[Macross8299]

>Unless the NYT doesn't actually have these sources, there's nothing wrong with it

It doesn't even have to come down to bad intentions or journalists intentionally lying about their anonymous sources, it's the fact that I have no way of reasonably knowing whether the NYT got tricked or lied to. Maybe their so-called "anonymous source" is just taking credulous journalists for a ride. I'm expected to just put blind faith in their opaque verification process and accept that anonymous sources are equally as valid as someone going on record?

Interestingly enough, the credibility (or lack thereof) of anonymous sources is an easily tractable problem that could be easily solvable with ring-signature cryptography [0] if there was the will to do so. And the trustless nature of that solution does not require journalists to be deemed the anointed arbiters of The Truth(tm). Alas, the social and cultural factors are just not there such that every government official, business leader, etc has a public crypto key.

[0]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RST01.pdf

[beat]

Crypto aside (I think it's useless nonsense in this case, but that's me), my gripe with journalism isn't the facts... it's the stenography. Some serial liar (coughcoughTrumpcough) says the sky is falling because the Sun rises in the West and the idea that it rises in the East is liberal fake news, and the media dutifully reports the quote and doesn't call them on their shit. And then the debate over whether the Sun rises in the east or the west is treated as he-said-she-said opinion by the media.

That is a real problem. Not anonymous sources or fact-checking.