I think the messenger is at least somewhat important

Ohio State, as much as we give them grief, is an actual institution and generally can be expected to follow large scale norms. I'm not a Mark Felt expert, but one would think he was a credible adult (albeit with an ax to grind).

Rufo is a poo-flinger that solely exists in the public eye to fight the culture wars and "own the libs". Alex Jones exists to sell fake supplements and stir up conspiracy theories. There is a reason we don't immediately give them the benefit of the doubt, and I would strenuously object to people who are shocked that we (at least initially) hold this person's statement as suspect.

Looking back to the famous Blind Man's Laptop Shop case, I think you can initially be forgiven for thinking that Rudy was a crank with a fantastical story. This is the guy, when confronted with an election case defeat, shouts "I have proof, you ain't seen nothing yet!". Why would you believe him when he said a local repair shop had the laptop of a famous person? Well sonovabitch, it was true. WHAT it meant was up for debate, but the fact that the laptop was there was true.

This is why there are positions of trust - if a fireman says my house is on fire, I believe him. If a raging drunk says my house is on fire, I'm going to be skeptical.

I think your article points out two important addtional stages:

1. If the information has been verified as true, it doesn't matter if it came from Satan himself - truth should be objective. You committed plagiarism or you didn't. It doesn't matter if the reporter is a student, a colleague, or a guy who spends his entire waking hours trying to bring you down. To deny this is to be partisan.

2. It should be ENTIRELY fair to ask that we expand such light shining to not just the foes of the reporter. Look back at "Hillary's Email Server" - rather than deny that, let's offer to expand such punitive searches to every politican. To only limit to one's political foes is, you guessed it - partisan.