I could find an example of this type of error every day, but you need only an occasional reminder.

When a reporter writes a long passage filled with unattributed opinion, it’s fair to ask, “Says who?”

Take this example from the latest U.S. News:

Last week’s gut-wrenching spasm of violence in Baghdad came hard on the heels of the assassination of a popular minister in Lebanon, which came not so hard on the heels of Hezbollah’s midsummer instigation of violence against Israel. The growing calamity in Iraq makes it difficult to know what if any good can come of the Bush administration’s sudden charm offensive in the region. Similarly, given the firestorm of criticism Benedict ignited with his remarks not long ago seeming to endorse a link between Islam and violence, it’s hard to be hopeful about his trip, either. Yet hope, unreasoning hope, seems to be all that may be left to tame the maelstrom of violence now engulfing the Islamic world.

Who described the violence as a “gut-wrenching spasm”? Who says the Lebanon minister was popular? Who called the Iraq situation a calamity and described the calamity as “growing”? Who called the Bush administration’s initiative a “charm offensive”? Who said it’s difficult to know whether any good could come from the Bush policy? Who says it’s hard to be hopeful about the papal trip? Who says “unreasoning hope” seems to be all that may be left (whatever that means) to deal with violence in the Islamic world? Who called the violence a maelstrom and described it as engulfing the Islamic world?

If you remove author Brian Duffy’s unattributed opinion from this passage, you’re left with no news. What’s funny is that I have no doubt that Mr. Duffy could have found some critic of the administration who would have described the situation in similar terms. Plenty of them are out there — willing to talk on the record.

But Mr. Duffy didn’t take the time to find a source. We can’t even be sure that he talked to anyone, other than the two men quoted near the end of the piece on another topic (the editor of Islamica magazine and the Grand Mufti of Istanbul). Thus we must conclude that the opinion shared in the quoted passage belongs to Duffy or to his editors. Since the piece is not labeled as “opinion” or “editorial” or “column,” it’s shabby journalism.