First off, if I EVER blew off a line of discussion on my work with a comment like “As a respected appraiser I prefer to do my own research” I could fairly expect to lose a lot of credibility. That’s a pretty condescending response to someone who’s asking serious questions. That’s at least the second time this reporter has responded like this and I am not at all impressed with her ethical performance. As with us all, it doesn’t matter how great she was 2 years ago or 30 years ago – none of us are any better than our last piece of work. It is the people who cite their experience rather than address the substance of the question whose work is most suspect.

This is not to say that a journalist should allow themselves to be led around on a leash, but they should keep themselves open to leads on their story and be willing to use their own research to verify. When it comes to the important stuff, I never blindly accept what someone tells me about something I’m working on – that’s what verification is all about. But I also don’t just outright dismiss a piece of information because it’s not from one of my usual sources. There’s no such thing as too much information.

If a reporter is too burned out to look at both sides of their story then perhaps it’s time to move on to selling classified ads or something that doesn’t require objectivity.