It's not necessarily relevant in this particular instance since the source is straight from the horse's mouth. Every once in a while, they brag about things like this because they understand there will be no recourse from their own side on the hypocrisy and belligerency of what they did. The conversational register they're aiming for isn't the crowd that thinks this is wrong, but those that would be delighted that the CIA and Trump were taking action to be "tough on China" and trying to "regime change it."
The journalistic paradigm you're referring to is the "anonymous source says they personally saw Stalin eating all the grain with a big spoon" skit where they use the "unverifiability gimmick" to attack an adversary. It's not a reporting tactic done against one's own side. Reuters would have never published this if it could not verify the sources.
Even in the article here, it's "according to former U.S. officials..." and "three former officials..." which of course isn't a hard source.
Weirdly enough I hadn't read this with the target audience in mind so it came off as putting the US in a really bad light, but now I can see why you'd be confused with what I said because this is precisely the type of article they use the "anonymous sources said" tactic with.
Now when I re-read what I said maybe I hadn't actually realized that I don't read shit like this in the 'target audience' mode that maybe I used to read it in without even realizing it. Thanks for your thoughts!
I'm not sure I follow.
It's not necessarily relevant in this particular instance since the source is straight from the horse's mouth. Every once in a while, they brag about things like this because they understand there will be no recourse from their own side on the hypocrisy and belligerency of what they did. The conversational register they're aiming for isn't the crowd that thinks this is wrong, but those that would be delighted that the CIA and Trump were taking action to be "tough on China" and trying to "regime change it."
The journalistic paradigm you're referring to is the "anonymous source says they personally saw Stalin eating all the grain with a big spoon" skit where they use the "unverifiability gimmick" to attack an adversary. It's not a reporting tactic done against one's own side. Reuters would have never published this if it could not verify the sources.
Even in the article here, it's "according to former U.S. officials..." and "three former officials..." which of course isn't a hard source.
Weirdly enough I hadn't read this with the target audience in mind so it came off as putting the US in a really bad light, but now I can see why you'd be confused with what I said because this is precisely the type of article they use the "anonymous sources said" tactic with.
Now when I re-read what I said maybe I hadn't actually realized that I don't read shit like this in the 'target audience' mode that maybe I used to read it in without even realizing it. Thanks for your thoughts!