[munk-a]

I think it's a bit more complex than that though. Experts within these fields should be a resource for journalists to access, perhaps in some fields - like economics or legal matters - it's prudent for the news organization to have internal specialists that can evaluate the raw data and draw independent conclusions - but that's not scalable. I think the issue is more that experts with vested interests who lie repeatedly to news organizations don't end up being ostrasized and instead thrive, leading more experts to follow suit and putting news organizations in the position where they either need to accept the interpretation at face value[1] or else try and make an inexpert evaluation of those facts. I think this is associated with the fact that the world is growing in complexity. A hundred years ago most people had built or helped to build a house and could call B.S. if a poorly constructed building collapsed and the constructor tried to claim unexpected ground instability - now a-days if the wiring in a building causes a fire that results in fatalities most members of society aren't able to go and look at the sight and reason whether that wiring was faultily installed or whether there really was a crazy factor out of the electrician's control.

The specific example I used above is actually perfectly terrible because I think we do still have accountability in a lot of the "trades" since so many people work independent of large firms and feel empowered to call out bullshit, but that's sort of what I wanted to highlight - it's when we're talking about an industry that is largely consolidated or centralized (like say banking) where everyone who knows what's going on is employed either by the primary party or a friend of the primary party that we get a breakdown of the truth.

1. I.e. Those iraqis have weapons of mass destruction because intel and this mustard coloured powder.