Maybe the single most frustrating part of being a long-time blogger is having to watch media organizations --and especially the New York Times -- perform the same hackery, over and over and over.
I am forever explaining to people that reporters are lazy. This is not a flip statement or an exaggeration, it's my professional observation from 20 years' experience as a newspaper editor. Reporters who are thorough, ethical, and self-motivated are out there, but they're the exception, not the rule. I've been fortunate to know reporters like that, but they stand out for a reason.
This is why reporters need a large stable of good editors -- to force them out of their comfort zones, and make them fill in the gaping holes in their stories. (The New York Times really needs to bring back their public editor, too.) One classic piece of lazy hackery? Returning to the same sources again and again, making no apparent effort to find new ones.
A few months ago, I pointed out that a "random" focus group to which CNN returns is really a group of pro-Trump Republican activists and candidates.
Now it's the same entirely predictable path worn by the New York Times. Follow along with this:
NOTE: The Times reporter praising this story has since deleted her tweet.
The "paper of record"? Hah.
Meanwhile, the Times reporter who deleted her tweet is trying to dig herself out of it.
