Rahm Emanuel's Senate Shortlist to Blagojevich Confirmed by Source

More details are emerging about Rahm Emanuel's contacts with Illinois Governor Caligula...sorry, Rod Blagojevich. Today's Chicago Trib contains the latest, including part of the shortlist of Obama-approved candidates for his own Senate seat:

Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be White House chief of staff, had conversations with Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration about who would replace Obama in the U.S. Senate, the Tribune has learned.

...Emanuel delivered a list of candidates who would be "acceptable" to Obama, the source said. On the list were Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth, state Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, the source said. All are Democrats.

Much like a recent report from a local Fox station, this story is simply confirmation of things that were already presumed to be true. President-Elect Obama has said that he did not speak with Blagojevich himself about the vacancy, and that no-one on his staff was involved in any dealmaking. This revelation is entirely consistent with those statements.

Obama has promised to release information shortly on the nature of any contacts betwen his staff and Governor Blagojevich's. A certain amount of caution is called for, so as to avoid running afoul of the government's case against Blagojevich, but the sooner and more thorough the revelations, the better.





I also wanted to comment, really quickly, about the issue of sourcing. Sourcing standards have gone downhill for years now, but the slide into hell has accelerated recently. The Blagojevich scandal is bringing this into stark relief, as everyone is desperate for an exclusive.

Because the information in this report is pretty much undisputed, the issue of sourcing isn't a huge deal, but there is zero attribution. That's not cool, but all-too common. It becomes a big deal when your unsourced report is used against someone, and you refuse to correct it or attribute it in any way.

Evaluating the credibility of news stories has become a thorny task, and the further away we get from solid sourcing practices, the greater the risk to everyone's credibility.