Comment by danso
6 years ago
It's a common technique in journalism to describe and attribute someone's recollection of events in a series of narrative paragraphs. It does not imply "we just took his word for it", though it does imply that the reporter finds his account to be credible enough to be given some prominent space.
This arrest happened 6 months ago. Who else besides the suspect and the police do you believe reporters should ask for "basic corroboration" of events that took place inside a police station? Or do you think this story shouldn't be reported on at all until the police agree to give additional info?
It should at least be very clear at the paragraph level what is established fact and what is speculation/opinion.
Well, it was “according to someone familiar with the matter”
I fell out of love with NPR and Ira Glass a long time ago.
NPR is unfortunately an actor in the current culture war. The subject of the story is a POC, therefore by definition innocent victim of "systemic racism", "white supremacy", "implicit bias" or whatever fighting word the left comes up.
Check any past story where the subject of the story is a POC, those are never in any way responsible for their own misfortunes.
If in the current story time will show that the investigative lead was indeed correct to point Mr Williams you won't ever see a retraction or update on NPR.
> It's a common technique in journalism to describe and attribute someone's recollection of events in a series of narrative paragraphs.
Yes, it's called forwarding a narrative as opposed to reporting on objective facts.