3 ms·

Not a single article covering this has the quote - they all refer back to the The Information article. I suspect if the quote was as damning as it is being mad

• whakim 7y ago
  They probably don't have the quote. It's not surprising that they don't, because whoever heard it probably wasn't taking notes or something, they're just recollecting what was said. I think it's still pretty clear from the article that the term "grooming" was used as part of a larger analogy between reporters and sexual predators though. Either way, and regardless of how "damning" this actually is, Quibi's response isn't really denying that it happened.
  • vinaypai 7y ago
    If they don't have the quote, a credible journalist wouldn't run the story.
    • whakim 7y ago
      I don't agree with that. Obviously it's better to have a quote, but in many cases having an exact quote isn't possible. Most "credible journalists" write stories detailing "what happened" all the time without exact quotes, because if that was the standard required then we would never hear about anything that wasn't public.
      • vinaypai 7y ago
        This is someone who was in a meeting and decided to go leak something they heard to a journalist. Asking them to recall more than "she used the word grooming" is not a high bar to clear. You can believe whatever you like but it doesn't clear my threshold for credibility.
        • whakim 7y ago
          It wasn't just the word "grooming" - the source(s) leaked that she compared journalists to sexual predators and used the word "grooming". How much more detailed could a source be without a quote if the quote was something like "journalists are like sexual predators - they groom their sources etc. etc."? Totally fair not to believe the article. I do, because if it didn't happen then Quibi would have said so in their response (they didn't - it's a classic denial-non-denial). But even if you don't, credible journalism doesn't use exact quotes all the time.
          • arkades 7y ago
            I don't see anything in the article to indicate it wasn't just the word grooming. To quote the relevant part: She compared how reporters develop a friendly rapport with sources to how sexual predators “groom” children they’re targeting, the two people said. The term ‘grooming’ has been used by child safety advocates to describe how predators gain trust with their victims. Whitman’s comments upset some Quibi employees who described them as strange and off-putting. That's it. She used the word "grooming," and then some commentary from third-parties about grooming being used to describe sexual predators. Except it's also been used to describe, you know, cultivating a contact. It's an old idiom. Additional context could further strengthen the assertion that this was meant to be related to sexual predators, except "journalists are like sexual predators" isn't being described as having been said. As to a non-denial denial: "This reporting from The Information is materially inaccurate" is a moderately strong denial from a PR hack. You're free to extrapolate from that as much as you like, but it just isn't there. There's no meaningful amount of information to conclude what she meant in one direction or another. I think given the incentives of the media outlet to generate controversy, it's safe to assume that if this is the most smoke they could generate, there likely isn't any fire.
            • whakim 7y ago
              Worth noting that Whitman has acknowledged the reporting was accurate and apologized.