'Me, too'

If you are detective enough and have the connections to dig it out and publish a short list of suspects, maybe it might be actionable. I can look at IMDB and get the one movie director. What other directors she might have met with other than that? The general public wouldn't know. If the paper investigated and then published that "When she was 16, Witherspoon was directed by X. Her agent says that during that year, she also met with Y and Z.", then maybe Y and Z might have a case.

Otherwise it is so vague and open-ended that it could have been any director in Hollywood, or so it seems to me. Is that incorrect? Doesn't an accusation need to be specific enough as to be clear who is being accused?

 

Not really.

It just means you start from a presumption that the woman is telling the truth - then report out the story to confirm what she alleged.

Rather than saying, "oh she's lying / exaggerating/ a golddigger / etc." and ignore it.

 

You aren't supposed to start with an presumption of anything. That's 101.

 

It’s kind of weird how “reveals/revealed” was almost universally the verb choice.

 

So could "claims" and even "alleges" do that. They are all verbs meaning/doing approximately the same thing. What changes is readers' and listeners' perception of the words, not the actual definitions.

In journalism/legal circles, "alleges" has come to mean that something is not necessarily a statement of fact. But I think that is more because journalism and law needed to come up with a protected difference that it could apply for reference to particular situations, with regard to before and after, in discussions, decisions and results concerning issues of liability.

 

So you assume everything any source tells you is every bit as likely to be a lie as it is the truth until you find corroboration elsewhere?

 

Not really, YF. They got it from somewhere ... notably the wire story where they got the information from in the first place. Happens all the time these days.

 

You don't presume anything. Someone says something, you check it out.

 

You don't assume anything. C'mon. You're a journalist. You know that.

 

The point typefitter was making that for centuries, we've made the wrong presumption.

How about we take an accuser at her word for the length of time it takes to investigate her claim?

The way we do everyone else.

 

Of course I check into it, especially when it is such a serious matter. But when you have a source on the record telling you something, doesn't that affect how you approach the research going forward?

 

I'm curious about who you're referring to with "we," Az. Are you speaking about journalists? Are you talking about law enforcement?