Some Quick Thoughts This Morning on the State of Journalism

My Conversation with SEEN in Publishing

Friends,

I wanted to share a new interview I did with SEEN in Publishing because it gave me the chance to talk about something that has been on my mind for a long time: why straightforward, evidence-based journalism now feels rarer than it should.

Over the years, I have reported on subjects as different as the Kennedy assassination, the opioid epidemic, Vatican finances, and, more recently the medicalization of children under the banner of gender medicine. Different stories, different stakes, different worlds. But the method has always required the same discipline. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. Do not begin with a preferred conclusion. Do not tailor the facts to fit an approved narrative. Do the reporting first, and accept where it takes you.

That ought to be the most ordinary description of journalism imaginable. Instead, it increasingly feels like the standard of a bygone era.

Too much reporting today is shaped before the real work even begins. Some stories are softened while others are narrowed…