Abuse of hearsay statements in the media

Forgive for copying and pasting a reply post I made in a thread if you already read this, and the shameless plug at the bottom.  Also, forgive the misleading title.  It was designed to draw traffic.

I hear a lot of people dismissing news stories they don't agree with by saying "it's all just a bunch of hearsay."  As a baseball fan, I heard and read it a million times in the defense of Roger Clemens when the Mitchell report came out, and now I am reading it on this very blog by some posters who for some reason want to dismiss this McCain scandal.

This is complete nonsense, please read along to find out why...

First, to get a little pet peeve out of the way. it's 'hearsay.'  Second, hearsay is a phenomena of jurisprudence, not journalism.  Third, if hearsay was a journalistic phenomena, than journalism wouldn't exist.  Deep Throat was a hearsay declarant.  Should Woodward and Bernstein not gone forward with their story because it was based on hearsay?  Journalism is based nearly exclusively on out of forum statements asserted to prove the validity of the matter stated therein, aka hearsay.  Fourth, there's a slew of exceptions to hearsay.

Hearsay is designed to not allow out of court statements to be asserted to prove what the declarant said when the statements are suspect of fabrication.  Seeing as how this isn't court, and the exclusion of possible fabrication not as paramount, I don't know why people would continue to raise this nonsense 'hearsay' argument.  There are other ways journalism has to get to the truthfulness of the statements that aren't available to the courts.  

And even if it were a hearsay situation, the courts allow hearsay statements into evidence for a variety of reasons, based on the reduced likelihood of fabrication.  If this were court, an attorney would definitely be able to argue these statements (ie, the statements in the NYT article) into evidence.

Here's a few of the basis that could be used:

Words of independent significance (even if there was no affair, it is significant that McCain was so close to a lobbyist; even if everything the unnamed sources have said is not taken for truth, the fact that his former inner circle coming out with this is significant)

The statements had an effect on the listener (suddenly this lobbyist dame stopped hanging around so much)

Statements show knowledge (the statement show knowledge of McCain's philandering within McCain's inner circle and a potential covered up)

Statements of then existing state of mind.

Business records exception (regarding the leaked memos, if they qualify as a business record, which is debatable)

And since the declarants are not available due to journalistic privilege, the big one would be statements against interest.

So please, go ahead and dismiss a news story if that's what you're want to do.  But don't give me this line about unbelievability because it is based on 'hearsay.'

I take the bar next week.  Any IL lawyers have a job for me?