Reuters editor Jaimi Dowdell talks about the data team’s recent look at AI failures in medical procedures, how to do deep-dive stories and the importance of growth through discomfort as a journalist

The front page of the Reuters story on AI and medical usage.

The debate over artificial intelligence has dotted the pages of the blog significantly over the past year, with posts discussing the benefits some of these tools provide media professionals, as well as those mocking a number of the errors.

A recent deep-dive article from Reuters, however, took a look at the application of AI to the medical field, with some concerning results:

In 2021, a unit of healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson announced “a leap forward”: It had added artificial intelligence to a medical device used to treat chronic sinusitis, an inflammation of the sinuses. Acclarent said the software for its TruDi Navigation System would now use a machine-learning algorithm to assist ear, nose and throat specialists in surgeries.
The device had already been on the market for about three years. Until then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had received unconfirmed reports of seven instances in which the device malfunctioned and another report of a patient injury. Since AI was added to the device, the FDA has received unconfirmed reports of at least 100 malfunctions and adverse events.
At least 10 people were injured between late 2021 and November 2025, according to the reports. Most allegedly involved errors in which the TruDi Navigation System misinformed surgeons about the location of their instruments while they were using them inside patients’ heads during operations.
Cerebrospinal fluid reportedly leaked from one patient’s nose. In another reported case, a surgeon mistakenly punctured the base of a patient’s skull. In two other cases, patients each allegedly suffered strokes after a major artery was accidentally injured.

Among the names listed in the byline of this story is Jaimi Dowdell, one of the pros from the “Dynamics” textbooks and a frequent friend of the blog. 

Dowdell is a deputy editor of the data team at Reuters, a team she’s been part of for about eight years. In 2021, she received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the team’s look at qualified immunity. Prior to her time at Reuters, she worked for the St. Louis Dispatch and Investigative Reporters and Editors.

As this story was making the rounds, Dowdell was nice enough to share some insights about the story itself and her approach to investigative journalism. Below is a transcript of an email interview, edited for length and to make my questions sound less like they came from a goober:

 

We have talked over the years about how every story, big or small, has kind of an ideation point. What was it that had you all looking into the issue of AI and medical issues that led to this big story? (and how long did it take you to get it done?)

“I love this question because I think it’s fascinating how stories start. Rarely do we say, “I’m going to do a story about X” and it works out.

“This story began with a conversation with one of my colleagues. He had spent the past six months looking into issues surrounding artificial intelligence and he was interested in how patients were using AI chatbots to self diagnose. His idea of AI in the medical world got me thinking that AI must be impacting medicine in more ways.

“I had worked with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s database that tracks malfunctions and adverse events involving medical devices and knew that could be a resource. I then discovered the FDA had a list of AI-enabled medical devices. I started exploring the data and it wasn’t long before we felt like we had a story. We moved quickly from there. The entire process from reporting to editing and production took six months or less.”

What were some of the bigger “road blocks” you hit along the way and what made them problematic? How did you work around them or how did the inability to get past them impact the story?

We didn’t have many major roadblocks for this story. One of the challenges, though, was the technical aspect to the topic.

My colleagues and I spent a lot of time talking to people about the technology that goes into AI-enabled medical devices. I think we really had to understand that before we could write about it.

About ten years ago (damn, I got old fast…), when we were talking about your “Secrets in the Sky” series with the Boston Globe, you were telling me how there is a point where you have to figure out if the story is really there/worth it? You also mentioned that as a reporter you almost have to have a kind of “obsession” in getting the work done. Was that the case here for you and the team or was it something different this time?

“One of the best parts of my job is the time I’m given to explore topics. It’s a luxury that not many journalists have and I don’t take it for granted. During that exploration period, I often follow many leads and attempt to run down curiosities and questions. Then there’s that point we’ve talked about where you had to decide whether there is a story and it is worth it. For this story, that moment came quickly.

“Over the years I’ve learned that if you don’t have to work too hard to find examples that illustrate the trend or concept you’ve uncovered, there’s a good chance there is a story. There have been times when I’ve worked on ideas where it seems almost impossible to find more than one example. Does that mean it isn’t a story? Not necessarily, but it does indicate there may be a better use of your time.

“That wasn’t the case here. The growth we found in AI-enabled medical devices was the first indication there was a story. From there, it wasn’t too difficult to find examples of devices where potential issues had been flagged. Then, because all of this involves public health, it seemed an important and worthy topic in which to invest.

“And yes, there was an obsession. There’s almost always an obsession! I think that’s another indicator on whether the story is good or not. If I’m not ruminating about a story while exercising or waking up in the middle of the night with an idea, I might not have a great story. Is it healthy? Probably not. Each time I do a story like this, I think, ‘next time I won’t get so sucked in.’ But it always happens. I can’t speak for my colleagues on this story, but based on how often we spoke at all hours of the day, the obsession was there for them too.”

A lot of student journalists find a passion for doing bigger projects, but often find it to be frustrating because of a lack of resources or a lack of time. This might be especially true for those trying to meet work expectations of grinding out X number of pieces a month for student media or making class deadlines set by unreasonable professors. What kind of advice do you have for student or beginning journalists who want to try doing some of the deeper stories like the ones you do?

“The demands of unreasonable professors and the churn of student media is likely not that different from the professional world. There is a lot of news and there are a lot of demands on journalists these days. I didn’t start out getting to spend so much time on stories and neither did most of the journalists who do this type of work. But it can be done. I was able to dig deeper on stories even as a student and there are ways to get to do this type of work. Here are some suggestions:

  1. Don’t wait for permission. Too often, I see student or beginning journalists look to professors or editors to give them an assignment to dig deeper. If you wait, it’ll never happen.
  2. Be curious. Many of my stories started out because I just wanted to know something. Turn your own curiosities into a question or a hypothesis that reporting can help you answer and test. Do not think, “I’m going to do a story on this.” Instead, just work on being curious and looking for answers. The stories will reveal themselves to you in time.
  3. Start small. Instead of trying to do a big story right off the bat, include investigative elements into your regular work. For example, look for data that can help enrich a daily story. Start looking for source documents as you report. These small victories can lead to big stories down the road.
  4. Don’t be afraid of hard work. This type of journalism can be tedious and frustrating. If you’re feeling like it’s too hard, you might be doing it right.

If you could tell a student journalism kid anything about anything that you think would be helpful to them these days, what would it be? What would you like them to know?

“I’d say that none of us ever feels like we really have things figured out.

“I remember when I was in college, I looked forward to the days when I would know exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Guess what? It turns out we always feel a bit uncertain and we’re all basically kids.

“So get out there and embrace feeling uncomfortable. Whether you end up in journalism or something else, the growth, I’ve found, is often in the discomfort.”

How to harness self-interest in service of improving story structure (A Throwback Post)

One of the hardest things to get my students to do is to work in the inverted pyramid. I don’t think I’m alone in this, given a) most of the stories they’ve read over the years are chronological instead of driven by descending order of importance and b) most of them tend to write expansive term papers for other classes, in which the focus is predetermined and being lengthy is rewarded.

To get them better focused, I often leverage the concept of self-interest: “Instead of thinking about what you, the writer, wants to tell me, the reader, consider thinking about what you would want to know most if you were reading this and then write it in a way that would best meet those needs.”

Sometimes, like this week, we have to go even more basic than that, which brings me to this week’s throwback post about our fire brief exercise. It’s amazing how quickly their viewpoint shifts when I have them thinking about their home being on fire instead of writing about a fire that happened elsewhere. I hope this will help you help your students find focus as well.

 

The Self-Interest Gap: Learning how to care less about what you want to write and more about what the audience wants to know

Self-interest is perhaps the one commonality humans share these days and it can be summed up in a simple question: “What’s in it for me?”

When you are on the “receiver” end of the process, it’s something we understand very easily. We know almost instinctively what is of value to us and what we care about right away. That said, when we put on the “sender” hat, we tend to focus more on what we want to tell people, forgetting that those people have their own set of interests we should be focused on.

Case in point, I asked the students to write a brief based on a press release about a fire. Here are the opening lines of a few of those briefs:

  • Firefighters responded to an engulfed single-story house shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday…
  • Boone County Firefighters responded to a call of a Sturgeon house fire…
  • Sunday evening, Boone County Firefighters responded to a call at 6pm on an electrical house fire…
  • A structure fire occurred at 520 S. Ogden in Sturgeon on the evening of Sunday…
  • Boone County Firefighters responded to a home engulfed in black smoke…

What we learn essentially in these things is either:

  1. Firefighters responded to a fire.
  2. A fire occurred somewhere.

If you were on the “receiver” end of the information, how much of this stuff would you care about? Of course the firefighters responded to the fire. That’s what they do. Also, fires occur everywhere from giant farm fields to the burn barrel in my yard. However, as a “sender” we tend to ignore that until we are forced to switch perspectives.

In thinking about this issue, I posed a question to the students meant to tap into that idea of self-interest: “Let’s say you get home after class and your roommate says, ‘Hey, your mom was trying to reach you. There was a fire at your house…’ What would be the first thing you would want to know?

Answers came quickly and easily:

  1. Is everyone OK?
  2. How bad was the fire?
  3. What happened out there?

In this case, a good response might be:

“The fire destroyed the house, but nobody got hurt.”

That’s the core of a good lead, with a strong focus on what matters most (big ticket item) and what people cared about most (answer to the first two sentences). When it’s your mom or your house, you have specific interests that a good source of information will attend to. If you can take that perspective and play on the audience’s self-interest, you can have a much sharper focus when it comes to telling the story directly and clearly.

UNC policy allows the U to record classes without telling professors or students, while students aren’t allowed to record at all

If you feel like this, you might be working at UNC…

THE LEAD: The University of North Carolina has implemented a policy that dictates who can and can’t record classroom content, which includes a terrifying Big Brother option for the university itself:

The University may record a class or access existing classroom recordings without the permission or knowledge of the instructor being recorded for the following purposes:

  • To gather evidence in connection with an investigation into alleged violations of University policy, when authorized in writing by the Provost and the Chief Human Resources Officer; and
  • For any other lawful purpose, when authorized in writing by the Provost and the Office of University Counsel, who will consult with the Chair of the Faculty.

 

BACKGROUND: The university had run into several issues related to recordings of professors over the years, only to figure out it really had no policy in place to deal with such things.

The tipping point appeared to be when UNC decided not to renew business professor Larry Chavis’s contract after reviewing recordings of his classes. Chavis noted he had no idea the university was recording him.

When called to account for this surreptitious move, the U fell back on the “well, we’re a one-party consent state” thing, which is true but a bit wobbly at best.

 

A FEW BASIC OBSERVATIONS: I found myself thinking about a couple aspects of the policy that either people haven’t considered very well or they just hope they won’t have to deal with in the future. Consider the following:

Rules for student recordings: I’m not sure exactly how this came into play, but the document makes it against UNC law for students to record in the classroom, except under specific circumstances:

Students may not record classes, including online classes, without express advance permission from the instructor teaching the class they wish to record. Students approved for recording as a University Compliance Office (UCO) accommodation to address a disability, pregnancy, or religious accommodation must notify instructors of their approved accommodation by sending an accommodation notification plan in advance of any recording. The approved accommodation plan must indicate the means by which the recording will be accomplished and any other details pertaining to the recording or its use.

Well, for starters, how are you going to monitor that, given students carry about 97 digital devices on them at any point in time? I guess if I’m in my computer lab at UWO with 20-some kids, maybe I might notice a kid’s phone set to record, but most likely not. In a UNC pit class, though? Not a chance in hell.

Add that to the lack of a specific “or else what” in this policy and I’m thinking this thing is going to be relatively toothless when it comes to enforcement. I’m not an expert on university policy or UNC’s policies in particular, but I don’t see a “If you do X, you will suffer Y” in this document. The document also doesn’t say, “See POLICY X for punishments” so I’m left to wonder if the kids will record anyway depending on how strict the policy and problematic the punishment.

 

Martyrs to the cause: Most of the kerfuffle I’ve seen in relation to classroom recordings getting out into the world is related to students trying to “expose” professorial bias. We’ve covered a few of these here, and there are dozens more cases elsewhere in which a student records a professor doing or saying something that upsets a large group of the perpetually offended. Once that match of outrage hits the kerosene of social media, the professor’s goose is cooked.

With that in mind (and the previous point in mind as well), I somehow doubt this kind of thing will stop. Even more, I imagine that a kid who “exposes” a professor via an illicit recording at UNC will now be hailed as a martyr to the cause if any punishment befalls that kid.

(“Let’s all remember the brave sacrifice of Jimmy, who recorded Professor Jones misgendering a piece of wicker in Underwater Basketweaving 385. That ‘stern talking to’ he got from the dean will haunt him always…”)

We have a world in which social media rules, “gotcha fame” is aspirational and people are way too full of themselves around the academic world. Recordings are going to happen.

 

To Chill or Not To Chill: I’ve studied the concept of the Willingness to Self-Censor for a number of years and found that many people have an innate sense of how willing they are to speak out or shut up when faced with controversy. Certain topics tend to spark this more in all people, but many topics spark it in specific people. In short, there are a lot of reasons why people will hold their tongues and it’s not always because they don’t have something to say.

Conversely, I’ve dealt with academics all my adult life and I found that many of them apparently have some sort of condition that makes them think everyone should hear what they have to say about everything, regardless of the circumstances.

 

Michael Palm, president of UNC’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors and associate professor in the UNC Department of Communication, said faculty members are aware they may be monitored by the University or even outside groups.

“My sense is that most faculty, at this point, just assume they’re being watched,” Palm said.

<SNIP>

“I think it is unquestionable that there has been a chilling effect on campus and that many more faculty now than at any other time that I’ve been a faculty member — and I’ve been at UNC for 18 years — are self-censoring out of fear for what might happen if the wrong people disapprove of the content in their classes,” Palm said.

If I’m being honest, there are days I have a “come at me, bro” vibe going on when it comes to my classroom. If you think I’ve said something stupid, childish, offensive or whatever… well… take a number, I guess. Then there are other days where, if I think about all the potential ways something like this could screw me, you couldn’t pull a needle out of my keester with a tow truck.

What I foresee here is that the students are going to lose a lot, thanks to this policy. The professors who really SHOULD be curbed a bit in regard to their histrionics and side-rambles will be the ones thinking, “Well, that’s for other people…” The folks who are more like academic prairie dogs, popping their little heads out of their holes juuuuuusssst enough to see if the coast is clear, will stay under ground for fear of getting whacked.

Cleveland Plain Dealer honcho Chris Quinn writes off criticism of his AI passion project as “uninformed outrage,” while still being wrong about almost everything, including college journalism programs

An early photo of Chris Quinn reacting to criticism of his views on AI, journalism schools and journalism professors. 

 

THE LEAD: Chris Quinn, the VP of content for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, must have a really tired arm from patting himself on the back, or whatever else he does for self-congratulations, as he’s back with another column about the awesomeness of his staff’s use of AI:

The first wave of responses was from regular readers, and most were positive. Several thanked me for showing how we use AI to expand our offerings while maintaining quality.

I suspect I receive little negative feedback about AI now because I’ve written about it so often. I know the anxieties it causes. That’s why I explain how we use it, assure you we are not replacing jobs and promise that humans stand behind everything we publish.

As for anything that might challenge his assumptions, well, Quinn doesn’t have time for that crap:

(A) cranky journalist in another state took offense and on Monday ranted on social media about my practices being the ruination of journalism. Much bombast by others followed.

Or, so I’m told. I didn’t read any of it. I have no time for uninformed outrage on social media channels.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: I was not the “cranky journalist” Quinn spoke of, clearly, because my “bombast” and “uniformed outrage” was published Thursday. Just want to clear that up.)

In the end, Quinn gave all of his supporters a good pat on the head before trying to shame anyone who wasn’t fully on his side:

For those who wrote to say they understand and admire what we’re doing, many thanks. To those who wrote to criticize it, I suggest you look to history to understand that the only path forward is adaptation.

Or, keep stomping your feet until you don’t have a leg to stand on.

CATCHING UP: Quinn wrote an extensive column last week, praising the use of AI as a tool that allowed his staffers to do more reporting and zero writing in some under-covered enclaves of the paper’s circulation area.

In doing so, he decided to take several potshots at colleges, college professors and college students, saying they were doing everyone on Earth a massive disservice by decrying the value of AI, or outright ignoring it.

This led to at least some of the backlash against him, including the piece I wrote here that made what I consider to be three clear, well-reasoned and well-supported arguments:

  • Quinn is wrong about journalism programs not teaching AI or telling students that AI is the devil.
  • AI is a tool that still has a lot of kinks to work out, and it has proven to need some extensive oversight in its current form.
  • The content the PD is producing from its “Report it all, let AI write it up” leaves something to be desired in terms of quality.

In his most recent missive, Quinn didn’t deal with almost any of these criticisms, but then again, I really didn’t expect him to. In reading through his 14 previous letters on AI, I’ve found kind of a pattern in his views on AI. Two broader underlying premises really underscore why I’d love to play poker against this guy:

The Law of the Instrument: The concept has been around for generations, but it’s often attributed to Abraham Maslow, and it basically states that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like it’s a nail.

Quinn has so bought into the premise that everything can be done with a strong set of reporters and an AI grist mill, that it’s clear all stories are getting done this way on those beats. The underlying problem is that not all stories can be done well this way.

Quinn mentions things like people wanting to know the score of the Browns game or the outcome of a vote from some board in Lorain. These stories are great for AI to just crank out.

OK, fine, but what about that story of the teacher who donated bone marrow? Or obituaries? Or other stories in which details matter and storytelling can make a difference? These things get ground up and spit out in a bland way that really undermines the quality of the work the reporters have done.

Quinn isn’t alone in this, as I remember having an argument with a broadcast professor during the “convergence phase” of journalism. I noted that some stories were better done in print or online while other stories were better done in broadcast. He argued anything I could do for a newspaper, he could do just as easily for broadcast.

I mentioned things like budget stories that needed mathematical depth and lacked a lot of visuals for video. He told me how he would take video of people typing on keyboards or how he would throw a copy of the budget on the table and film that.

The underlying point in both cases is the same: Yes, you CAN do a story this way but it doesn’t follow it’s the BEST way to do that story.

Often Wrong, Never In Doubt: I heard this phrase in a documentary on financial investors, where a short-seller explained that certain people are very good to bet against because they lock in on an idea and refuse to be dissuaded, regardless of the reality surrounding them.

When they are wrong, but overly confident, they’ll pour vast sums of time and money into risky things that end up going wrong, thus benefiting the people who clearly saw the inherent flaws in those things. Quinn fits this to a T.

In reading through all of his letters to the public, never once did he demonstrate one iota of caution. It was, “This is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so you better get on board.” I seem to remember that same pitch being used to market Theranos, cryptocurrency and MLMs.

Even when I’m really certain on something, I’m always open to the option that I might not be right. If Chris Quinn brought me to the PD, showed me all the great stuff he’s doing, demonstrated how they’d backstopped AI to prevent any catastrophic failures and presented data on how great this was serving his readers, I’d be happy to give this whole experiment another look. I believe paranoia is my best friend, so I’m looking out for risks and willing to say I’m wrong.

Quinn’s most recent letter just drips with hubris, belittling anyone out there who hasn’t fallen in line while ignoring the issues a bunch of us have raised here (particularly those about how crappy J-school is). It’s telling that after a letter in which he basically said professors suck and J-schools suck, he added this tidbit to the end of his latest missive:

Note: I mentioned a student last week who withdrew from job consideration because of our use of AI. Some readers concluded the student attends Syracuse University. That’s not the case. Actually, Syracuse’s Newhouse School of journalism, a valued partner for us, teaches about AI in journalism. Leila Atassi, one of our editors, will be on the Syracuse campus in a few days to help coach students in how we use AI.

That’s exceptionally tone deaf for two key reasons:

  • You spent an entire column telling everyone that college journalism programs ignore or hate on AI and then without an ounce of irony, mention how great Syracuse is and that they’re doing some awesome AI stuff.
  • You crapped all over journalism degrees and how they’re worthless, yet you’re dispatching Leila Atassi to Syracuse to teach these kids. I wonder what her background is… Oh… Yeah…

And, I’d like to say I believe in Leila and her abilities, if for no other reason, than she went to a hell of a good journalism school for her master’s (and she was actually one of my students for a while.)

In any case, while Chris Quinn thinks I’ll be here stomping my feet until I don’t have a leg to stand on, I’ll actually be watching to see what happens as the PD’s Icarus keeps flying higher and higher on his AI wings.

Cleveland Plain Dealer honcho Chris Quinn took time out of his busy schedule to crap all over journalism schools about their views on AI, despite not actually knowing their views on AI

I hope the computer-based journalism helpers Chris Quinn is putting his faith in work better than the Cleveland Plain Dealer website. I tried to buy a subscription to view his diatribe about journalism schools and AI, only to have a spinning wheel of death show up for about a day or so…

THE LEAD: Chris Quinn, the VP of content for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, took a victory lap over the weekend, bragging about how he removed the writing requirements associated with journalism via “AI specialists,” while also telling journalism schools they suck:

Because we want reporters gathering information, these jobs are 100 percent reporting. We have an AI rewrite specialist who turns their material into drafts. We fact-check everything. Editors review it. Reporters get the final say. Humans — not AI — control every step.

By removing writing from reporters’ workloads, we’ve effectively freed up an extra workday for them each week. They’re spending it on the street — doing in-person interviews, meeting sources for coffee. That’s where real stories emerge, and they’re returning with more ideas than we can handle.

<SNIP>

Journalism programs are decades behind. Many graduating students have unrealistic expectations. They imagine themselves as long-form magazine storytellers, chasing a romanticized version of journalism that largely never existed.

That’s what they’re taught.

 

DISSECTION TIME, PART I: Let’s look at both Quinn’s arguments as well as take some time to disprove them, starting with his view of students and journalism programs:

The Strawman Student: Quinn’s piece begins with an exemplar of how students suck these days, especially because we teach them poorly at every journalism school in the country:

A college student withdrew from consideration for a reporting role in our newsroom this week because of how we use artificial intelligence.

It reminded me again how college journalism programs are failing to prepare students for the workforce.

I don’t have a reason to doubt Quinn that this kid exists, but I also have no reason to trust him. I’d like to see the withdrawal letter/email/voicemail the kid sent and I’d probably also like to talk to the kid.

See, Chris, sometimes people tell you stuff that isn’t true, like “I really wish I could make it to your party” or “The break up isn’t about you, it’s about me” or “It happens to a lot of guys and it’s not a big deal.”

Maybe this kid didn’t want to work for someone who saw their role in the newsroom as feeding grist into a mill for a robot overlord. Maybe they actually enjoyed writing, so giving up the part of the job they like wasn’t worth it to them. Maybe, and I say this as a huge fan of the sports teams, they didn’t want to move to Cleveland.

Could be a lot of things, but blaming it solely on your AI policy helps you nicely set up your argument that journalism schools suck.

 

The Incorrect Overgeneralizations: The bigger problem here is the leap from this one kid not liking something to all journalism programs failing all of the kids out there all of the time. Even if we pretend that this one alleged kid was so allegedly horrified at the Plain Dealer’s amazing-as-hell AI set up that they had to pull out immediately, it doesn’t follow that all kids in all schools are taught to hate AI. This is called negative social stereotyping.

Even if that feels like a bit of hyperbole, let’s at least agree that not every kid who comes out of a program is the exact same in terms of quality, maturity and expectations.

Also, I think we can agree that not every journalism program is created equal, so while the kids at University A might be using smudge pots to ward off the evil spirits used to power AI, kids at University B might be getting some good data journalism help, transcription services and other goodies, courtesy of AI.

Then again, maybe we can’t agree, given this generalization:

Like many students we’ve spoken with in the past year, this one had been told repeatedly by professors that AI is bad. We heard the same thing at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Cleveland in August. Student after student said it.

Chris, did you bother to dig a bit deeper on this, because there are a few nuances that merit consideration. First, who were these professors? Were they in journalism or were they in departments where they’ve gotten used to grading 500-word essays that AI can now crank out in 18 seconds, thus putting the fear of God into these people?

What kind of AI was under discussion? Traditional AI? Generative AI? Did the professors state that certain AI programs are less helpful than others, or that relying solely on whatever content AI puked up was dangerous from a fact-based standpoint?

Did the professors explain the “black box” and “hallucination” concerns about AI? Did the professors show them example after example after example of how AI completely screwed the pooch, thus trying to help them see that you can’t just turn it loose and hope for the best? 

I’m also curious, given your disdain for journalism programs, where did the amazing Hannah Drown and Molly Walsh garner their educational pedigree that mixed the poli sci, business and non-profit knowledge you desperately want kids to have?

Oh… Yeah…

Given their background, I’m wondering how Hannah and Molly feel about this proud declaration you made:

Fortunately for those of us who know exactly what skills we need in applicants, AI has altered the landscape so dramatically that we don’t need journalism school grads.

We don’t need any damned JOURNALISM GRADUATES… Except, of course, the two we hired to do this work that we’re so proud of…

 

The Erroneous View of J-Schools: I’d like to know how many journalism programs Quinn visited in the past five years. A five-year span would cover the time frame where artificial intelligence would have become relevant enough for schools to start embracing a relatively stable set of AI tools.

I’d put the over/under at about three schools, and I’d advise people to take the under.

There are likely colleges that are shunning AI, but clearly many more are embracing specific aspects of these tools.

CUNY has an entire AI Journalism lab for professionals to come back and learn the ropes. Northeastern University is diving into the research and practical ends of AI with its AI Literacy Lab. The Medill School at Northwestern University has its Knight Lab to work on AI and media. Arizona State University has put a ton of resources into its work on AI and news innovation. University of Northern Colorado built a production course that teaches students how to meld AI and journalism effectively.

Stanford, UCLA, Atlantic International University, Florida and Columbia are just a few of the other schools that have Journalism-based AI courses on the books, and those are just the ones I found on through a cursory search. That’s not even counting all the programs (ours here included) that have infused AI into the current courses we have, so we can demonstrate the value of the tools while we teach caution as well.

(NOTE: If your school or your class does some AI stuff, feel free to pipe up in the comments section. I bet we could really make a run at the record for most comments on the blog.)

I not only teach about artificial intelligence in my classrooms, but I also include chapters on it in my books and provide basic exercises to educators that showcase its strengths and weaknesses.

What we have here is a collection of facts, supported by links to additional information. I’d like to think that’s a bit stronger case than Chris Quinn’s “Old Man Yells at Cloud” approach to generalizing about what’s wrong with journalism schools today.

 

The “Road Less Traveled” Advice: Quinn’s ignorant view on J-school is problematically compounded by his educational suggestions for kids who want to enter his glorious newsroom:

If you’re a student considering journalism, I’d skip that degree. Study political science. Learn technology. Understand how government, businesses and nonprofits work. Take communications law and ethics as electives. Skip much of the rest.

 

Got it. Just like you did back in the day! Right, Chris? Oh… Wait…

I don’t know if he’s going to be on College of Media and Communication Dean David Boardman’s Christmas card list this year, but I’d love to see Boardman’s reaction to this column… 

 

Aside from the “do as I say, not as I did” thing, if I wanted to tank a kid’s future, I’d pretty much tell that kid to do exactly what Quinn is saying here.

Technology changes so rapidly that whatever the kid learned in freshman year would likely be obsolete by graduation. You can learn tools, but it’s important to know the broader ways in which they should be applied to further your skills and connect with your audience. For example, in my day, we didn’t major in Quark XPress. We majored in design, used the tool in conjunction with our broader understanding of the field and then adapted to technology changes.

In addition, there’s a reason the phrase “Why try? Go Poli Sci” is still heard in the halls of many academic institutions. It’s also much more likely to be in the “paper law” as opposed to the “trial law” end of the spectrum. I’m not saying a certificate, minor or even double major in this is field is bad, particularly if you want to take your media skills into the political realm. However, you’re not making it to a newsroom solely on a steady diet of Politics and Genocide or Western European Politics courses.

I’d also like to know where Quinn thinks students are getting their interviewing skills, their social media experience or their general reporting knowledge in this newly formed major he’s promoting here.

Being forced to meet people takes effort, particularly based on how today’s generation of students has grown up in a digital-first, post-pandemic, borderline-anthropophobic world. Research suggests that nearly 45 percent of Gen Z men have never asked someone out on a date in person, so if Quinn is assuming this fresh crop of potential folks can do this without some reporting courses (still a thing) or other forced socialization, I’ve got some unfortunate news for him.

Also, com law might not matter much any more, if what’s happening in the real world is any indication…

 

DISSECTION TIME, PART II:  With that out of the way, let’s pick apart Quinn’s views on artificial intelligence and the glorious way in which it has drastically improved his newsroom:

AI! It’s FANTASTIC! (Usually):  Quinn has gone all-in on AI, which is always dangerous when it comes to a new technology. Actually, it’s usually dangerous in any situation, given that most new ideas suffer a lot of growing pains before they eventually become valuable, but so much less so than what was expected.

Still, he’s a fan:

Artificial intelligence is not bad for newsrooms. It’s the future of them. It already allows us to be faster, more thorough and more comprehensible. It frees time for what matters most: gathering facts and developing stories to serve you.

Anyone entering this field should be immersing themselves in AI.

I’ll buy faster, but I’m not entirely sold on the other descriptors here, given what we’ve seen AI mess up already. Dare I say Quinn is “chasing a romanticized version” of this technological marvel.

AI has fouled up a ton of content in some pretty awkward ways, including calling a guy “useless” in his own obituary, misnaming the city in which an NFL team resides, cliche-festing local sports stories and screwing up an entire development plan in a local news story. That’s not counting the number of times people got tricked by AI sources or generally misled by AI-generated content.

 

Words, Words, Words…: Quinn seems to take an almost perverse level of pride in how much content his staff members can grab and how none of them has to do any actual writing any more:

By removing writing from reporters’ workloads, we’ve effectively freed up an extra workday for them each week. They’re spending it on the street — doing in-person interviews, meeting sources for coffee. That’s where real stories emerge, and they’re returning with more ideas than we can handle.

I get that it’s important to do deeper reporting, spend more time with sources and connect with the communities journalists cover. However, the question becomes, “How much of all that good will and strong effort is wasted if you just toss everything in an AI blender and then watch the content move along like you’re “Laverne and Shirley” at the Shotz Brewery?”

Plus, and maybe Quinn doesn’t give a damn, but I’ve found that when I invest a lot in the reporting, I tend to care about the story I want to tell. That usually leads to some stronger, more engaging pieces based on well-crafted writing.

Being a writer isn’t a negative, particularly if you want to write for the benefit of an audience that is interested in what you have to say. I think I’m qualified to say that, given everything I sit down to write has me thinking, “Who would want to read this and what would they want to know?”

I’m not sure if AI has gotten to that point yet, but I know good writers have.

 

Quantity over Quality: I forget what movie it was in, but there was a scene in which prisoners were told, “We’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that all we have for your dinner tonight is horse manure.” When someone asks, “So what’s the good news?” the official replied, “There’s plenty of it.”

Which brings us back to the Plain Dealer’s Bin of AI Content…

A quick look at the list of stories Hannah Drown put together recently provides some sense of the quantity. Each day she appears to be on the job, a handful or more stories with her byline show up. She’s got coverage of events at the Lorain County Junior Vocational School, a UAW strike in the area, a pop-up shop at the Lorain Community College, a school lockout in Elyria and more. The volume is there.

The quality, however, leaves something to be desired.

These are mostly stories that could have easily come from a press release rewrite, featuring a “Hey, come check out this new thing” approach. These lack depth and nuance, not to mention any level of critical thought. The stories have overly long sentences, generally lack flow and are as dry as a popcorn fart.

For all the bragging Quinn does about reporters getting a chance to sit with sources, meet for coffee and chat these people up, most of the content comes straight from documents, not people. A look through more than a dozen of these pieces revealed virtually no direct quotes or specific references to interviews with these salt-of-the-earth individuals.

For example, a story about a school teacher who donated bone marrow to a complete stranger half a world away would seem to be exactly the kind of piece that would engage readers through amazing storytelling. Instead, we get this lead:

LORAIN, Ohio — Valentine’s Day usually arrives with candy hearts and roses, but this year, one of the clearest acts of love connected to the holiday came without flowers at all.

We get no direct information from the teacher about the experience, nothing from the folks at the National Marrow Donor Program talking about the value of the program and nothing from people who have had their lives saved through some of these selfless acts.

The story has zero quotes in it and reads like a “how-to manual” for getting on the bone marrow registry and donating it to someone. Boring doesn’t begin to cover it.

I’m not entirely sure I can blame Drown for this, as it is her job to just shovel content into the front end of the pipeline. It’s also not stated to what degree AI did any work on this (or any other) piece in her clip file, which I’d consider a bit of an ethical concern.

What I can say is that if my name were on these things, I’d want the writing to be a lot better than it is. As we’ve noted before, AI essentially creates an average of EVERYTHING it takes in, regardless of quality, and this definitely feels like “C” writing.

What goes unsaid in Quinn’s magnum opus is that people now have an abundance of media outlets at their disposal that provide vast sums of content. Journalists have to grab people by the eyeballs and hang onto them in a way that distinguishes their work from the noise.

This is where quality writing and keen storytelling come into play and where the generic “held a meeting” leads that AI can churn out will fail.

(FINAL NOTE: I’m sure Quinn would be horrified at the amount of time I spent writing this piece, given his “crank ‘er out” philosophy. I’m fine with it, though, because I believe dedication to one’s craft matters a lot, even if the point is just to tell someone they’re full of crap.)

You can call ‘This is How a Child Dies of Measles’ an act of ‘creative non-fiction,’ but where I’m from, we call it ‘lying’

The opening of the story about “your children” and “your” experience watching one of them die from the measles.

DISCUSSION STARTER: This is a good opportunity to have students read the story, “This is How a Child Dies of Measles,” before digging into this post to see how they feel about the approach, particularly if they are unaware of the truth of the story.

(The story is behind a paywall, so you might need to get creative to gain full access to it. Some school libraries have it on file, while some of you might have your own subscription. Maybe it’s even worth it to pay the $1 for six months thing and then cancel after the class. Just a head’s up in case you hadn’t planned for this.)

We did this a couple times over the years in my features classes, where they read the standard “almost journalism” stories of “Hack Heaven,” “Jimmy’s World” and “A Rape on Campus.”

Once they read through it and you make the reveal, a discussion about their thoughts, their concerns and maybe their willingness to do or not do something like this could be good. Then, if they want to pick through the blog post and argue with me, that could be fun, too.

 

THE LEAD: The story, “This is How a Child Dies of Measles,” by The Atlantic’s Elizabeth Bruenig has gained significant attention for the way in which it walks the readers through a child contracting the measles and eventually dying of it.

The problem? It’s fiction.

When I initially read Bruenig’s story, I was stunned: An Atlantic staff writer’s unvaccinated child had died of measles in the 2020s, and now she was writing about it? At the end of Bruenig’s piece, though, there’s an editor’s note: “This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.” That was the point when I sent a gift link to my mom group: “as far as I can tell this piece is fiction. What do we think about this choice? I am very conflicted!!!” My conflict stemmed from my concern that, though the piece was heavily researched, it was not a true story.

 

THE BACKGROUND: The story is written in second person and provides excruciatingly detailed information about everything from the way in which the illness can be passed among children, to the scene-setting elements of propping a kid up on a couch to watch “Bluey.”

Each paragraph provides the reader with a more and more desperate sense of inevitability in terms of “your” children suffering from to something we thought we had eradicated.

Given your son’s fever, runny nose, and evident discomfort, you feel a grim sense of resignation when his measles test comes back positive. You are, however, alarmed when you discover there’s nothing his doctors can do about it. Had he been seen by a doctor within 72 hours of his first exposure, they could have given him a prophylactic dose of the MMR vaccine to protect him from infection. But it’s too late for that now.

(SIDE NOTE: Few writing approaches are more jarring and risky than the use of second person. That’s true when it comes to simple things like, “UWO is hosting a blood drive and you should donate,” but even more so with big, complicated stories. 

I love Jay McInerney’s work from soup to nuts, but his novel “Bright Lights, Big City” is a massively painful read for me because “you” are the main character and “you” are doing stuff that, quite frankly, I can’t really imagine “me” doing, not the least of which is referring to a woman as “the sexual equivalent of fast food.”)

The finality of the piece is like one of those “Friday the 13th” movies: Just when you think this is all over, the terrifying specter rises again to finish off its victim:

For roughly eight years, you will believe that your family made it through this crisis without suffering a tragedy…

As the neurologist examines the results, she will note the presence of Radermecker complexes: periodic spikes in electrical activity that correlate with the muscle spasms that have become disruptive. She will order a test of his cerebrospinal fluid to confirm what she suspects: The measles never really left your son. Instead, the virus mutated and spread through the synapses between his brain cells, steadily damaging brain tissue long after he seemed to recover.

You will be sitting down in an exam room when the neurologist delivers the diagnosis of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a rare measles complication that leads to irreversible degeneration of the brain. There are treatments but no cure, the neurologist will tell you. She tells you that your son will continue to lose brain function as time passes, resulting in seizures, severe dementia, and, in a matter of two or three years, death.

After all that, you get kind of a semi-disclaimer that doesn’t exactly disabuse of you of the notion that this is real:

This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.

THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS: In a Q and A with the folks from the Nieman Lab, Bruenig walks through her approach to the topic and her decisions that led to the piece. She then makes kind of a sweeping statement about the greater good she feels she is doing with this fact-based fiction:

Owen: Where do you expect this piece to be shared and who do you expect to read it? Do you think people who choose not to vaccinate their kids will read it, and if so, how will they come across it? Have you heard any reactions from readers so far?

 

Bruenig: I have heard from several readers, one of whom had a heartbreaking experience with measles involving a family friend who died of the virus. People have been generally very encouraging! I have no doubt that there are a lot of people out there who are unhappy with the story or reject its premises, and they are entitled to their interpretations. I get it.
But my job is to report the truth about the world — and I use all kinds of literary, and narrative devices to do that. I do it because telling the truth is important in its own right, whether or not anyone finds it persuasive.

 

A FEW OF THE 932 REASONS THIS APPROACH WAS A BAD IDEA: First, let me say, I’m a huge fan of vaccines. Got all of mine, my kid got all of hers, my wife is a nurse who gets shot up like a dart board every year… This isn’t about the ethics or efficacy of vaccines, but rather the ethics and efficacy of this kind of journalism.

 

First Problem – Deception: Journalism is about fact-based reporting, which this piece has, but it’s also about providing information to the audience in an honest and trustworthy fashion. When we deceive the public, even if it’s for a good cause, we destroy the credibility we need to survive.

 

Bruenig says she’s reporting “the truth about the world,” which to me sounds both self-aggrandizing and disingenuous. She did rely on the facts as they related to the illness and she did draw from experts to understand how the illness works. However, and it bears repeating, WHAT SHE WROTE ABSOLUTELY DID NOT HAPPEN TO A KID IN THIS WAY.

 

This reminds me of when politicians would tell stories about “regular folk” who brought up dire concerns or who were traumatized by something specific. When journalists couldn’t find that “regular Joe Farmer” who lost everything thanks to a terrible government plan or that “regular Jane Business Owner” who had to give up her life savings to keep her staff paid, the politicians would always backtrack it and say it was an “amalgamation” of the stories they’d heard over the years.

 

In other words, they were lying, but hey… it’s the bigger picture that counts!

 

Then there’s this weird thing Chuck Schumer did, creating a fictional family based on the types of people he felt he represented:

 

 

I mean, yes, those kinds of people exist, and yes, those kinds of concerns are real, but again, you can’t just Frankenstein a bunch of pieces of people together and call it good.

Also, the supposed “disclaimer” doesn’t come right out and say, “This didn’t happen to one kid, but rather is a collection of all of the terrible stuff that can happen to an unvaccinated kid.” It’s almost like the author is trying to avoid accusations of writing fiction while doing as little as possible to make it clear that this literally did not happen.

When we are deceptive, we end up doing more harm than good. As I made the point in an earlier post, when my students read stories like “Jimmy’s World” and “A Rape on Campus,” they were angry, hurt, scared and otherwise emotionally wrought. When it came to light that Jimmy didn’t happen and that the attack on Jackie did not happen, they were really, really ticked off. They also felt less likely to trust the pieces they would read in the future.

As much as I prefer “non-denominational skepticism,” I definitely don’t want to prod it along with some borderline fraud.

Second Problem – Hyperbole: This comes back to the whole amalgamation of potential impacts issue, and how piling it all on to this one hypothetical kid is really overkill.

A number of the things she lists as symptoms of measles happen in many cases, ranging from the spots and fever to the cough and pain. However, when we get to the areas of pneumonia, we’re down to about 6 percent of all cases that end up here. Even more, the degenerative brain disorder that flares up years later happens to about 1 in 1,000 measles victims. In justifying the conclusion where “this is how your kid eventually dies,” Bruenig said:

I wanted to highlight this complication specifically because I sense that there’s widespread belief among anti-vax parents that since most healthy children will survive a measles infection, there are no important long-term consequences. But that’s simply not the case. Measles can seriously damage the body, and in rare and tragic cases, can result in death many years after the symptoms pass.

OK, but that’s a massive outlier for this disease and, again, that’s on top of the 83 other things that could or couldn’t happen that you saddled “your child” with in this story.

It would be like me stating, “I laid in the hospital, facing the grim specter of death. As the pain shot from my gallbladder, time ticked away in the day, each moment a chance I might die. Surgery, hours away, I pondered what would happen when my light was extinguished by an organ I’d long forgotten I had.”

Well, yes, I was in the hospital and yes, that gallbladder hurt like hellfire. And yes, if a person’s gallbladder ruptures, there is a chance the person goes septic and dies. However, that’s somewhere between 2 and 11 percent of all cases. I could make the argument that it was for the larger good that I painted this hyperbolic picture, hoping people will take gallbladder attacks seriously. However, I think most people would just say I was being a drama queen.

Third Problem – Laziness: I wholeheartedly believe in telling stories in journalism for the greater good of society. I also know there are an unfortunate number of children who have died after contracting measles. Telling a story about these deaths might inspire people to vaccinate, to change their minds about the severity of the illness or otherwise impact a broader discussion on the topic.

So, don’t be lazy. Go find an ACTUAL story of a measles death that happened to a REAL kid and tell that story.

Here’s one that even involves that rare illness that killed Bruenig’s hypothetical child:

That’s not to say you need to tell the story in this kind of staid news format. You can do more of the narrative work, using the parental recall, photos, medical records and expert interviews to paint a more vivid picture.

Strong interviews with the parents of a child can give you that emotional angst of anxiety, fear and despair. Spending time looking at photos can give you the “favorite blanket” and “watching Bluey” details that paint a picture in the readers’ minds. The experts can walk you through the files so you can describe in detail how each cough wracked the child with pain or how the fever created a mix of burning and chills that couldn’t be sated.

This takes a ton of work. You have to find a case where a kid died, you have to find parents willing to talk, you have to find experts who understand what happened to the kid and you have to spend time gathering granular-level elements through observation. Doing this also puts the reporter at risk of some significant emotional trauma, as they relive the death of a child in such a gut-wrenching way.

So, I can kind of see how it’s more appealing to just go to a handful of experts who can give you the clinical stuff and then just whip together a “Hypothetical ‘You’ Mom” character to tug at the emotional heartstrings of the readers, without fully acknowledging that’s what you did.

However, if you want the reward of the tough story, you really have to take the risks associated with the tough story. Doing it this way only codifies the certainty of people who don’t already believe you and undercuts your standing with people who do.

Journalism-related concepts that played out as well in the medical world while I was getting gallbladder surgery

My boss was nice enough to let people know I’d be out for a bit, but this is a little vague… Not like THAT’S gonna lead to speculation…

At the start of every semester, I try to come back with a “X number of things I’ve learned” or a “X years of teaching have taught me” kind of post. It was ruminating (I swear) when my second gallbladder attack in four days hit me badly enough to head to the ER at midnight the day before school started.

Although everything went well, I found myself living out little moments that had me shifting into “analogy mode” as I saw parallels between where I was (the hospital) and where I wanted to be (a journalism classroom). So, as I continue to mend and catch up with the 82,324 things that have landed on my desk while I was gone, I thought a simple slow-walk post of advice would be a good start to what has already been a shaky semester.

(Also, to be fair, I’m still on meds, somewhat hazy and worried I’d somehow come in hot on a topic like Bad Bunny or something that would end up getting me fired without me entirely knowing why.)

So, here are a couple of the maxims that ring true in journalism that kind of came home to me throughout my hospital stay and recovery:

ACCURACY ABOVE ALL ELSE: We’ve been having a lot of conversations like this around the house:

Me: Who called?

Zoe: She didn’t leave her name on the voicemail.

Me: Can I listen to it?

Zoe: She was just like “Hi, this is mumble mumble and I’m with…

Me: So she did leave a name, but you just didn’t understand it? Is it possible that maybe if I listened to it, I could figure it out?

Zoe: Well, I guess…

As much as I expect that out of my kid, I didn’t think I should expect it from a healthcare provider.

Case in point: Upon leaving the hospital, the discharge nurse is going through all the stuff I should or should do, eat or drink. She tells me to avoid fried food and fatty food like bacon. Due to the lack of the gallbladder, these things are likely to create severe gastric distress in the early stages of my recovery.

OK, got it. Most of my diet goes on the shelf.

The other night, Amy made this amazing chicken and potato thing that was part of our “healthy eating” resolution for the year. About 20 minutes after I ate it, I’m in stomach-cramp hell for about two hours. Turns out, she used olive oil on the stuff, which has the same basic effect as those other two things, even though the nurse didn’t mention it and we all usually seem to think olive oil baking is good and deep-fried drumsticks are bad.

I often think about the way in which we ask questions of people in journalism and how we get “almost” answers, or how sources provide information that’s direct but not entirely accurate. From now on, I plan to start interrogating sources like the entirety of my GI tract depends on it.

 

VOCABULARY MATTERS: We always talk about picking the right word, the proper descriptor or the exact phrase to help the audience understand things accurately. In news stories, it’s relatively important. In the medical field, it means a hell of a lot more.

In trying to explain what he found when he dug into my gut, the surgeon referred to the gallbladder as “angry,” “wicked” and “gnarly.” Those descriptors sound more like the tappers at a South Boston pub than a description of a human organ.

In addition, he explained that something had happened causing my gallbladder to grow a “rind” over the top of it and encase it tightly against my liver. What created said rind and what the rind was composed of, he would not venture a guess. Apparently, I just have a brie-like defense mechanism against gallstones or something.

I didn’t need the whole medical textbook explanation, but it did dawn on me that I felt like I was interviewing Nuke LaLoosh in “Bull Durham” for a bit here:

When it comes to telling people things, keep your audience in mind and use strong, clear vocabulary that helps the folks out there understand exactly what is going on and why they should care.

 

CONNECTIONS CUT BOTH WAYS: We talk a lot in reporting about the importance of having strong connections with good sources. Those kinds of relationships can give you an edge when it comes to a big scoop, a key interview or a sense of confidence on a topic.

They can also be a problem if sources try to ask you for things you can’t provide or they assume you won’t write about things they don’t like. I always tell students, “It’s great having the mayor feeding you tips, right up until the point his kid gets busted for a DUI and he wants you to keep it out of the paper.”

In terms of connections at the hospital, I was not only being treated at the same hospital where Amy had worked for several years, but I was actually on her old unit. This led to some significant comfort for me in terms of knowing (relatively speaking) who some of these folks are. It was also great because they had nothing but praise for Amy and wanted to know how she was doing at her new job and so forth. I also knew I had a rock-star surgeon because Amy had worked with this guy’s post-op patients over the years, so she knew him and his work.

The “cuts both ways” part really was more of my own making, in that I was groggy and gimpy most of the time, with that “gown” barely doing much of anything. As a massive social hermit, I don’t even like to be in the house when Amy has friends over, so you can imagine how I’d feel about needing their help to wander semi-bare-assed to the bathroom several times a day.

(The closest parallel I can offer is this one time when my parents and I went to a restaurant during the summer and it turned out one of my mother’s teaching colleagues was there waiting tables. She ended up as our server, which felt awkward as hell when I needed to flag her down for another Diet Coke or ask about desert. And at least I was fully clothed there…)

The nurses and staffers were totally professional, even when I managed to set off the bed alarm that Amy used to tell me would tick off the staff to no end. They were also patient with me as my body seemed to be re-calibrating all functions at the same time for no real reason. And it wasn’t like I would be flailing naked down the halls if Amy DIDN’T know these people. Still, it was a combination of comfort and clumsy.

And finally…

TRANSPARENCY IS THE BEST VIRTUE: My buddy, Pritch, used to tell me that in PR transparency is everything, even if what is happening is something you’d rather hide. Abiding by that rule, the first chance I got, I told everyone in my classes what had happened, what the doctors were saying and when we might be able to get back together.

Some kids who knew me but weren’t in the classes I’m teaching got the message on the whiteboard outside my office and kind of freaked out. My boss explained he didn’t want to disclose my health issues without my permission, which is great. However, I know how the minds of journalists work and I could only imagine what it was these people thought had happened to me.

I’ve told Amy this many a’ time: When I die, put the cause of death in the obituary, no matter what. If I died when I broke my neck falling off the couch trying to complete the “bite your own toenails TikTok challenge,” tell people that. It may appear stupid and demeaning, but if I cared enough about it to die doing it, well… there you go. Besides, whatever I did, the speculation of what I might have done will be far worse, I guarantee.

I understand that some folks might be more demure or more guarded than that, which I get, but the less you tell people, the larger the space for the rumor mill to operate. It’s a good rule for PR folks putting out messages and it’s a good thing to remind sources of when they try to get weaselly.

 

The Gall of Some Bladders: a brief post

I’m writing today from a hospital bed, the result of an emergency gallbladder surgery. This is the first time I’ve been able to function at any level for the past few days.

It started apparently Thursday, when I was bloated and in excruciating pain in my stomach. I got sick and it got better so I thought it was food poisoning. I had the chills and shakes for the next day or so and then that pain hit again.

I’m no wuss, so when I told Amy around midnight that some had to drive me to the hospital, it was clear this wasn’t something simple. The doc told me today that this thing was so messed up, he couldn’t see the arteries he needed to clamp around it.

Sufficient to say I’m on the mend and relatively feeling better. I will hopefully be sent home in a day or so and maybe back to work in a week or so. I figure the blog will come back on line around that time as well, given it’s taken me about an hour to type this much functionality.

Not looking for sympathy or pity, but rather just wanted to let you all know why the blog will be quiet for a bit

Best,

Vince (aka the doctor of paper)

Four things to know to keep your first media writing class from sucking (A throwback post)

I ran into one of the students from my upcoming media writing class the other day. She’s a graduating senior who’s taking it as an elective for her marketing degree, so I asked what she’d heard about the class and why she wanted to take it.

“I heard it’s hard as hell,” she said. “I also heard it was amusing. I’m taking it because I love to write and I need to write better.”

She then asked if we were doing a lot of writing, to which I obviously replied yes, but with a caveat: “We write a ton, but it’s not like the classes where you’re writing 25-page papers on some obscure topic. In fact, the first assignment you’ll write for a grade is going to be one sentence long, but it’ll take you three class periods to do it.”

Her face turned blank. “That’s a lot of pressure for one sentence. I mean, if I could write more than that, I could probably make it work better…”

“Better for you or better for the people who would want to read it?” I asked her.

Blank again. “Aw…”

And so we start another great semester, remembering a few ways for your students to really get something good out of a class that they probably aren’t really ready to experience:

 

Four things to know to keep your first media writing class from sucking

With the close of the Labor Day weekend, it’s a safe bet that most students reading this will be starting the fall semester or have just started it (apologies to those of you who are on trimesters or who just have a ridiculously early start date). When we start this week, I know I’ll be face to face with another fresh crop of students experiencing their first media writing class and I can already smell the anxiety.

For those of you students in a similar boat, in that you’ll be taking your first media writing or reporting class, here are four things to know from the start so that your experience will be less painful:

Your work will suck for a while: One of the most difficult things about going into media writing is how frustrating it can be for people who have always been good writers. People who struggled to write? They tend to have an easier time with it, even though that sounds counter-intuitive.

Let’s call the rationale behind this the “Michael Jordan Plays Baseball” Theory. In 1993, Michael Jordan had cemented his place as the best basketball player in the world. He had just led the Bulls to a “three-peat” as NBA champions and he won the MVP award in each of those finals. In October of that year, he retired from basketball and decided to try playing baseball. He’s a super star athlete, he’s in his prime and he never stunk at anything, so this shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Wrong.

Jordan played for Double-A Birmingham Barons and to quote Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, “He couldn’t hit a curve ball with an ironing board.” Eventually, he got his first hit, his first run batted in and so forth. Even though he only hit .202 for the season, his manager (Terry Francona) said that he improved and could have been a major leaguer if he had committed to it. Instead, Jordan went back to basketball, much to the chagrin of everyone who wasn’t a Bulls fan.

The point is, you have always written well, but this is a different kind of writing and you’re going to suck at it for a while. All the things you used to have at your disposal that worked well won’t always fit into this style of writing. The format, the verbiage and the overall approach are all different, so get used to the feeling of falling on your keys for a while.

 

Learn from your screw ups:  I have this conversation at least once a semester:

Student: “I was wondering why I got such a bad grade on this piece.”
Me: “OK. Did my comments on the paper not make sense to you?”
Student: “I didn’t really read those. I just saw my grade and kind of freaked out.”

Look, I love writing, but writing out tons of comments on a story that was so bad it sapped my will to live, only to have the student ignore them all isn’t my idea of a good time. The whole purpose behind instructors writing comments on papers isn’t so that we have some sort of ground to stand on when an annoying student sues us over a grade. The idea is that we want you to learn something, so we tell you what went wrong so you don’t do it again.

As painful as it is to read the bloody mess of red ink that adorns your paper, dig into it. Learn what didn’t work so you don’t do it again. If you still don’t understand what you did wrong after you look your paper over, be proactive and meet with the instructor. Trust me, we love reading well-written papers so the more help we can give you on the front end, the less Advil we’ll need when we have to grade stuff.

 

Care more about the skills than the grade: If you would like to cause your instructor to have a “Scanners” moment every single day, make sure to ask two questions at the end of every class:

  1. “Do you know what my grade is?”
  2. “Is this going to be on the test?”

 

I get that grades matter for some things beyond the classroom: Scholarships, sports eligibility, having mom and dad not disown you… But seriously, once you are done with school, nobody is going to care about your grades, least of all you.

I can remember exactly three grades from my entire academic career:

  1. C-double-minus in penmanship from Mrs. Schutten in third grade. (The rule at that time was that if you got a D, they held you back, and although I was smart enough to pass everything else that year, my penmanship was godawful and she wanted to make absolutely sure I knew that.)
  2. C in Media Law in my junior year of college. (I skipped six weeks of class [long story] and was really, really bad at this whole concept. I prayed out loud for a C to pass during the final. I received applause, much to the chagrin of the instructor.)
  3. A in my first news writing class. (The only reason I remember this is because I wanted so damned badly to impress the instructor that I poured everything I had into that class.)

Beyond that, it’s a long alphabetic blur that ceases to have any value to me. If you focus on just doing stuff to get the grades, you’ll miss out on the skills you need to learn to make yourself marketable once you graduate. Even if you don’t see the point in what you are doing at the time, learn the heck out of the skills and practice them. Case in point:

At the end of the day, the skills will follow you and they will translate from job to job. Nobody, however, is ever going to say to you in a job interview, “So, it looks like you’re a perfect candidate, but let’s talk about this C+ in feature writing…”

Now is the time to care: I’ve told this to students before and it’s the best bit of advice I can possibly give you for any class:

Instead of saying, “I need this class (to graduate, to move on in the major or whatever)!” to your professor after you screwed up your work and you have no hope of getting out alive, say “I need this class (to graduate, to move on in the major or whatever)!” to yourself every day from the beginning of the semester and act accordingly.

Have a great semester and knock ’em dead.

“He put himself in that situation:” The reason why people can justify the shooting death of Alex Pretti

In reading through the articles and posts related to Saturday’s shooting death of Alex Pretti in Minnesota, I forgot the most basic rule associated with the internet:

“Don’t read the comments.”

However, in digging into the comments and hopping amongst media bubbles, I found a few trends in terms of people who usually support the Second Amendment and the right to carry and how they squared the circle involving Pretti’s death:

  • Pretti was threatening the officers with a gun, and the officers had the right to defend themselves.
  • Pretti put himself in harm’s way as a purposeful instigator, thus leading to his untimely death.
  • Pretti had the right to carry and the right to record their actions, BUT when he chose to interfere with law enforcement, he forced the officers’ hand in terms of use of force.

(There are tons of other claims, including one weird-as-hell, AI-photo with Pretti wearing a female body suit made of tattoos and a set of curled horns, but this trio is among the most common.)

If you are asking the question right now of, “How in the hell can people believe this stuff, when we can all see the DAMNED VIDEO?” I have an answer that starts with some research I did about 20 years ago that reflected this dichotomy perfectly.

A few of the front pages that I still have from these two shooting deaths. I was the adviser for the Ball State Daily News in the early 2000s.

THE HISTORY: During my first year at Ball State University as the student media adviser for the Daily News, the campus had a number of students who died in some shocking ways. The two at the heart of this discussion are Michael McKinney and Karl Harford.

In November 2003, McKinney was  21-year-old student at BSU. He spent a Saturday night drinking with friends at some near-campus bars and had planned to stay at one of those friends’ homes, rather than driving home that night.

In his inebriated state, he went to the wrong home and banged on the back door to get let in. The home owner called 9-1-1 to report this person trying to force their way into her home and Ball State police officer Robert Duplain responded. Duplain was 24 years old and had been on the force for 7 months. He had not yet attended the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy when this incident occurred.

Duplain entered the fenced backyard of the home through the only access point and confronted McKinney, who attempted to flee. Duplain shot several times, hitting McKinney with four rounds and killing him.

Subsequent investigations found no wrong-doing on the part of Duplain, who returned to the force briefly before resigning.

Less than six months after that shooting, on March 6, 2004, 20-year-old Ball State student Karl Harford was found shot to death in his car, which was abandoned on the city’s east side.

Police investigations determined that Harford was at a campus party when he offered three individuals a ride home. Experts later stated that Harford had a blood alcohol content of 0.16, which would be twice the legal limit for driving and would have likely impaired his judgment. One of the men had a gun, which he used to force Harford to drive to an abandoned building. The three men forced Harford to his knees, robbed him of $2 and shot him to death. The trio then stuffed his body into the backseat of the car and fled.

Police eventually arrested Brandon Patterson, 18, Damien Blaine Sanders, 21, and a 14-year-old juvenile in connection with the killings. Patterson and Sanders had previous interactions with law enforcement that involved incidents of car theft and gun possession. Patterson pleaded guilty to a “robbery resulting in severe bodily injury” charge and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Sanders pleaded guilty to robbery and murder and received 85 years. The 14-year-old was held for 15 months in a juvenile facility and subsequently released.

THE RESPONSES: The Daily News covered both shootings extensively and the online coverage drew readership that was disproportionately large in comparison to all other stories the paper had posted at that time. In addition, the comment sections under the stories for these pieces were extremely active.

Many of the responses to the McKinney story had people offering sympathy to Duplain as well as McKinney. People were saying things like, “Rest in Peace, Mikey,” but also things like, “I feel bad for that officer who has to live with this for the rest of his life.” Others noted how this was a “senseless tragedy.”

What I remember most, however, was the way in which a good number of posters were trying to hang some, if not all, of the blame on McKinney. People had commented that he was “way too drunk” and that “he put himself in that situation.” Some people speculated that he had something in his hand that could have been mistaken as a gun. Others noted that he “rushed” at Duplain, leaving the officer no choice but to fire his weapon.

Things kept getting uglier as time went on, with people saying negative things about McKinney and even how he was raised. I still remember one post that McKinney’s sister, Rosie, put on one of the stories, begging people to just stop this, as her parents were seeing all of these negative statements. The posters then turned on her.

In the case of Harford, the commenting was much more cut and dried. Harford was the victim and “those cold-blooded murderers should pay.” Rarely did any of the comments deviate from this pattern and the few that did were quickly shouted down by other posters.

THE STUDY: In all honesty, these shootings devastated the Ball State community, and I know my heart just bled for these families who lost these children. As is the case with most things, when I am in a state of difficulty, I tend to dig into the topic and do some writing (thanatology researchers call this “instrumental grieving), so I looked into doing a study. My buddy Pritch and I decided to look at why it was people reacted so differently to these killings via their online media posts.

I won’t bore you with the details of the study, but if you want to download it and read it, you can grab it here.

Sufficient to say, the statistical data bore out the general vibe we sensed: People in the Harford postings were much more dichotomous in where they placed sympathy (Harford, his family, his friends) and where they placed blame (Patterson, Sanders and the 14-year-old). Meanwhile, the sympathy and blame were much more spread in the case of the the McKinney posters who were much more willing to blame McKinney for his own demise while also feeling sympathy for Duplain.

The “why” came to us from two areas of research: Human cognitive processing and the way in which news stories (especially crime stories) tend to follow “scripts.”

The Harford situation fit a stereotypical news-as-script pattern to a T: White kid, trying to do a good thing, meets with criminal black element that is his undoing. Police find the evil-doers who are subsequently punished.

The McKinney situation doesn’t do that. McKinney was a white kid who got shot by a white cop. Nobody was arrested and nobody eventually was punished for it.

For the people reading this story, there was suddenly a cognitive disconnect: Good white people don’t get killed by white cops for no reason. Also, deaths like this need some form of resolution, in which blame and punishment are effectively assigned. This situation didn’t fit into the expected patterns of action, so people desperately sought SOMETHING the rationalize why this happened.

(NOTE: We couldn’t code for race, but a number of people did mention their own race in posts and it was almost entirely a white audience. We did see that amplification of  both the racial element between the situations as well as finding it easier to sympathize with Duplain as as well. We had a whole section on that, but any academic will tell you, a lot gets cut on the way to publication, thanks to anonymous reviewers.)

When something terrible happens and it doesn’t fit the patterns pre-established in people’s minds, they need to make sense of it and that usually means they bend reality to fit their assumptions:

O’Sullivan and Durso (1984) found that when information being processed ran counter to the established understanding of how a situation was supposed to unfold, individuals did not alter their perception of what should be happening. Instead, they attempted to cognitively reposition the new information to make it congruent with the prior script.

Goleman’s (1985) work also shows that when individuals are faced with an anxiety-provoking alteration to their standard scripts, they actively seek ways to block information or rationalize it in a manner that allows them to return to their comfort zone.

In short, people aren’t going to change their minds when something like this happens. They’re going to change reality to fit what they believe.

BACK TO PRETTI: In bringing this around full circle, a lot more of what people who want to rationalize Pretti’s death are saying starts to make sense. In this world view at least a few of these things are held as fact:

  • Law enforcement officers are the “good guys.”
  • People have a legal right to safely carry guns, as per the Second Amendment.
  • White people and U.S. citizens = good, Non-white and non-citizens = bad

So, when you have a white, citizen who is legally carrying a fire arm that gets killed by law enforcement officials, now what? The thinking has to start shifting the reality.

Just like McKinney, Pretti must have done something wrong to provoke the shooting.

Just like McKinney, Pretti shouldn’t have been there in the first place, so it’s really on him.

Just like Duplain, these officers clearly had to act defensively because they had a reasonable fear of what this individual might do.

The more I read the Pretti coverage, the more I found myself finding parallels to what happened with McKinney.

  • In both cases, stories trying to find “more dirt” on the victim hit the press: A recent story on Pretti said he had previously scuffled with the feds, leading to a broken rib. (DHS says it has no record of this.) A story after McKinney’s death said he had previous encounters with police, including one leading to a charge being filed against him. (That turned out to be a ticket he received for trying to steal a STOP sign for his room.)
  • In both cases, the families were pleading with people to stop smearing their kids. The NY Times presented this piece quoting those who knew Pretti, while I remember what Rosie McKinney went through in regard to the postings about her brother.
  • In both cases, the official narrative painted the shooters as having absolutely no choice but to respond in the way they did.

Even more, as evidence continues/continued to come out in cases like these, people continue to find ways to bend the reality to fit their narrative. For example, a preliminary DHS investigation did not state that Pretti “brandished” his weapon, directly conflicting with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s original statements. However, that hasn’t stopped people from pressing the point in comment sections that Pretti put himself in harm’s way or that the officers had no choice but to shoot.

Then, there are people like this guy at NewsMax who are stretching reality a little more.

This is why no matter which side of the issue continues to gain ground, there will still be people with a strong attachment to seeing things the way that best fits their prior beliefs. Expecting something different is to expect human nature to change.

Random Journalistic Thoughts After The Shooting Death of Alex Pretti

(The front page of the AP online story about the memorial to Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed in Minnesota on Saturday morning.)

One of the first things I tell student media practitioners whenever a major event hits is not to just be part of the noise. If you have something unique to say in a way that matters to your specific audience, do so. If not, you are just as likely to be subtracting from the sum of human knowledge as you are in adding to it.

The death of Alex Pretti on the frozen streets of Minnesota brings out in me so many more thoughts and emotions than I can honestly and fairly express right now, so I’m doing my best to follow the credo I outlined above. Please know it doesn’t mean I am not feeling what so many others have already said, written, shown or expressed.

What comes below are the bits and bites of my thoughts as a journalism professor, former media adviser and citizen of these United States that might be helpful to you in your classrooms and student newsrooms today as you discuss the killing and the coverage:

 

JOURNALISTS (OF ALL KIND) ARE MY HEROES: They say that journalism is the first draft of history, and the work these folks in Minnesota are doing is absolutely incredible, given the great personal risk people are apparently faced with at this point and time.

The television coverage has been both deep and restrained in terms of saying only what is known, but also not sugarcoating things. That this is so well done is doubly impressive given that it’s happening on a weekend.

When most media outlets hit the “weekend shift,” you end up with a lineup of a recent grad anchoring the desk, providing whatever the regular staff canned up on Friday along with a lite-brite on some Saturday Festival. Add that to an intern holding down the wire desk, some rando doing the weather and an overly excited 14-year-old doing sports, and it’s a recipe for disaster if something really big happens. The networks out there managed to “scramble the bombers” and get everyone doing big work in difficult circumstances and trying times.

In particular, KARE 11 has always been a top-flight news organization that demonstrated the ability to cover all of the things involving the Twin Cities and beyond, and this situation is no exception. Here’s the lineup of stories that KARE has covered since the shooting.

On the front lines has been Jana Shortal, an accomplished broadcast journalist with several decades on the job. She not only covered the scene, but then returned to the studio having been pepper-sprayed (or whatever the hell they’re using) while trying to comply with officers’ commands:

(SIDE NOTE: The woman in the middle is Lauren Leamanczyk, who is featured as one of the media pros in the “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing” textbook. She’s also one of my former students, which is another mind-boggling part of this whole thing for me.)

I’m always a fan of student media and the folks at the Minnesota Daily also made sure these moments of history were captured to inform the present and remind the future of what has happened here. The photography, the stories, the videos and the relentless pursuit of information has been exceptionally impressive.

Above all else, the citizen journalists, who would likely count Pretti as one of their own, put their lives on the line to gather the videos that have showcased exactly what happened during this situations and others like it.

High-end media outlets like the Wall Street Journal have the capability to stitch together frames from a dozen or more videos to showcase exactly what happened here or in the shooting of Renee Good. However, they wouldn’t have those videos without the brave souls who availed themselves of their First Amendment rights at a time in which individual rights seem to be less and less inalienable.

 

DON’T BE AFRAID TO POKE A SOURCE: Just because a source is saying something, it doesn’t follow that they are making sense or answering a question. Far too often, we fall into the “get a quote” mode when it comes to doing our work, like we’re checking off a chore or picking up a dozen eggs at the grocery store. This is where the concept of active listening comes into play. If you are merely focused on getting the information from the source, and not really listening to that information in real time, you aren’t going to get what your audience needs.

Here is a perfect example of a journalist poking back at a source. Dana Bash had Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino on air for a 20-minute interview, in which she was trying to get answers to a few basic questions regarding the shooting. Far too often, situations like this escalate like one of those stupid sports talking head shows, with two people screaming at each other. 

In this case, Bash was respectful and focused. She admitted missteps in her own language while still pushing Bovino to actually answer a question. Literally, any question:

She did make points that a) what Bovino was saying was not what she was seeing, b) she might not have been privy to the same type/volume of evidence Bovino had as a law-enforcement officer and c) she would be willing to accept Bovino’s statements if he could provide proof they were accurate.

This is the essence of journalism: Report, question, verify, disseminate.

 

CHECK YOUR SOURCES: In listening to the press conferences and press appearances of Bovino and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, it is clear they have a common approach and shared vision of what happened in this shooting. That doesn’t mean they should be quoted with impunity. 

In the case of Bovino, his version of ICE and DHS situations has repeatedly been called into question by those who were present at certain events. In one case, a federal judge in a civil suit found that Bovino’s statements related to ICE actions in Chicago were “evasive” and “not credible,” adding Bovino was “outright lying” about his actions. In regard his comments regarding the Pretti situation, Bovino stated the presence of federal officers was related to a “violent, illegal alien” in the area, something that Minnesota’s Department of Corrections has strongly disputed.

Noem has frequently been accused of misrepresenting reality in terms of deportations and crime. The numbers related to how many people have been captured during her tenure, what crimes the have committed and how successful and welcomed ICE agents have been strongly contradicted through even some cursory reporting. Also, a civil court filing in this case includes testimony from two witnesses who dispute Bovino and Noem’s statements, including one deposition by the “woman in pink” who was literally feet away from Pretti during the shooting.

Saying a politician has lied is kind of a “Dog Bites Man” story, but in the case of both of these situations, it’s a bit more. If it’s any indication, Minnesota’s Department of Corrections felt these folks were so wrong so often, the DOC launched a website for the “combating of DHS misinformation.”

This is also a perfect point to remind everyone why “said” is my best friend. I don’t know what these two people think, believe or know about this situation, nor would I feel comfortable stating the things they have said as unattributed facts. However, putting out there that Noem or Bovino “said” certain things and letting my audience compare that to their own reality is exactly why I cherish attributions with “said” on them.

 

DEALING WITH LANGUAGE CHOICES: The way in which people are trying to frame this situation comes down a lot to the language choices we’re seeing out there. This is also why parroting a source (in non-quote format) is a bad idea.

Bovino referred to Pretti as the “suspect” in the situation, a term that implies someone sought for a crime and isn’t usually used to refer to someone shot multiple times on the ground by law enforcement officials. When Bash referred to Pretti as a “victim,” Bovino attempted to invert that term to apply to the border patrol officers, who he deemed “victims” of whatever he thought Pretti was doing.

Language coming out of the administration has included the term “illegal” and “alien” to refer to the individual the officers sought that day, which, again, paints a picture different from terms like “migrants” or “immigrants.”

Whatever terms you choose to use in situations like this, you’re going to be shaping how people look at a situation, so you want to both follow AP style when applicable and also make sure you are remaining neutral

Beyond that, you want to make sure your terms are correct. For example, I’ve read stories that refer to the federal law enforcement officers as “ICE” and “Border Patrol.” Officers in these groups are both housed under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but the terms that describe them are not interchangeable. A good primer on who does what and how they differ can be found here.

A number of opinion pieces, social media posts and so forth have referred to the shooting death of Pretti with a variety of terms, including “assassination,” “execution” and “murder.” Each of these terms is defined specifically, both in law and in journalistic style, so no matter how you feel about what happened, you need to take care in using these terms.

Here’s AP’s version of what’s what:

If we consider AP style our rule book, we need to follow the rules, even when we don’t like them.

Finally with language, there is something to be said about how people say things so that something can be factually accurate while also being deliberately misleading. Here’s an example of a statement from Noem’s press conference:

“An individual approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun.”

There are two facts in that sentence that are accurate, at least to a reasonable degree:

  • Pretti, the “individual,” approached a scene with U.S. Border Patrol officers at it.
  • Pretti was armed with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun.

However, putting them together in this way could lead a reasonable person to think that Pretti approached a group of officers with his gun present in a way that threatened the officers. Noem later used the term “brandished” the gun, although every attempt to get Bovino to provide proof of such a thing led to a dead end.

The point here is why we don’t a) take things people say at face value without proving them for ourselves and b) don’t extrapolate beyond what people tell us. I often tell students that if a police officer says something like “alcohol was believed to be a factor in the crash” or “the driver was operating while under the influence,” you don’t want to say the person was a “drunk driver” as those are two different things. The driver might not have been legally drunk or the driver might have been baked out of their mind on weed.

 

NOBODY KNOWS NOTHING: I keep going back to that saying because I remember how reporting on crimes and disasters was always a random lottery of “will I have to write a correction tomorrow?” moments. As much effort as journalists put into getting things right, nobody really has any idea of what we will find out as this continues to unfold. It also doesn’t help now that anyone with a phone and an internet connection can say anything they want with absolute certainty, regardless of its veracity, and we all get to hear it.

“Nobody knows nothing” has always been true, as new witnesses could emerge, more video could show up, interviews with the agents have yet to be completed and more. Hell, we’re still trying to figure out if Babe Ruth really called his shot in the World Series almost 100 years later, so I have no doubt that things are going to evolve here.

I also have no doubt that various groups involved in any situation have their own motives for releasing or withholding information from the public. To that end, a lot of what we learn will be based less on the totality of information, but rather the totality of AVAILABLE information.

This is why we need reporters, not stenographers, in the media today. Good journalists will always find a way to pry loose a fact, debunk a statement filled with “bovine excrement” or get a source to finally explain what’s what. When they do, we all tend to be better for it.