A lot of the reporting (that I read) summarises and interprets reports that
are readily available in the public domain. Some examples are:

Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Pollard Review on the decision not to broadcast a documentary on Savile's abuse.
Smith Review on whether there was a culture that allowed abuse at the
time of Savile.
Leaked report about antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Forde Inquiry into the leaked report.
EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Etc. Etc.

All of these are readily available via googling although finding the leaked
report is tricky (at least I found it so).

I wonder whether newspaper articles which summarize and interpret
this material are worth reading, and whether it might not just be a better
idea for readers to go through the reports themselves.
Newspaper reports could at least encourage their readers to do so, by
printing the URLs. Am I cynical in assuming that the reason newspapers don't usually even mention the URLs is that they want to maximise their
own influence at the cost of disempowering the readers who don't think
to obtain the original information?
Or is there really some special substance to these articles-about-reports
which the ordinary reader wouldn't be able to discern?
When I read these articles from the Guardian, everything they say about
these reports is completely obvious when I just look at the reports for
myself. Are other newspapers any better? (I doubt it).

Paul Epstein

On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 6:20:47 AM UTC-4, Paul Epstein wrote:
> A lot of the reporting (that I read) summarises and interprets reports that
> are readily available in the public domain. Some examples are:
>
> Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
> Pollard Review on the decision not to broadcast a documentary on Savile's abuse.
> Smith Review on whether there was a culture that allowed abuse at the
> time of Savile.
> Leaked report about antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> Forde Inquiry into the leaked report.
> EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> Etc. Etc.
>
> All of these are readily available via googling although finding the leaked
> report is tricky (at least I found it so).
>
> I wonder whether newspaper articles which summarize and interpret
> this material are worth reading, and whether it might not just be a better
> idea for readers to go through the reports themselves.
> Newspaper reports could at least encourage their readers to do so, by
> printing the URLs. Am I cynical in assuming that the reason newspapers don't usually even mention the URLs is that they want to maximise their
> own influence at the cost of disempowering the readers who don't think
> to obtain the original information?
> Or is there really some special substance to these articles-about-reports
> which the ordinary reader wouldn't be able to discern?
> When I read these articles from the Guardian, everything they say about
> these reports is completely obvious when I just look at the reports for
> myself. Are other newspapers any better? (I doubt it).

Official reports are long and are written in technical language.

How many people have the time and the background to deal with the
original reports?

On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 2:07:42 PM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 6:20:47 AM UTC-4, Paul Epstein wrote:
> > A lot of the reporting (that I read) summarises and interprets reports that
> > are readily available in the public domain. Some examples are:
> >
> > Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
> > Pollard Review on the decision not to broadcast a documentary on Savile's abuse.
> > Smith Review on whether there was a culture that allowed abuse at the
> > time of Savile.
> > Leaked report about antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> > Forde Inquiry into the leaked report.
> > EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> > Etc. Etc.
> >
> > All of these are readily available via googling although finding the leaked
> > report is tricky (at least I found it so).
> >
> > I wonder whether newspaper articles which summarize and interpret
> > this material are worth reading, and whether it might not just be a better
> > idea for readers to go through the reports themselves.
> > Newspaper reports could at least encourage their readers to do so, by
> > printing the URLs. Am I cynical in assuming that the reason newspapers don't usually even mention the URLs is that they want to maximise their
> > own influence at the cost of disempowering the readers who don't think
> > to obtain the original information?
> > Or is there really some special substance to these articles-about-reports
> > which the ordinary reader wouldn't be able to discern?
> > When I read these articles from the Guardian, everything they say about
> > these reports is completely obvious when I just look at the reports for
> > myself. Are other newspapers any better? (I doubt it).
> Official reports are long and are written in technical language.
>
> How many people have the time and the background to deal with the
> original reports?

I do have the time and background, at least in the case of the reports I listed.
Can't speak for anyone else.

Paul Epstein

On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 6:20:47 AM UTC-4, Paul Epstein wrote:
> A lot of the reporting (that I read) summarises and interprets reports that
> are readily available in the public domain. Some examples are:
>
> Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
> Pollard Review on the decision not to broadcast a documentary on Savile's abuse.
> Smith Review on whether there was a culture that allowed abuse at the
> time of Savile.
> Leaked report about antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> Forde Inquiry into the leaked report.
> EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> Etc. Etc.
>
> All of these are readily available via googling although finding the leaked
> report is tricky (at least I found it so).
>
> I wonder whether newspaper articles which summarize and interpret
> this material are worth reading, and whether it might not just be a better
> idea for readers to go through the reports themselves.
> Newspaper reports could at least encourage their readers to do so, by
> printing the URLs. Am I cynical in assuming that the reason newspapers don't usually even mention the URLs is that they want to maximise their
> own influence at the cost of disempowering the readers who don't think
> to obtain the original information?
> Or is there really some special substance to these articles-about-reports
> which the ordinary reader wouldn't be able to discern?
> When I read these articles from the Guardian, everything they say about
> these reports is completely obvious when I just look at the reports for
> myself. Are other newspapers any better? (I doubt it).

Publicly available documents like non-fraudulent bonds or securities information shouldn't be tricky to find unless executive bureaucratic or lawmaker offices need to hide something.

On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 9:02:36 PM UTC+1, bruce bowser wrote:
> On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 6:20:47 AM UTC-4, Paul Epstein wrote:
> > A lot of the reporting (that I read) summarises and interprets reports that
> > are readily available in the public domain. Some examples are:
> >
> > Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
> > Pollard Review on the decision not to broadcast a documentary on Savile's abuse.
> > Smith Review on whether there was a culture that allowed abuse at the
> > time of Savile.
> > Leaked report about antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> > Forde Inquiry into the leaked report.
> > EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party.
> > Etc. Etc.
> >
> > All of these are readily available via googling although finding the leaked
> > report is tricky (at least I found it so).
> >
> > I wonder whether newspaper articles which summarize and interpret
> > this material are worth reading, and whether it might not just be a better
> > idea for readers to go through the reports themselves.
> > Newspaper reports could at least encourage their readers to do so, by
> > printing the URLs. Am I cynical in assuming that the reason newspapers don't usually even mention the URLs is that they want to maximise their
> > own influence at the cost of disempowering the readers who don't think
> > to obtain the original information?
> > Or is there really some special substance to these articles-about-reports
> > which the ordinary reader wouldn't be able to discern?
> > When I read these articles from the Guardian, everything they say about
> > these reports is completely obvious when I just look at the reports for
> > myself. Are other newspapers any better? (I doubt it).
> Publicly available documents like non-fraudulent bonds or securities information shouldn't be tricky to find unless executive bureaucratic or lawmaker offices need to hide something.

But I didn't talk about such documents. The document that I found (somewhat) tricky to find was the Leaked Labour (UK) report on antisemitism.
This is because the googling needs two steps. Step 1 is to find the official name for this report. Step 2 is to search for the official name.
If you google "leaked labour report on antisemitism", you get a lot of pages which quote from the report but not the report itself.

Paul Epstein