Donald Trump has once again criticised the use of anonymous sources in news reporting, only to share a story that relies on them hours later. The president took to Twitter on Monday night to berate the New York Times for its “non-existent sources” and attack the “Fake News Media”. Yet early Tuesday morning, he shared three segments from Fox and Friends, including one about North Korea that quoted “US officials with knowledge of the latest intelligence” and an “official who requested anonymity”.
The Fox News story claimed that US spy satellites had detected North Korea moving anti-ship cruise missiles to a patrol boat. As president, Trump would likely have access to the intelligence behind such reports, but the sourcing remained unnamed.
This is not the first time Trump has displayed contradictory behaviour on anonymous sources. In May, he urged people to question stories with the phrase “sources say” because “it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers”. Two days later, he shared a Fox and Friends story about his son-in-law Jared Kushner that cited anonymous sources. Similarly, in July, he warned against “sources say” before sharing another anonymously sourced story.
US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was asked about the Fox News report on the same programme. “I can’t talk about anything that’s classified and if that’s in a newspaper, that’s a shame,” she said. Pressed on whether it was a leak, she added: “It’s one of these things I don’t know what’s going on. But I will tell you that it’s incredibly dangerous when things get out into the press like that.”
The Trump administration has made cracking down on leakers a priority. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last week that the Department of Justice had tripled the number of active leak investigations and devoted new FBI resources to the effort, promising also to review its approach to journalists. It remains unclear whether the information in the Fox News story was classified; the US military routinely discloses details about North Korean missile movements and launches.
