Thread by @asymmetricinfo

So my print column is out, on the dangers to #MeToo of journalists letting weak accusations through:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/metoo…

For that argument, you'll have to read the column. (Have I mentioned that Amazon Prime offers such magnificently cheap subscriptions that you'd have to be crazy to pass them up?)

I'm going to talk about something I didn't have space for: why I was so surprised that the Ramirez allegations made it into print, given the weakness of the corroboration.

Okay, I devoted quite a bit of space to it, actually, but here's an observation I didn't have room for.

Checking #MeToo stories does require us to think hard about what the burden of proof is to make something a printable story. By definition, these things mostly happen with only two witnesses, one of whom obviously has an incentive to deny what happened.

So you can't just say "We need more than one witness". Journalists have done a good job looking for other forms of corroboration: did they tell people about it at the time? Is there a medical report? Did they keep a diary? And perhaps most importantly, are there other victims?

But here's the thing: Ramirez is not telling one of those stories. She's talking about something that happened in public, and about which she has admitted she has an incomplete memory. It was a memorable enough act that you should have a good chance of finding another eyewitness.

So while in general, I think that telling women's stories--telling the truth about the abuse that a lot of women have endured--means accepting what we might call "para-corroboration", in this case, I don't think it's merited.

To be clear, I'm not saying it didn't happen. The fact that you couldn't nail down a story doesn't mean it wasn't true--every journalist has heard poignant tales of the One That Got Away--the story you couldn't quite prove, which later turned out to be true.

But we need to maintain a pretty high standard of corroboration, both to prevent yourself from printing The One That Should Have Gotten Away, and to maintain the credibility that lets us convince the public that these things happen, and must be addressed.

That's all I got, folks. The column's here, so please read it.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/metoo…