The Intercept alleged that Bates College staff had censored a piece in the student newspaper. There was only one problem: It failed to reach out to the supposedly censored to confirm the story.
'[I]f Nathan Bernard had done basic due diligence and sought out the two principal subjects he purported to characterize, the entire thrust of the Intercept article — that Bates College administrators had “censored student voices” — would’ve been essentially falsified. Because both those two principals say they would’ve informed Bernard that they were not censored or otherwise coerced. Rather, they would’ve told Bernard that they chose to temporarily remove and revise LaCroix’s article on their own volition as student journalists. But curiously, Bernard chose not to perform this remedially simple task, which would be regarded by most as a “Journalism 101” no-brainer.
So why didn’t Bernard seek out the two main characters of his story for comment, which would have undermined the entire premise of his article?
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