And wouldn't journalistic ethics have not littered this very article with dozens of references to "Russian hackers" — evidence of whose existence is still completely absent? Twenty-four hours from now, essentially no one who has read this article will remember anything but the incessantly repeated notion that there are dangerous Russian hackers out to compromise US national security in some way, and that we need to be vigilant.

Regardless of whether the WaPo operated with a story in mind, they did operate with sources:

> The investigation by officials began Friday, when the Vermont utility reported its alert to federal authorities, some of whom told The Washington Post that code associated with the Russian hackers had been discovered within the system of an unnamed Vermont utility.

> A senior DHS official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive security matter, defended the report.

> “We know the Russians are a highly capable adversary who conduct technical operations in a manner intended to blend into legitimate traffic,” the official said. The indicators of compromise contained in the report, he said, “are indicative of that. That’s why it’s so important for net defenders to leverage the recommended mitigations contained in the [report], implement best practices, and analyze their logs for traffic emanating from those IPs, because the Russians are going to try and hide evidence of their intrusion and presence in the network.”

You may not like the quality or the presentation of the sources as more weighty than they turned out to be, but they are sources.

Yeah, but when the sources are government officials peddling the government line, in an environment where they have every motive to exaggerate, why would you assign them any credibility at all?

How has the WaPo not got this message yet? Government officials talking about Russia are probably lying

What's the basis that officials have a "blame Russia" policy? Why does this seem to be official policy only since this year?

It's not like anti-Russian saber rattling was a thing even 12 months ago, despite the Ukraine situation.

The DNC hacks are a thing that happened, and a lot of people outside the government seem to agree that evidence points to it happening from Russia, by actors who seem to have worked with the Russian government.

If you accept the DNC hack analysis, it's not absurd to imagine that closer scrutiny reveals more infrastructure that Russian state actors have penetrated. Especially given that we know infrastructure is more vulnerable that we might like.

Considering that Republicans are not peddling the anti-Russia line, what's the angle here? in the last 6 months of an 8 year term, Obama decides to activate the anti-Russian propaganda machine? Only for it to be dismantled in 2 weeks anyways with the new administration? What sequence of events causes that?

These attacks were classic script kiddie attacks.

Hillary losing elections triggered that. Warlord as Putin is, you can't blindly blame everyone else for your faults.

Threatconnect did a decent amount of research into the attacks[0] for trying to figure out who did the attacks. There are other security researchers out there who come to similar conclusions.

So either the government is bribing a bunch of security researchers (who doesn't want the scoop that the consensus is wrong?), the government executed a perfect false flag to blame Russia on something (why do this? It's not like having Russia as an enemy is useful for us), the analyses by these researchers are right, or something else.

My money is on a decent amount of smart people all arriving somewhere near the truth.

[0]: https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/guccifer-2-0-dnc-breach/

I think we're now seeing what the real limits of just reporting sources is. The paper becomes a mouthpiece for the sources, who have learned enough media management to know how to manipulate it. Especially the difficulty of using anonymous sources, which are often necessary but difficult to hold accountable for accuracy.

Sources that are "anonymous" for no good reason might as well be fictional. The only reason for the source to be anonymous is because they were blatantly lying, which they were.

I'm assuming you've never held classification before. Talking to the press without being expressly permitted to is a one-way ticket to a dismissal, at the very least. Anonymous sources are a cornerstone of the free press.

I think we are mixing things up too much there. Are you implying leaking classified material to the press as an anonymous source is somehow routine or OK? Might want to have a friendly talk with the security officer about that.

If not why even bring classication into it?

I'm not making any normative claim about leaking. That would be irresponsible.

I brought classification up because it's one of the most common reasons for sources being anonymous. Whether or not you think they should be talking to the press, they do, and the press affords them certain protections doing so.

It's a political talking point soundbite (a PROVEN FALSE one, at that), not classified material.

We don't know whether or not it's classified, but I think it's safe to assume that it either is or is being handled by people with classifications. That puts it firmly in the domain of "off the record or without my name, please."

I don't think it's been "proven" false. I don't think it's very likely, but that is a different question.

and strategic "leaks" and press plants are a cornerstone of media engineering by the state

It's like hitting someone very hard on the head and then apologizing. The damage is already done - 90% of the people who read the headlines won't notice the retraction.

So preventing false headlines should have far greater priority than apologies/retractions - which are 90% useless. No, it is not all good now! Even the very continued mentioning of "Russian hackers" achieves a goal, very subtly. Just having that term out is enough.

Given how much more advanced other countries are, I can't believe all the stuff the Russians suddenly are supposed to be capable of. To me it seems that the real "hackers" (of public opinion) are located in places very different from Moscow or Leningrad, much farther West.

See my response to belovedeagle.

Wouldn't journalistic ethics have been to not be so sensationalist to begin with?

Yes.

In the absence of the most right path, they've taken the least wrong path by amending their article, appending an editor's note, and now apologizing in a subsequent article.

The last wrong path would have been not to milk a sensationalist story without any research whatsoever.

>This is journalistic ethics in action.

No, the term you're looking for is damage control.

One and the same.

If damage control is your standard operating procedure, we're not talking ethics, but lack of it. Doing evil until caught, and then apologizing, can be excused once, but not when it's a strategy.

I was taking a dig at the ambiguity of the word "damage."

"Damage control" can either mean "controlling the damage done to the organization" or "controlling the damage done to the public by the organization."

Anyways, I think it's wrong to characterize the WaPo as "evil" in this situation for following an editorial rulebook. There's no evidence that they published the first article with intent to apologize later - if there was, this case would be complicated significantly.

The apology never gets as much press as the accusation.

Journalistic ethics would be to never make the assertion without evidence in the first place.

An apology is the last thing a newspaper should run

See my response to belovedeagle.

There was evidence, but it was evidence that you or I would call insufficient to meet the weight of the accusation. You can find fault with that as shoddy journalism, but I don't think it meets the standard of unethical journalism.

> An apology is the last thing a newspaper should run

An apology is the first thing a newspaper should run, once it knows that its original story is faulty.

journalistic ethics would have been to diligently research the story before going to press. what they should have done in this situation is make sure they had the facts in order before making statements of the gravity they made.