> Someone's first instinct is to suspect you. It's to accuse you of lying. It's to label you a troublemaker. I used to assume the expression "Kill The Messenge

> Someone's first instinct is to suspect you. It's to accuse you of lying. It's to label you a troublemaker. I used to assume the expression "Kill The Messenger" meant that the receiver of the message was angry about the message, and simply lashed out unfairly at the person who said it, though they knew the messenger was innocent. But more recently, I've realized that the receiver of the bad news often seems to genuinely feel suspicion towards the messenger -- not merely lashing out at the nearest convenient punching bag. I'll distinguish two variants of suspicion towards messenger: * Only the receiver's beliefs are threatened (e.g., doesn't want to believe they made a mistake, or that things aren't so rosy, or that so-and-so did something terrible). * The receiver is more concretely threatened (e.g., could lose their job/bonus/promotion, or could be tainted by bad PR, or could be implicated in past enabling). For things like the abuse case to which the article alludes, the kind could vary by person involved involved in a case. The latter kind, concretely threatened, obviously there is also a concrete, rational, reason to lash out at the messenger, but not to genuinely suspect them, yet AFAICT they might genuinely suspect the messenger anyway.