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Context Clues in the Era of #MeToo 
Against all odds and much prevailing wisdom, the news audience trusts the news media. Here's why that's a problem. https://alexandraerin.substack.com/p/context-clues-in-the-era-of-metoo?r=22t0u&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter
Against all odds and much prevailing wisdom, the news audience trusts the news media. Here's why that's a problem. https://alexandraerin.substack.com/p/context-clues-in-the-era-of-metoo?r=22t0u&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter
I have been sleeping on the Defector since they launched, no more than vaguely aware of their existence as a landing pad for Deadspin exiles, but I love the work they are doing under the heading of "Journlismism". For instance, this piece from last month. https://defector.com/police-say-a-lot-of-things/
My piece for today, linked at the head of this thread, is about how audiences have a lot of implicit trust for the news, whatever "the news" means to them as individuals, and how this is a problem when the media abdicates this responsibility.
Which they do. Frequently.
Which they do. Frequently.
If I had clicked onto Defector's Journalismism tag before I finished my newsletter piece, I probably would have wound up quoting this "Police Say" piece because it sums up the problem of "single-sourcing" stories from authority figures very nicely.
There are some special features of the media's relationship with police that do not apply to their relationship with other flavors of power, but the general principles apply, in terms of what it does, what it says/means, when a reporter goes with a single source.
