CDZ Private oraganized stings against newspapers....how common?

[Toronado3800]

This article: A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation.

got me thinking. I knew journalists have to be vigilant against individuals with an axe to bear. It must be too busy at work because I did not follow through to imagine there were organized attempts to get false stories published in real papers this way.

Are there older substantiated reports of this happening? It seems different than the classic yellow journalism because an outside party was doing the deceiving. Should I think of it otherwise?

 

[JoeB131]

got me thinking. I knew journalists have to be vigilant against individuals with an axe to bear. It must be too busy at work because I did not follow through to imagine there were organized attempts to get false stories published in real papers this way.

Are there older substantiated reports of this happening? It seems different than the classic yellow journalism because an outside party was doing the deceiving. Should I think of it otherwise?

As a rule, papers verify a story with two or three sources before going forward, if they are doing it right.

 

[OldLady]

I agree the fact that WaPo's reporter rejected the story well before they saw the woman walk into Acorn's office shows that WaPo is a reliable publication, and they really strive to print FACTS.

 

[usmbguest5318]

It seems different than the classic yellow journalism because an outside party was doing the deceiving. Should I think of it otherwise?

No. Yellow journalism is something willfully perpetrated by a given news organization. That's not at all the same context as an organization's rigorously endeavoring to vette the assertions made in news stories it publishes, being unable to do so, yet publishing the stories anyway, and even that isn't as much yellow journalism as it is the exercise of poor judgment. Yellow journalism begins with a disregard for the veracity of the assertions made in a given story; there is little or no effort, to say nothing of there being no rigorous effort, to vette a story's assertions.

I knew journalists have to be vigilant against individuals with an axe to bear. It must be too busy at work because I did not follow through to imagine there were organized attempts to get false stories published in real papers this way.

I suspect the phrase you meant is "axe to grind," not "axe to bear." Assuming you mean "axe to grind," with regard to the title question, I don't know how common such chicanery takes place; however, I don't really care how often it takes place. What I care about is how often, proportionally (because 100% or 0% are unlikely and raw counts are irrelevant), such efforts be unsuccessful.


OT:

AFAIR, "axe to grind" and "burden to bear" are the apt foms of the cliches you've conflated in "axe to bear." The context of your OP doesn't suggest you meant "burden to bear." I'm not giving you grief; it's just input. You do what you want with it.​