It sounds like this information wasn't released publicly by the local authorities.
The article has a link to a LinkedIn profile. The writer indicates that the name and city of the LI profile matches the information on the person they were "told" was arrested this morning. Even the name of the company of the person indicated is explicitly referenced in the article.
My professional world doesn't allow for ambiguity. As a journalist, how sure do you need to be about the accuracy of this information before going public?
You'd be surprised what information is released to the public. I'd be willing to bet that the reporter has access to dispatch logs from over-the-air radio [1] and cross-references that with incident reports at [2] and then does a lookup on [3]. Entirely speculation, but it's not implausible.
Absolutely, there are many data sources available so piece some of this together.
What I find interesting is indicating a LinkedIn profile, unless of course this reporter has access to investigation documents that also identify the LinkedIn profile.
It could very well be a different person with the same name in the same town. Why take the risk? Just so you can have the juicy headline "alleged killer also worked in tech."
Generally a source isn't somebody you don't know, a journalist should know who the source is, their relationship to the subject and have developed some type of trust with them. Without that trust, a journalist opens themselves up to libel if it turns out this person was not the person arrested.
The article has a link to a LinkedIn profile. The writer indicates that the name and city of the LI profile matches the information on the person they were "told" was arrested this morning. Even the name of the company of the person indicated is explicitly referenced in the article.
My professional world doesn't allow for ambiguity. As a journalist, how sure do you need to be about the accuracy of this information before going public?