While I’ve assumed most mainstream media is filtered through a statist lens for decades, now, there was a time I assumed that news organizations – made up of reporters like the ones I used to work with and, occasionally, was – would, if they bothered to cover a story at all (because who needs coverage of the IRS scandal, or Mark Dayton’s mental state, after all?) at least endeavor to get the basic facts right.
Not even the whole “are the facts of a highly-charged story about a contentious issue correct”, like Rolling Stone’s rapidly-unravelling UVA rape story.
No, little things – like “does the story actually exist“?
I was a 20+ year Rolling Stone subscriber back in the 80’s and 90’s. I read it mainly for the music-related content and some literary pieces; I first read my all-time favorite, Bonfire of the Vanities, as a serialized version long before it was published separately.
I started to become disillusioned when their political content went more mainstream democrat than its expected (by me) more hardcore liberal bent.
The final nail came when Ben Affleck’s sad, pouty face graced the cover related to the story of his heartbreaking breakup with one of the Jennifer’s of that time. Except for the “F word”, Rolling Stone’s content often closely paralleled that of my wife’s People Magazine.
That’s what it has pretty much has become; lowercase L liberals and uppercase D democrats, more interested in cool than in content.
The teenage millionaire investor was an obvious fraud. How do journalists think that a person becomes wealthy? By reading the financial section of the paper and subscribing to The Economist? Buying and selling stocks and bonds and consistently beating the market is so difficult that it usually results in an SEC investigation. The way you make money, consistently, that is legal is by leveraging a market advantage. You can trade for free? Sweet.
Like the UVA rape story, the teenage market maven story was too good to check, because it confirmed the beliefs and prejudices of not just journalists, but editors and readers as well.