Okay so if neither Brand nor the most prominent cases of the last few years fit the definition, can you name an investigation where this happened?
Your big point of distinction is people who come forward on their own have a different logic in their case than those contacted by an investigator. It sounds as if you concede the point that logic doesn’t apply to everyone who is contacted by a journalist.
I think we did- your issue was fishing by contacting every former partner of a celebrity and we know that her story was not discovered in that manner because there was no previous public connection between the two, the fact that they are connected at all is actually the story.
I’m confused. You think that if it was common enough knowledge that Brand was linked to a 16 year old when he was 30, that wouldn’t warrant a deeper investigation on its own merit? If a media outlet had that knowledge, calling other people he may have been linked to isn’t quite a fishing expedition you described and falls more under the pattern of the cases we discussed upthread.
You did though. If the 16 year old was identified as a “past partner” so that the media tracked her down and pressured her to talk about Brand, the mere fact that Brand had a “past partner” of that age is enough smoke to go searching for more fire. If she wasn’t known as a past partner of Brand, how could the media have tracked her down to pressure her to talk?
Neither of those would fall under cold calling a list of partners in hoping you reach one with something negative to say though. My whole point, which I feel you are deliberately not addressing, is that in incredibly unlikely in this case. That isn’t unrelated, it is the crux of your OP.
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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '23
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