"That's Pretty Much How This Works," Says Blogger Explaining the Opposite of How Journalism Works

Source: Didja hear about the target? [sic] by Mike Wright, Just Wright Citrus; 1/10/22

That’s pretty much how this works. This is a trust business. You are putting your trust in me that I’m giving you fact and truth [...] I say all this to assure you this is not a rumor.

Walter Lippmann is rolling in his grave. This is literally the exact opposite of how modern journalism was supposed to work.

Have you ever seen the 1970s movie All the President's Men? If you haven't, let me recap it for you briefly. It's two reporters who have an anonymous source giving them accurate information and the entire rest of the movie is their bosses telling them it's not good enough to publish until they get on-the-record double corroboration and public record evidence.

That's it! I saved you 2 hours and 20 minutes, but you should still watch it because it accurately portrays the greatest example of how journalism is supposed to work.

The Concurrent's Sunday column defended Mike Wright's original post praising him for fully embracing the title of blogger over reporter and laying out why that's important because bloggers aren't tied to the same professional standards as journalists.

This trust-me-not-the-process mentality of doubling down on not calling this story a rumor is just plain weird though. Lippmann's idea of objectivity in the 1920s was recognition that no individual should be trusted, primarily because bias and flaws exist in us all, so audience trust should instead be placed in the process of proper reporting to produce facts we couldn't otherwise reach on our own.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with reporting rumor when you don't work for a newspaper, especially a rumor that will probably turn out to be true like this one, but to not own it for what it is should raise the eyebrows of even the most casual media consumer.