ITA. And as a reporter in a small town, or any town for that matter, having a good relationship with LE is important. He needs to show that they can trust him and in turn they will trust him.
I once worked on a project that got a LOT of media attention over a period of several years. I won't say what it was but it initially was of great scientific interest then morphed into a big environmental and cultural controversy. Ultimately the controversy had to be resolved by an act of Congress that effectively suspended dozens of other federal laws as they applied to us, so yeah, it was that big.
Anyway, one thing I learned is that very few media outlets get things right consistently even when they try. So I take most media reports with a grain of salt. After reading hundreds if not thousands of stories about us over several years from newpapers, magazines, networks, and so forth around the world, there is only one newspaper article that did not contain at least one error and it was in the Wall Street Journal. And we were featured in places like National Geographic, ABC News (Sam Donaldson), and pretty much every major newspaper in the US and Europe. Most of the times the errors were relatively minor but many demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the science by the reporter. While that might be understandable, it translated into a story that seriously misled the public
I also learned that no matter how good your relationship, they have a job to do and if you stumble they will jump all over you and you have to respect that.
So I'm sure Nate has a close relationship with RPD based on mutual respect. But if a RPD cop were filmed beating someone (not that I see that happening) I think he'd be all over them as he should be. He seems to work hard to be fair and accurate and have no reason to doubt him specifically. But my past experience teaches me to never accept anything in the media as 100% accurate.
