Gabriela Miranda, another "creative" reporter
Another false reporting scandal is upon us. We have a reporter who has been writing her articles based upon sources which resided exclusively in her imagination, according to the results of an investigation. Her name is Gabriela Miranda and she wrote for USA Today. Ms Miranda has deleted her LinkedIn profile and the stories have been withdrawn, so accusations against her are likely not without merit.
This comes about a quarter century after the Steven Glass scandal. Mr Glass wrote for The New York Times and his MO was similar to Ms Miranda's. And both Glass and Miranda scandals - and a few more we have heard of over the last few decades - come decades after te great Walter Duranty deception.
Mr Duranty was a New Your Times during the early years of the Soviet Union. He reported on what he saw - or claimed to have seen - thus contributing to many developments, including the diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union by many countries in the West. Somehow in his reporting, he failed to report on massive repressions in the world's first Communist nation, including the artificial famine of the early 1930's which claimed millions of lives. In spite of these curious quirks of his, Mr Duranty was wildly praised for it at the time and even earned the Pulitzer's Prize for it in 1932.
So think what you wish of it, the quality control at various maintream media outlets seem to be poor to non existent. Nor do they seem concerned with improving it, if the last century is any indication. So if you were to choose to blindly trust said mainstream media outlets, that choice of yours could not be called solid or reasonable.
References
USA Today removes 23 articles after reporter Gabriela Miranda fabricated sources
Ariel Zilber, New York Post, 16 June 2022
How Stalin Hid Ukraine's Famine From the World
Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, 13 October 2017
Distrust as the most reasonable default position
@borepstein , 6 February 2022