Buzzfeed News! Hi!
My name is Mackenzie and you don't know me. Well, you might... but as a number, I'm sure. I used to be a pretty big advocate for your company. Unfortunately, as time went on and stories came out, I haven't been campaigning for you as much. With what happened last week, honestly, I want to drop you all together.
You see, I'm in college right now. I'll be graduating next May and I am studying communications/journalism. I've taken far too many classes to let myself switch that up now. However, the actions you have taken over the last few days have seriously impacted a big portion of people in this country and I'm not sure you know that... or care.
These memos against our President-elect, Donald Trump, that you decided the public needed to see, have been around for a few months. The memos themselves, to the people who were paying attention, weren't "news." Now, I'd like to state that I agree these allegations are disgustingly awful and terrible. Here's the key word in that previous statement. Allegations.
Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am not Trump's biggest supporter. Nor am I his fan in any way, shape or form. However, you can not post allegations to a heavily trafficked sight claiming them as true. You can not do that.
The election of 2016 has already been a shit storm of terrible, this did not need to happen. Not only did you drag Trump through the mud, but you also disgraced the names of other people who had to prove their innocence. Trust me when I say, Trump can drag his own name through the mud. He does not need your help.
You were not the only news source that had these memos. Other news outlets all over the country had access and chose to not publish because there is no proof that these things have actually occurred. You said this about the person who sent the memos: “the document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent." There is no name given, which is fine. In journalism there are many sources who choose to remain anonymous. However, you just admitted to the public by stating he/she prepared these for opponents of Trump which leads people to believe your source has a bias.
In an age where young journalists, such as myself, are trying to establish our credibility and fight against "Fake News," you've made our job so much harder. Your editor made a statement telling people that “there is serious reason to doubt the allegations.” You gave that warning. How are the everyday people who are reading this LARGE document you produced supposed to know the factual information in there?
They're not.
"There are seven skittles in this bag that are not poisonous." That's a statement. Are you going to eat the bag of skittles? No! Because there are bad skittles in there. I'm going to assume that the whole thing of skittles is bad until someone points out the seven good skittles!
Despite your best efforts to credit yourself as a legitimate news source, you've failed. You've just pushed forward the idea of "Fake News," and put a whole lot more pressure on legitimate journalists. I'm sorry, but it's true.
For the next four years, anything that is published and is anti-Trump in the slightest is going to be questioned. The media will be questioned on everything, even more so than they already are. Your editor also said that your company decided to publish this because he felt that this was showing the job of journalists in 2017.
What job is that? To find the information? To leave the days of fact-checking behind and throw the entire country into a frenzy because we didn't do our job properly?
If that's the job of reporters in 2017, count me out.
