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Comment by PaulWaldman | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like this information wasn't released publicly by the local authorities.

The article has a link to a LinkedIn profile. The writer indicates that the name and city of the LI profile matches the information on the person they were "told" was arrested this morning. Even the name of the company of the person indicated is explicitly referenced in the article.

My professional world doesn't allow for ambiguity. As a journalist, how sure do you need to be about the accuracy of this information before going public?

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You'd be surprised what information is released to the public. I'd be willing to bet that the reporter has access to dispatch logs from over-the-air radio [1] and cross-references that with incident reports at [2] and then does a lookup on [3]. Entirely speculation, but it's not implausible.

[1] https://somafm.com/scanner/ [2] https://data.sfgov.org/Public-Safety/Police-Department-Incid... [3] https://www.sfsheriff.com/find-person-jail

Absolutely, there are many data sources available so piece some of this together.

What I find interesting is indicating a LinkedIn profile, unless of course this reporter has access to investigation documents that also identify the LinkedIn profile.

It could very well be a different person with the same name in the same town. Why take the risk? Just so you can have the juicy headline "alleged killer also worked in tech."

Yeah, that was a bit much.

Dispatch radio is encrypted, as is made clear in your own link.

Some, but not all of it as per my own link ;)

Definitely has dispatch audio on: https://somafm.com/player/#/now-playing/scanner

Some is, some is not.

Generally a source isn't somebody you don't know, a journalist should know who the source is, their relationship to the subject and have developed some type of trust with them. Without that trust, a journalist opens themselves up to libel if it turns out this person was not the person arrested.

Here is another report: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/articleComments/bob-lee-san-f...

> As a journalist, how sure do you need to be about the accuracy of this information before going public?

you're living in the past, my friend. no such professional standard exists today.

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