[hyrix]

Journalists don't just publish whatever comes into their mailbox--at least, good journalists understand the potential that they are being manipulated. We should be wondering to what extent these journalists vetted the source of the clip. It's not that journalists need to publish an identity, but they ought to serve as a filter as much as they do as a megaphone. Without a credible story about how the sender got ahold of the clip and its provenance, why would they even believe that it's real? With so little context, how could a responsible journalist publish this kind of character assassination without any more research than one phone call to the purported speaker?

Perhaps if there were a pattern of behavior behind the clip, supported by other testimony from the speaker's colleagues or previous incidents--not that it's the responsibility of journalists to conduct a trial in the court of public opinion, presenting the strongest arguments from each side--but, lacking any actual effort at all to establish the credibility of the source, this is just lazy, click-counting, ragebait--not journalism.

Partly, it's also on the laziness and gullibility of the general public--but these are well-established features of the audience that should be no surprise to a trained journalist. To publish such clips without any real work to validate them is basic negligence.