How Do You Approach Zero Tolerance as a Reporter?

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Reporter describes how a policy filters up from low level staffers, o researchers who know a lot about the topic. People above them progressively know less and less about the topic till it reaches the person who will probably ultimately become the face of the policy. "It makes sense that principles get to make decisions based on briefings that come from successive layers of expertise below them"

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer for The Atlantic covering immigration. Her latest article, on the secret history of U.S. government’s family-separation policy, is ”An American Catastrophe.”

“Interviewing separated families, I’ve found, is just on a whole other scale of pain and trauma. I’ve watched people have really intense PTSD flashbacks in front of me. I never wanted to risk asking a family to open up in that way if I didn’t know that I’d be able to use that material. The worst thing you can do is waste someone’s time in a way that causes them pain.”

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