Journalists will sometimes go to great lengths to get a scoop and to make a name for themselves. This passionate desire "break the story" makes many journalists

Journalists will sometimes go to great lengths to get a scoop and to make a name for themselves. This passionate desire "break the story" makes many journalists vulnerable. They become easy marks for bad actors who can gain by manipulating them. There are many examples of this occurring. Sometimes the manipulation is just designed to make the journalist(s) look stupid as in KTVU's scoop on the names of the Asiana Airlines pilots responsible for the deadly crash at SFO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JYHNX8pdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JYHNX8pdo Sometimes it's more serious as in the case of Matthew Keys, who went to prison. I suspect he thought he was chasing a story but was too naïve to realize he was being played. https://www.wired.com/2016/04/journalist-matthew-keys-sentenced-two-years-aiding-anonymous/ https://www.wired.com/2016/04/journalist-matthew-keys-senten... Dan Rather's desire to take down former president George W. Bush for all intents and purposes ended his own career by not vetting documents provided to him by a source. His producer Mary Mapes was forced to resign as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_service_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_servic... I think we can all learn from these people's mistakes. Our own desires for a particular outcome or to have our personal beliefs confirmed can make us vulnerable to people who might have an incentive to manipulate us. For this reason, it's probably wise to employ a healthy level of skepticism when consuming "news" regardless of how trustworthy we believe the source to be.