Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren criticized the news media late Tuesday for what she described as the upcoming “silly season” of the 2016 presidential campaign cycle.
She warned that anonymous sources used in news reports to “trash talk” politicians should know that it isn’t difficult to discern their identities.
“Aren’t the anonymous trash talkers worried they will be outed?” Van Susteren wrote on her blog. “Do they trust the media that much to keep their identity secret to leak to them? And do they think it is that difficult to figure who they are?”
She said she has been “trash talked” in the media by two anonymous sources but said she figured out who they were. (She did not respond to a request for comment on who the sources were.) And she said it’s up to reporters to decline negative quotes from anonymous sources.
“We are embarking on ‘silly season’ — where horrible things are said about politicians anonymously and the media is willing to publish the anonymous contents rather than holding and demanding the statements be on the record,” Van Susteren wrote.
Rightly or wrongly, anonymous quotes are frequently used in political news reports. Sometimes, their impact is felt around the world, as when in 2014 the Atlantic cited an unnamed Obama administration official who described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “chickenshit.”
