Liz Sly and her journalism: can you imagine if our college students presented evidence in this manner? What grade will they earn?

"Several Facebook pages have sprung up expressing Alawite unhappiness with Assad, mostly for being too soft on his opponents. Five Alawites have been detained for their involvement in the dissent, but the pages have continued."  So those Facebook pages, which could have easily been set up by the dumb Jordanian and Saudi intelligence services, are accurate measures of Alawite public opinion?    All what Liz Sly knows about Syria is fed to her by the English language speaking press officers of what is known in the media as Free Syrian Army.  Notice that she does not tell us how she learned that "five Alawites have been detained".    If there an an anti-Pulitzer prize for lousy journalism, Liz Sly should have been awarded it two years in a row.