What do we consider reputable news sources?
I have seen so many new sources lately that I have begun genealogy searches on them. TheFiscalTimes is a new one that I've seen today, with an article about how Trump didn't want to be president. It was from March. So, anyway, I started with the basic who is question and found out it was founded by Peter Peterson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fiscal_Times
Businessman Peter G. Peterson founded The Fiscal Times by providing the funding for the publication 2009 and 2010. Jackie Leo, former editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest was selected to be the publication's editor-in-chief. Other journalists involved in the launch of the publication included former Washington Post budget reporter Eric Pianin, who became the publication's Washington editor, Ann Reilly Dowd from Fortune magazine, and Merrill Goozner, former chief financial writer for the Chicago Tribune.[4] The publication was to launch in early 2010, but began a content partnership program organizations including The Washington Post in 2009.
Some liberal advocacy groups accused Peterson, a noted advocate for deficit reduction, of having a political agenda for funding the start-up organization.[5] On 31 December 2009, the Washington Post published a news article, "Support grows for tackling nation's debt," created by The Fiscal Times as part of a content partnership agreement with the Post.[6] The liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) issued an "Action Alert" in reaction to the story, saying that the Post had taken "special-interest 'propaganda' and passed it off as a news story."[7] Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander, responded to what he described as an "uproar" from critics,[8] criticized his paper's "glaring lack of transparency" on the partnership and wrote that the piece "was not sufficiently balanced," but nonetheless defended The Fiscal Times partnership, writing that Peterson had told him that his funding of The Fiscal Times had "no strings attached."[8][9] FAIR also criticized the Post for publishing another Fiscal Times article that FAIR criticized as a "soft profile" of two members of the White House deficit reduction commission.[10] FAIR questioned whether the piece entertained "serious criticism of the ideas being advanced so far by the commission (cutting Social Security, most notably)."[10] The New York Times noted that several other start-up media publications including Politico and ProPublica, which also supplied material to newspapers, also had prominent backers who donated to political causes.[5]
Celebrating the February 2010 launch of the website for The Fiscal Times, an article in "The Washington Scene" section of The Hill stated that it had received "rave reviews, with guests and journalists commending the site on its non-partisan, clearly numbers-based approach to reporting the news of money."[11] Economist Dean Baker of the progressive think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote in April 2010 that the publication's news articles displayed pro-deficit-reduction bias.[12]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fiscal_Times
The Fiscal Times describes itself as an "independent digital news publication that reports on fiscal, budgetary, healthcare and international economics issues." Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, however, reports that the Fiscal Times is really a propaganda outlet created and funded by Wall Street billionaire Peter G. Peterson, a former Nixon administration cabinet member who has long used his wealth to promote cuts in Social Security and other government entitlement programs.[1] The Fiscal Times has been established as a limited liability company.[2]
Snip
n its launch media release, Fiscal Times announced that it and "the Washington Post have agreed to jointly produce content focusing on budget and fiscal issues that will be available to both publications. The content will complement the Post's budget and finance coverage, and will include profiles of key government officials, explanations of important budget trends or proposals and investigative analysis of government spending programs. Arrangements with other publications will be announced as agreements are finalized."[2]
On December 31, 2009, the Washington Post published an article titled "Support Grows for Tackling Nation's Debt," ostensibly about a proposal to create a government commission to examine the nation's growing debt.[3] The article was produced not by Washington Post writers, but by Elaine S. Povich and Eric Pianin who work for the Fiscal Times. According to the article, the debt commission would be charged with exploring "how to rein in skyrocketing spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security." The article failed to mention other prominent and growing sources of government spending, for example the $663 billion military budget. The story also reported that President Obama "has voiced support for such a plan”; that thirty-five Republican and Democratic senators, including Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, have signed on to the plan, and that Nancy Pelosi, who once opposed the idea, may now accept such a commission. The article discussed widespread support for the plan to create the debt commission, which some believe would have the ability to cut the budgets of popular entitlement programs.
The story was widely criticized by media organizations like FAIR and the Columbia Journalism Review for, among other things, failing to include any reference to the growing opposition to the debt commission proposal coming from some forty prominent organizations like the NAACP, the SEIU, the AFL-CIO, Common Cause, NOW, and the AARP and Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, who does not support the idea of putting Social Security and Medicare at risk. While the article did state there is “widespread disagreement on how to respond" to the problem of the country’s growing public debt, according to the article, readers would have a hard time figuring out from that the proposed commission faces any resistance at all.[4]
The Center for Media and Democracy also responded by asking readers to join a petition to tell the Post "no more fake news" and to urge the paper to adopt a policy to prevent it from running articles written by groups funded by special interests, like Peter G. Peterson, as "news."[5]
So here's the profile on Peterson himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_George_Peterson
Peter George "Pete" Peterson (Peter Petropoulos) (born June 5, 1926) is an American businessman, investment banker, philanthropist, and author, who served as United States Secretary of Commerce from February 29, 1972 to February 1, 1973. He is also known as founder and principal funder of The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which he established in 2008 with a $1 billion endowment. The group focuses on raising public awareness about U.S. fiscal-sustainability issues related to federal deficits, entitlement programs, and tax policies.[1] In recognition of his support, the influential[2] Peterson Institute for International Economics was named in his honor in 2006.
Before serving as Secretary of Commerce, Peterson was Chairman and CEO of Bell & Howell, from 1963 to 1971. From 1973 to 1984 he was Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers. In 1985 he co-founded the private equity firm, the Blackstone Group, which went public in 2007. Peterson was Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations until retiring in 2007, after being named chairman emeritus. In 2008, Peterson was ranked 149th on the "Forbes 400 Richest Americans" with a net worth of $2.8 billion.
Peterson has been named the most influential billionaire in U.S. politics.[3]
On August 4, 2010, it was announced that he had signed "The Giving Pledge." He was one of 40 billionaires, led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who agreed to give at least half their wealth to charity.[4] Most of his giving been to his own foundation, The Peter G. Peterson Foundation which focuses on raising public awareness long-term fiscal sustainability issues
So here's Rob Garver's bio
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Authors/G/Rob-Garver
Rob Garver is national correspondent for The Fiscal Times, based in Washington, D.C. A longtime reporter on the intersection of the federal government and the private sector, he previously reported on the FDA’s botched oversight of drug trials for ProPublica and worked as senior researcher for Bob Woodward during the writing of Woodward’s New York Times bestselling book, The Price of Politics. Garver holds a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont.
Should we note the background of sources before we take them at face value? The slant of the article makes a lot of difference and phrases can be turned to change meanings. Or am I making too much of this type of reporting and publishing?
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