Official Enemies and the Globe & Mail's Double Standard on Anonymous Sources

In two recent articles, Canada’s Globe and Mail unwittingly exposed its double standard on the use of anonymous sources. When anonymous sources level allegations against a Western government, the Globe and Mail evidently applies far more scepticism than it applies to allegations made by anonymous sources against an official enemy of the West, such as China or Russia.

The first of these Globe articles concerned Seymour Hersh’s recent bombshell report on the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.

Mr. Hersh is one of the most accomplished journalists alive today. His journalistic distinctions include the Pulitzer Prize, four George Polk Awards, the National Magazine Award, and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting on the My Lai massacre, the C.I.A.’s monstrous bombing of Cambodia, Henry Kissinger’s wiretapping, the C.I.A.’s subversion of Chile’s democratically elected President Salvador Allende, and the U.S. military’s torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

On February 8, Hersh published a lengthy, detailed account of the Biden administration’s plan to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines. Hersh’s account rests largely, but by no means exclusively, on what Hersh describes as “the source with direct knowledge of the process”. (continued)