A Refreshing Candor
Some grumpy editor—and I’m sorry that I don’t remember who, so lots of people can take credit—once said to me, “Don’t just tell readers what you know, tell ’em what you don’t know.”
This cuts against the grain for a lot of us, who believe that our stories will look more authoritative if we state whatever facts we’ve gathered, then ignore the gaps in our stories, or hope that the thin layer of asphalt we pour over the potholes will fool readers.
Fortunately, Reuters’s newsroom is in the Grumpy Editor Camp, and you could see how this played out in Tuesday’s scoop that showed how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a halt to eleven Ukraine-bound flights filled with weapons—without bothering to give a heads-up to President Trump or sober-minded national security advisers.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem