Devil's advocate here. I have a family member who works for a national news organization. When they write a story, there's a script of which every single fact-d

Devil's advocate here. I have a family member who works for a national news organization. When they write a story, there's a script of which every single fact-dependent line has to be footnoted with two sources. They spend 10 hours fact checking a dozen facts sometimes. They assiduously call people, track down official statistics and reports, and nix lines all the time that are definitely true but don't meet this spec. And no, another news report doesn't count as a source; the the idea that a bunch of publications just reference from the seed of a half truth seems generally far fetched to me. Maybe this org has higher standards than others, but I'm skeptical. I mean, this author's "source" that they didn't have any is that spokespeople didn't reply to him (evidence of absence is not absence of evidence) And that he found a source that COULD be the originator. He very well could be right on this fact, but I feel that the fact-checking effort is underappreciated and distorted by people who love to bash the media