We’ve been covering the allegations against Taylor Sharp for weeks now — the whistleblower partnership with Faith Merrill, the tip line, the fallout. And along the way, this story stopped being just about Sharp. It became a story about how the media handles allegations like this, and who gets to shape the narrative.
So on August 19 at 9:30 PM EST, we’re putting that conversation on the record.
Marci Crismali (our own co-founder and CEO) and TheTechBoy will go head-to-head on:
The underlying allegations against Taylor Sharp
How Average American News has covered the story — and whether that coverage has been fair
The personal remarks made by people involved along the way
This isn’t a scripted back-and-forth. It’s a real debate, with real disagreement, about a story that’s touched a nerve for a lot of you.
Why this matters: We built Average American News on the idea that people deserve news without the spin — but that doesn’t mean we’re above scrutiny ourselves. If there are questions about how we’ve handled this story, we’d rather answer them out loud than pretend they don’t exist.
Got a question you want asked on air? Reply to this post or drop it in our tip line — we’re taking submissions from readers ahead of the debate.