If you’re going to be the first to publish something consequential like this, you should have verified information from multiple sources, not a single phone interview.

My neighbor Steve says he knew Robinson personally, even went to the same church, and it was a brain parasite that caused him to go crazy and shoot someone.

I’m just gonna print that in the New England Journal of Medicine, because after all, it’s the information I have, and I can always retract it later, right?

/s 🙄

Misinformation is deeply dangerous and respectable journalists have a duty not to print bullshit in the first place. Sure, mistakes happen, but we don’t just hand-wave it away with “well, they said sorry sooooo 🤷‍♀️”.