3 failed). With #1 and #3 failed there’s no way to even think about #2, since some of the leaks sound like pure inventions.
Like any other important endeavour, journalism involves both skill and insight that develop over time and practice. Verification, for example, is a complex method. Seeing with your own eyes is better than hearing from a witness; two witnesses are better than one, but not all that much better if they coordinate their stories before talking to you. Documents are good but can be faked. How much trust you can put into, e.g., a Wikileaks cablegate cable depends on how much you know about what was going on at the time, how well the information fits with what else you know, the nature of the official denial, the motivation of the leaker and of the publisher. How to make a judgment about what is in the public interest and how to balance that with how well you were able to verify and how timely it all is (why now?). Infinite possibilities to do good work emerge from a fairly simple set of principles.
Violating the principles leads to bad work - which is what has happened here. The social damage, as I’ve said before, is just beginning.
So true. These 'journalists' aren't even untrustworthy rats, in some sort of independent manner... they're handpuppets in the shape of untrustworthy rats being manipulated by even more untrustworthy rats who work for the American empire. My apologies to all the quirky women who owned a rat as a pet when they felt it was more practical than having a cat.