On Nov. 4, Anderson Cooper did the country a favor. He expertly deconstructed on his CNN show the bogus rumor that President Obama\u2019s trip to Asia would cost $200 million a day. This was an important \u201cstory.\u201d\u009d It underscored just how far ahead of his time Mark Twain was when he said a century before the Internet, \u201cA lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.\u201d\u009d But it also showed that there is an antidote to malicious journalism \u201d\u201d and that\u2019s good journalism…..<\/p>\n
The next night, Cooper explained that he felt compelled to trace that story back to its source, since someone had used his show to circulate it. His research, he said, found that it had originated from a quote by \u201can alleged Indian provincial official,\u201d\u009d from the Indian state of Maharashtra, \u201creported by India\u2019s Press Trust, their equivalent of our A.P. or Reuters. I say \u201d\u02dcalleged,\u2019 provincial official,\u201d\u009d Cooper added, \u201cbecause we have no idea who this person is, no name was given.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
It is hard to get any more flimsy than a senior unnamed Indian official from Maharashtra talking about the cost of an Asian trip by the American president.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an anonymous quote,\u201d\u009d said Cooper. \u201cSome reporter in India wrote this article with this figure in it. No proof was given; no follow-up reporting was done….<\/p>\n