I thought you had decided to take a principled stand against reading anything Cathy wrote on Sundays.
I don't think she gave her opinion without facts. She laid out a litany of facts as to why the story ought to be approached with skepticism, due to the shortcomings of the journalistic process that led to its publication.
If she came …
I thought you had decided to take a principled stand against reading anything Cathy wrote on Sundays.
I don't think she gave her opinion without facts. She laid out a litany of facts as to why the story ought to be approached with skepticism, due to the shortcomings of the journalistic process that led to its publication.
If she came to an opinion on the story without enough information, then you also came to an opinion without enough information, and the Indy Star wrote the story without enough information, because we were all working with the same information. If people can't write pieces unless they have perfect information on events that haven't happened yet, like the arrest of this fiend, then we're not going to have a whole lot to read. We form opinions based on the facts at hand, and when the facts change, or new facts emerge, our opinions should change, too.
So you concluded that no one should come to a conclusion, but lots of people did come to conclusions, and Cathy was the one you wanted to argue with. I understand there were circumstances that may have made getting better sourcing problematic. But if you can’t get better sourcing for your story, whatever the reason, maybe your story is not fit for publication. Journalism still has standards and practices.
I guess I'm inclined to defend her because I found her piece persuasive at the time, and having given it a second look just now, I actually find it more persuasive. It's pretty extraordinary to move forward on a piece apparently based on hearsay from one source, and when Cathy said she was "leaning strongly toward 'probably didn't happen'", that's about where I fell, too. The commenters did make some good points about why one might expect sourcing to be hard to come by, though. But, I think the outcome is likely to be that fewer stories are reported, rather than lots of stories are reported based on poor journalistic practices because the environment will not allow proper journalism to take place. Neither outcome is particularly welcome, and we have the GOP to thank for all of it. You have a good evening, too.
I thought you had decided to take a principled stand against reading anything Cathy wrote on Sundays.
I don't think she gave her opinion without facts. She laid out a litany of facts as to why the story ought to be approached with skepticism, due to the shortcomings of the journalistic process that led to its publication.
If she came to an opinion on the story without enough information, then you also came to an opinion without enough information, and the Indy Star wrote the story without enough information, because we were all working with the same information. If people can't write pieces unless they have perfect information on events that haven't happened yet, like the arrest of this fiend, then we're not going to have a whole lot to read. We form opinions based on the facts at hand, and when the facts change, or new facts emerge, our opinions should change, too.
So you concluded that no one should come to a conclusion, but lots of people did come to conclusions, and Cathy was the one you wanted to argue with. I understand there were circumstances that may have made getting better sourcing problematic. But if you can’t get better sourcing for your story, whatever the reason, maybe your story is not fit for publication. Journalism still has standards and practices.
I guess I'm inclined to defend her because I found her piece persuasive at the time, and having given it a second look just now, I actually find it more persuasive. It's pretty extraordinary to move forward on a piece apparently based on hearsay from one source, and when Cathy said she was "leaning strongly toward 'probably didn't happen'", that's about where I fell, too. The commenters did make some good points about why one might expect sourcing to be hard to come by, though. But, I think the outcome is likely to be that fewer stories are reported, rather than lots of stories are reported based on poor journalistic practices because the environment will not allow proper journalism to take place. Neither outcome is particularly welcome, and we have the GOP to thank for all of it. You have a good evening, too.