Jesse Singal's done a full piece skewering the media now
Some Mainstream Outlets Can't Even Perform Basic Newsgathering Functions Anymore
Subscribers only, but here are excerpts:
So: As I noted in my last article, Slate, The Guardian, and other outlets published articles about the Wi Spa incident focusing mainly on the theory that the whole thing was likely some sort of right-wing hoax. Believing it was a hoax required ignoring a fair amount of evidence that something had happened, and exaggerating the strength of the evidence favoring the hoax theory.
So that’s what these outlets did.
How was Ngo able to beat all of them to the story?
Simple: He was in a position where he was free to go wherever the facts led, and to report on what he found. Most of the other reporters weren’t — or so I would argue. As I mentioned in my last piece:
"It’s noteworthy that Levin is one of the coauthors on an article by a trio of Guardian US employees harshly criticizing their British counterparts for an unsigned editorial that dared to suggest there could be some tradeoffs to self-ID in that country, and which referred to that editorial as ‘transphobic.’ Of course a reporter who believes that even discussing this possibility is tantamount to transphobia is not going to be able to cover a fast-moving, ambiguous story centered on these issues fairly, and sure enough he doesn’t."
Sure enough, Levin failed to do his job here. Now he has to play catch-up.
In most cases, the process was likely more subtle than that. But I promise you that everyone working on this story at a mainstream outlet understood that if they came to the ‘wrong’ conclusion, it would cause them a lot of drama — at best, some visceral unpleasantness and accusations of transphobia on Twitter.
So they decided not to do their jobs. They didn’t do the normal stuff you would do to try to find out if an alleged illegal act had been committed by, say, a conservative. And this isn’t top-flight journalism or anything. I mean, good for Ngo for getting the story, but finding out someone has been charged with a crime is not a particularly noteworthy achievement for anyone who has experience reporting on criminal justice.
Now, though, Andy Ngo gets to present himself as the one journalist willing to handle this story professionally — and rightfully so. And all the other outlets involved should be feeling pretty humiliated. What do you think this sort of thing does to trust in mainstream outlets in the long run?
Imagine three years ago someone said to you, “There’s a complicated, controversial, fast-moving controversy unfolding. The Daily Beast, The L.A. Times, Slate, The Guardian, other outlets are on it, as is Andy Ngo, an independent journalist with little real institutional backing. Who’s going to get the story? You can place bets on Ngo, or on the field — that is, anyone but Ngo. Who do you choose?” Laughably easy bet, right? Not anymore. Not now that mainstream outlets have decided to forego basic newsgathering activities.