'Me, too'

'Reveal' most certainly denotes truth/factuality.
It does not imply truth/factuality; it specifically denotes it.

 

So what's your preferred construction here? "Claims"?

 

Claims.

Alleges.

Says.

 

My mother and I are texting today. She's 1500 miles away.

Me: I think I'm going to make fajitas for dinner.

Her: Me too.

Now I'm all twisted.

 

I'm not a fan of the thread title change. We aren't going to talk about Reese Witherspoon forever.

 

Fair enough.

 

I haven't read any of the Witherspoon stuff yet, but is it possible she has some kind of documentation, like an out-of-court settlement? Or, does she need it if this is such a huge and open secret in Hollywood?

Someone closer to the whole cesspool would know better than I would. But it could possibly explain what looks on the surface to be blatant sensationalism.

 

That's similar to the argument that a couple of longform writers made on a thread about an "Esquire" story about 10 years ago - they argued vehemently that a lede wasn't likely fictionalized, but rather that the writer probably had access to information not revealed in the story, like a laptop camera.

Unfortunately, all of their posts there, along with any responses to their posts, appear to have magically been scrubbed.

Lede in Esquire: Pushing the bounds of "nonfiction"?

In both cases, the answer is: I don't think it matters. In both cases it's far-fetched: As @Azrael pointed out, the writers are probably just ripping the word straight from the wire and repeating it here. Breitbart isn't examining a secret out-of-court settlement, and then basing its particular wording on its existence.

More importantly, if you can't indicate in the story that you have a source that verifies the veracity of her accusation, then you also can't write her accusation as established fact. And not for nothing, but those settlements never include an admission of wrongdoing, so even if one existed, and even if reporters saw it, the likelihood of an admission is about 1 in a billion.

 

Lord knows I'm not wading into this weird argument, but if a woman says she was sexually assaulted, the default should be to believe her. Some large percentage of the problem is that the default for about 5,000 years has been the opposite.

 

PS: I don't see how "reveals" is much different than "says." I do see how it's different from "alleges" or "claims."

 

Reese Witherspoon revealed that Alec Baldwin sexually assaulted her.

Good with that?

 

Donald Trump revealed Monday that President Obama did not call families of U.S. soldiers who had been killed in action.