UFOs, Once Consigned to Conspiracy Theories, Have Landed in Mainstream American Journalism

From Amaris Castillo, writing for Poynter…

Last Friday, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report that many were eagerly awaiting: a preliminary assessment on unidentified aerial phenomena. In layman’s terms, UFOs. The unclassified report said these phenomena clearly pose a flight safety issue but that there aren’t enough high-quality reports on them to draw any firm conclusions.

Sightings of UFOs have been reported throughout history in different parts of the world. In the U.S., these unidentified flying objects have been repeatedly investigated over the decades and perhaps forever embedded in our culture. And journalists have been there to report on them.

How can and should the press cover this subject responsibly? How do they balance the offbeat nature of this subject — with its decades of conspiracies and skeptics — with not just their credibility, but that of their publications’? And what role has the media played in shaping how the public perceives these sightings?

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