Last week, I mentioned, almost in passing, stories published about two public figures, Jose Offerman and Gwyneth Paltrow, that I thought were so poorly sourced that it offended me that any reputable journalistic venture could have published them (by the way, I believe this blog is the first to ever put those two individuals together in the same sentence; I can't wait to see if someone reaches me through a Google search for " 'Jose Offerman' AND 'Gwyneth Paltrow' "). Its not a big deal, unless you're the subject of such a hitpiece; the journalistic standards regarding "anonymous sources" for sports and entertainment/gossip are so low anyway that the public has already developed an ingrained skepticism about such stories. Then again, I came upon this story and this story today, which only show what a strong shelf-life the most odious of lies can take on.

Anyway, I'm sure a lot of you have already heard about the Fox.com smear of Al Gore last week: that he and his wife attempted to use influence to get some freebies to the opening Springsteen concert, and had a fit when he didn't get the tickets. Coming as it did on the heels of a campaign season when false stories were printed about the former Veep taking credit for inventing the Internet, or for having been brought up in a luxury hotel, I was amazed that anyone with a sense of fair play could have believed that allegation even for a second. To that end, I would propose a hard and fast rule concerning any published story that uses anonymous sources: unless it involves a whistleblower, or a Mafia informant, anything that you read that contains a reference to an unnamed "friend", "teammate", "source" or "insider" must bear the presumption that it is a lie, unless the journalist can show elsewhere in the story that the anonymity was granted to protect the source, not the reputation of the journalist.
(Ed. I would be happy to discuss with anyone who e-mails or comments, below, why I believe the stories involving Gore, Offerman and Paltrow were untrue in whole or in part)