I don't remember the story well but certainly more self-skepticism, disclosure of facts, and rigorous investigation will always reduce the chance of humiliation and harm.
To a degree. My point though is that major journalism outlets, while they certainly screw up from time to time, don't run with major stories and be "We think this is true but maybe it isn't. We'll keep you posted."
> My point though is that major journalism outlets, while they certainly screw up from time to time, don't run with major stories and be "We think this is true but maybe it isn't. We'll keep you posted."
Right; they will run with "Someone else is reporting/claiming this, but we have been unable to confirm it. We'll keep you posted." And while the difference in terms of the impression on the reader/viewer may be subtle, there is an important distinction between running the unconfirmed story directly as news (or the thing Greenwald apparently suggested of an outlet running dueling news stories on the same issue from different journalists as news.)
Not to mention the use of the term "confirmed" has completely changed in modern times. Now, the press puts out a story that an anonymous source said X, and then another press outlet "confirms" it - and in this sense, the use of the word "confirm" means "we also asked the anonymous source and they told us the same thing." This is a trick: "confirming" a story used to mean that actual journalism was practiced, where the liklihood of the claims were vetted and determined to be likely true, given multiple independent sources or other evidence. It used to take time and effort to "confirm" stories, that was the job of a journalist, now the term is just used to artificially bolster anonymous claims by having a second talking head talk to the same person as a way to "confirm" the other media source wasn't lying that they existed, or something.
Fair enough. If another credible outlet is reporting it, they'll probably run it with the disclaimer that the NYT (or whoever) is reporting something but we haven't ourselves been able to verify A, B, and C claims. If it's a claim on a conspiracy site? Or someone has just come to them with an accusation they're unable to verify? Unlikely.
