Everyone knows it is true

"The point of deconstructing this New Yorker piece is not that Filkins is more careless about checking facts than his journalistic peers; rather, it is to direct attention to much more bigger and more complex problem affecting the entire news media structure: a climate of opinion in which certain issues are matters of such solid consensus that normally alert and energetic journalists suspend their skepticism and factchecking, because, after all, “everybody knows” that certain propositions are true." (thanks Amir)