Old Habits Die Hard, Sources Say

The case of Britainnia's Vince Foster rivals even Jayson Blair as a cautionary tale of anonymous sourcing gone horribly wrong. David Kelly was used by the BBC as an anonymous source saying that the British government "sexed up" an intelligence dossier on Iraq to justify the war; then the Department of Defence outed Kelly, then his wrists were slit (presumably by his own hand), then the Beeb fessed up, then all sorts of media hell broke loose. So have British hacks been scared straight about sourcing? Um, guess?.

Meanwhile, citing only a listener in France, expatriated Brit Andrew Sullivan crawls into the mind of the BBC, and the reporter in question, Andrew Gilligan, and delivers some stunningly confident revelations:

His deep hostility to the war against Saddam has been his motivating force as a reporter since the conflict began. [?] The BBC, it seems to me, broadcast something they knew to be untrue for political purposes. I have one suggestion: believe not a word the BBC is reporting on Iraq right now. They cannot be trusted. They want the liberation of Iraq to fail.