re: The Times reporting the CIA destroyed Nordstream

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So the CIA got some navy dive boys out of panama, planted some bombs from a new norwegian sub base, and detonated them remotely by dropping a c2 sonobouy from a P-8 a few days later

did our government set off the Turkey earthquake, too?

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Sarcasm is more effective if it reflects at least some knowledge of its target.

• "So the CIA got some navy dive boys out of panama" - NO

• "planted some bombs from a new norwegian sub base" - NO

• "detonated them remotely by dropping a c2 sonobouy from a P-8 a few days later" - NO

Here is what was actually said:

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Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

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wileyjones

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While I don't know if the story is accurate or not, you view it as completely inconceivable and analogous to the CIA causing Turkish earthquakes.

Are you familiar with "BALTOPS 22"?
If so, you know one of the emphases was underwater mine laying and recognition. Meaning we had an excuse to have the exact resources on-site required for the task Hersh claims we carried out. Last year, on the eve of the war, Toria Nuland said, "I want to be very clear: if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward." That absolutely portends motive.

So we had both motive and means. Meanwhile, we contend Russia blew up their own pipeline, which is wholly absurd.

This thing may not be a duck. But it looks like one, quacks like one, and swims like one.

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Nordstream sabotage would have been a perfect mission for SEALs

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There is a federal law that Congress has to be briefed on missions by special operations. The Navy divers do no fall under this but SEALs would. That’s why CIA used the demolition divers to blow Nordstream but not have to tell Congress. Deniability for everybody!

I haven't seen the NYT publish on this, but I did find a story from the NY Post that's fairly similar to the story from the Times of London linked in the OP. More reputable publications doing secondary glosses on things they wouldn't publish themselves is what part of the information ecology that's meant to lead us to make inferences like you just did about the credibility of anonymous single-sourced stories.

Yep, it's an ambiguous story. Outfits with reputations wouldn't want to put their reputation behind this, and if any citizen journalist or average credentialed journalist put this on their substack, it wouldn't get secondary stories written on it, but because it's Hersh, who broke the My Lai story, it gets secondary play. You're right that it's not an outlandish story, it's just not corroborated, and Hersh has become known for this sort of thing (see his OBL story), so in my opinion you're kind of forced to shrug at it.

Do I believe the US would do that 100%? Do I believe THIS administration could carry out such an event without screwing it up politically or covertly? Without a doubt, 100% no. The Biden administration is capable of next to nothing that isn’t racially or gender driven. They would screw up a steel ball foreign policy wise

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Traditional news organizations tend to evaluate themselves and each other on the basis of standards that have developed for >100 years

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For starters the implication that their current standards are anchored in timeless values that go back a century is patently false, but even if it were true it's a problem, because it means all they have is a circular echo chamber. They should be concerned about the standards their readers use to evaluate them. How they view themselves doesn't pay bills.

Those are good points. I don't mean to suggest that journalistic standards are timeless. They do evolve like the standards of other professions like law and medicine evolve, but even as they evolve, there's a certain amount of continuity and much of what's valuable from the past is conserved.

The public's opinions should and do matter critically and ultimately more than journalism's view of itself and only if journalism serves the public interest will it survive as a profession. Part of the reason big journalism's reputation has suffered is what it has sacrificed in terms of its own standards in order to survive amidst so many competing propagandas.

nvrmnd. already addressed.

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Polling would suggest they've blown their credibility some time ago.

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To anyone with common sense.

The media model is to get paid by validating terrible ideas for people who can't think critically.