Wash. Post ombudsman admonishes Milbank for using anonymous source, imputing meaning to secondhand quote

SUMMARY: Responding to reader complaints about The Washington Post's Dana Milbank's use of an "anonymous secondhand quotation from Sen. Barack Obama," Post ombudsman Deborah Howell chastised Milbank for citing the source anonymously and for imputing a particular interpretation to a quote he did not witness. Howell found that "[n]either [Jonathan] Weisman nor Milbank called the source" to confirm their interpretation of the quote.

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