I disagree. It's quite normal for a newspaper (in this case Newsday) or any other media outlet to report on its own investigations.
Firstly...I didn't make any claims about "what's normal for a news outlet". My claim was about a conflict of interest. Even if having journalists conduct a
study was "normal" (and I don't think it is) that doesn't suddenly change the fact that they have a conflict of interest.
Similarly it's also normal for scientists of all stripes to report on their own studies without being accused of a conflict of interest.
The names attached to this belong to journalists...not scientists. I looked them up, they're journalism majors...but thanks for pointing out another flaw.
The study also used outside consultants to evaluate the interaction between agent and customer to determine if discrimination took place.
Consultants who were paid and may have their own biases.
I'm not seeing where a conflict of interest lies.
Well allow me to explain....
Three years of research, paid actors, paid consultants...all this costs money. If the results were "
we found very little evidence of discrimination"...then they don't have a story. All that time, money, and effort would be for nothing. What's more is that they clearly want this story to sell subscriptions. They are invested, quite literally, in the outcome of the research.
This is really no different from an oil company paying for research on climate change. They have a financial incentive for the research to draw a particular conclusion. The same thing applies here.
Your point about scientists really drives home the conflict of interest. They
could have commissioned actual researchers to do the study...but they did it themselves instead.
If you honestly believe that all discrimination can be adequately defined by legal standards then you have a misplaced faith in the law. The article discusses instances of what it regards as discriminatory behaviour. Whether legal or not it's obvious that different treatment was afforded to clients based on race.
OB
Which doesn't mean much if it doesn't rise to the level of illegality. I've no doubt that some of the incidents rise to the point of illegal discrimination...but many of them seem dubious. What am I supposed to think about a real estate agent who suggests that a client spends some time in the community to see what the people are like? Maybe it's based in racism...maybe it's because they thought the client looked concerned when they drove through the neighborhood.
I'm not saying that a legal standard is perfect by any means...but at least if it's crossed, I can say with certainty that someone was treated unfairly.