It's tough to deal with "sources".  Too often you have one person telling you something that sounds plausible, even reasonable, and you go with it.  Indeed, it might be almost impossible to get collaboration if the information is about moods instead of actual measurable things.  Even if you do collaboration, how can you be sure that you aren't hearing the same story being told by two different people who don't realize they're just repeating the same story?

So when it was reported this week that General Rick Hillier was "furious" with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, I figured that the "sources" probably boiled down to one source, or multiple sources all inadvertently repeating the same story.  And now the Globe and Mail is backing away from the "furious" story:

Reports have also emerged that General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, was furious with the Prime Minister's Office's handling of the military's new policy and angrily telephoned Mr. Harper Friday night after letting it be known he was "tired of being used" in political controversy.

While Mr. Harper refused to comment on whether detainees are being held at the base, he dismissed outright the report of Gen. Hillier's angry phone call.

“These anonymous sources say that I had a telephone conversation on this subject with General Hillier last week,” Mr. Harper said. “In fact, I haven't had any telephone conversation the last several weeks with General Hillier. I did talk to General Hiller last week, not about prisoners, [but] about the Manley report.”

Amusingly, this Globe and Mail story speaks of "reports" of this furious phone call in the third person, when in fact it was the Globe and Mail that reported on this story in the first place:

The Globe also reports Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier is "furious" with the Prime Minister.

The Globe says Hillier phoned Stephen Harper on Friday and told him he is "tired of being used" in political controversy.

It would seem that the Globe and Mail is trying to put some distance between itself and its original story.

For what it's worth, General Hillier himself has denied the substance of the story as well:

Canada's top soldier insists being furious is the furthest thing from his mind.

Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier is denying reports he phoned the Prime Minister last week and vented his anger about being dragged into the controversy surrounding the issue of detainees in Afghanistan.

Hillier says he's on vacation.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons on Tuesday he's not spoken with Hillier on the phone in several weeks.

Harper said when he met face-to-face last week with Hillier they didn't talk about prisoners.

He also denied the Federal Government is trying to make the military a scapegoat.

That's the problem with "soft news".  People's feelings are hardly measurable like the number of troops in theatre.  In any case, how many sources could there be who witnessed the alleged phone call?  This story has all the makings of a rumour.

General Hillier is not happy about the detainee thing.

If I was the general, I'd tell the PMO a thing or two.

How much you wanna bet that's what he's doing on the phone right now?

After a few iterations and two more levels of indirection, the musing about what might happen becomes a sourced story about something that actually did happen.  Get two people who heard the same story from two different people, and now you have multiple independent sources.

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