Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

Why, on June 6, after all the reporting that's been done in the past month--including *by the Washington Post*--are two WaPo reporters going with this "experts say it's nearly impossible" nonsense? washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…

@washingtonpost, don't you have editors? If so, they should be preventing your reporters from saying something that makes them look as if they even don't read the newspaper they write for, no less any other news organ.

You realize, don't you, that these experts--kind of famously!--have been caught up in a massive corruption scandal? That this is actually *the biggest story* in the global news right now? I mean, seriously:

editors are supposed to know what's going on in the world. In broad outline, anyway. And so are journalists. To be completely unaware of the problem with this "experts say" throwaway--at this stage?--is incredibly unprofessional.

It genuinely makes your reporters look like imbeciles. Which they may be, for all I know. But I know this: It is their editors' job to keep them, and by extension the whole newspaper, from looking like perfect imbeciles.

This is like writing, "Experts say it's *nearly impossible* Nixon had anything to do with the Watergate break-in" while meanwhile you're running Deep Throat's revelations over in another section of the paper.

Look, I say this to be helpful. I don't think it's good for America when the Washington Post looks idiotic. It's really harmful, actually. Hold your reporters and editors to minimal standards of professionalism:

It isn't too much to ask that they read the newspaper you publish every day.

And banish the locution "experts say."

If your reporters don't understand the subject well enough to understand *why* the experts say something--and independently to assess whether these experts are making any sense--hire better-informed reporters to cover these stories.

Don't outsource your brains to "experts." Check their work. That's your job.