You say "weasel words", I say "We think you should take this with a grain of salt". They're being explicitly clear that their sources are secondhand. What's your answer? That they shouldn't run the story at all?
Well, I think as you get more and more degrees removed from a primary source, the closer the article gets to being gossip and/or somebody's opinion and not factual news. Which is fine, there's a market for stuff like that. But I don't think that's very sustainable if you want to maintain a reputation as a purveyor of fact-based reporting.
There's a reason hearsay isn't generally admissable in a court of law.
Got it.
The main reasons are that courts have compulsory process to attain testimony of primary witnesses which makes it generally unnecessary, and that courts are by design intended to work via adversarial process including cross examination, and a indirect witness can't be cross examined.
Needless to say, there are lots of exceptions to hearsay exclusions, too.
Absolutely, a story based entirely on odious unattributable anonymous innuendo like that we see here should not be published. If the "government officials and others" want this important information to get out, they can still talk to Rep. Schiff. He will repeat anything that hypes up RussiaRussiaRussia, and he's on TV all the time. If, in fact, he isn't the "government official" to which this piece refers in the first place.
I don't say this because I support Trump or voted for him (never did, never would). I say it because this whole multiyear journalistic dumpster fire has guaranteed his reelection. TFA is all about putting out the flames, which I do support.