The Year ‘Trust Us’ Journalism Began To Fall Apart

Let's look back on 2014 as the year when “trust us” journalism received a potentially fatal blow. At a time when the press already suffers from a deep deficit of trust among Americans, recent high-profile, “too-good-to-check” stories have further undermined the media's credibility.

Consider the coverage of the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Mo. Initial reports that police officer Darren Wilson shot Brown in the back were proven false, as were accounts that Brown did nothing to provoke the confrontation. In fact, Brown had just committed a strong-arm robbery at a nearby liquor store and confronted Wilson in the middle of the street. Some said Brown had his hands up and said, “Don't shoot.” Several eyewitnesses contradicted this account.

But facts didn't matter once a narrative took hold about racist cops targeting young black men. The New York Times published several tendentious stories imputing racism to Ferguson's elected leaders and police. And “hands up don't shoot” has become a rallying cry.

Even worse was the debacle surrounding Rolling Stone's story about a violent gang rape at the University of Virginia. When the report about a brutal 2012 assault at a fraternity first appeared in November, readers naturally reacted with horror. The story also reaffirmed a certain feminist narrative about U.S. colleges and universities serving as sanctuaries for America's “rape culture.”

Then the story began to unravel, and after the Washington Post found several contradictions in the alleged claims, Rolling Stone admitted it did not perform basic fact-checking of the story.

Again, the truth took a back seat to a greater ideological narrative. Rolling Stone says it is now re-reporting and re-checking the facts — but shouldn't this have been done before the story hit the newsstands?

Which brings us to Bill Cosby. Over the past two months, nearly two-dozen women have come forward alleging the 77-year-old comedian sexually assaulted them. Several of the claims date back 30 or 40 years.

The allegations against Cosby are too many to ignore. The sheer number and similarity of these women's stories appear to condemn the man. And it certainly must be noted that Cosby confidentially settled a lawsuit a decade ago by a woman who made similar charges.

Once the rape claims captured the public's imagination, however, rumors quickly subsumed facts. Actress Raven-Symone had to deny an outlandish claim that Cosby assaulted her when she was 7 years old.

And a report that Cosby had drugged and raped Oprah Winfrey spread quickly across social media. If the thousands of Twitter and Facebook that dispersed the story had actually read it, they would have noticed it was from a satirical website.

Now, Cosby and his representatives are refusing to address the claims beyond pro forma denials. In the public's eye, this silence only reinforces his guilt.

However, several legal observers say Cosby essentially has no choice but to keep mum. One of his accusers, retired attorney Tamara Green, earlier this month filed a defamation suit against Cosby. Green alleges that comments by Cosby's lawyers rebutting her claims impugned her reputation and exposed her to “public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace.”

In effect, Cosby isn't just being sued for something he's accused of doing — he's also being sued for denying that he did it.

While reporting the Cosby case is especially challenging, the press has a duty to vet accusers' claims as fully and fairly as possible. Only the right-leaning Daily Caller seems to have taken interest in closely examining some of the women's stories, a handful of which appear to be contradictory. And yet no mainstream media outlets have picked up on the Caller's reporting. Maybe they should have mentioned Oprah?

This doesn't mean all the accusers are lying. But the media need to go much further to bring clarity to these claims and not just leave it to websites like Snopes.com to debunk rumors.

Real life rarely conforms to a set narrative. As the Ferguson and UVA cases show, some stories aren't as straightforward as they first appear. And if those bitter outcomes teach us anything, it's that the media need to be especially careful with the Cosby story. Assurances of “trust us” simply aren't good enough anymore.

This piece originally appeared in Los Angeles Daily News