Daily Inspiration Quote by Howard Fineman

Fineman is poking at a religion of the newsroom: the comforting ritual of “two sources” as if truth were a math problem with a required number of witnesses. By invoking Watergate, he nods to the origin myth of modern investigative journalism, when deep-throat lore and shoe-leather reporting hardened into a template. The subtext is that the template has outlived the moment that made it feel heroic. What began as a safeguard against being played has, in many newsrooms, calcified into a checkbox that can be gamed.

His phrasing is careful: “popular dogma,” not “standard,” and “a lot of truth,” not “it’s wrong.” That’s classic reporterly hedging, but it’s also the point. Verification isn’t a single rule; it’s a discipline that changes with the story. Two sources can be two people repeating the same coordinated talking point, or two officials with the same institutional incentive to mislead. Meanwhile, a document, metadata, an on-the-record expert, or a first-party record can sometimes be more probative than a second anonymous voice.

Context matters: post-Watergate standards helped professionalize journalism, but the current information environment punishes that kind of slow certainty. Leaks move faster, disinformation is engineered, and audiences demand receipts. Fineman’s intent is to defend rigor without fetishizing a single ritual of rigor. He’s arguing for a mindset: corroborate “to the extent that you can,” then be honest about what you can’t. That humility is the real verification standard, and it’s harder than counting to two.