It feels rather damning that Hersh didn’t verify some of the easily verifiable claims that his source made.
Why would you not have researchers do some fact checking on the story before publishing it so loudly?
Why would you not have researchers do some fact checking on the story before publishing it so loudly?
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/seymour...
This was the most ridiculous part. I can't think of a reason they would prefer to use an explosive charge in a position visible to inspection.
It said "make them appear ... as part of the natural background — something that required adapting to the specific salinity of the water". Making something invisible to sonar could depend on the acoustic impedance (which varies with salinity) of the surrounding water and might involve adapting the object accordingly.
If you fact check and you're wrong, you either can't publish (wasting the time you took for the story) or you publish anyway knowing it's wrong, in which case, it's still a waste of time.
That is not how it works. First of all there is no “you’re right”. The journalist doesn’t have first hand observations. They cannot be “right” or “wrong” only their source can be.
The journalist goes and checks what can be verified independently. No matter what the outcome of these checks nobody wasted their time. The result is a stronger article, and continued respect for the journalist in his profession.
I see it differently. I used to be a test engineer.
My tests made it onto documentation accompanying a $50,000 RF snooper (in 1985), and were verifications that the item passed the test.
I like it when tests don't fail.