Trump's dangerous war against anonymous sources

He Wall Street Journal Trump is at loggerheads with President Donald Trump. He considers his tariff plan to be "the stupidest trade war in history." In a recent editorial, he was told sarcastically: "If the goal is to hurt American auto workers and Republican electoral prospects in Michigan, then go ahead, President." Trump has reacted virulently and in one of his scattered tirades on the Truth Social network, he has ended up threatening to sue media outlets that use anonymous sources.

It is hard for me to say this as if I were having a tooth pulled out live, but I think that – amidst the usual absurdities – Trump expresses a legitimate concern: unidentified sources are a loophole to affirm anything without having to prove it. The drama is that, too often, they are also the last resort to explain matters of public relevance that are only diluted by those in power under the condition of enjoying the protection of anonymity, and full democracies accept and assume this. Forcing journalists to reveal their sources is an aberration and a way of very quickly impoverishing the capacity of the press to supervise institutions. The abuses of anonymous quotes, which are there, are mosquitoes that must be combated surgically, not in pipes. Any minimally informed reader knows how to distinguish between a source that adds value and one that could be fictitious or that only cowardly participates in the political debate without showing its face. The latter are trans fats of information, so good media education should succeed in weaning citizens off those media that clog the arteries of journalism with dubious and unidentified sources, used as a battering ram.