In theory, there should be a middle way between "waist deep into the movement" and "my research consists of collecting rumors on the internet, and then calling one or two people to give me a quote".

In practice, I don't remember reading an article on the rationality community written from such position. Most articles are based on other articles, which are based on yet other articles... ultimately based on someone's opinion posted on their blogs. (Plus the police reports about the Zizians.)

I think it would be really nice for a change if e.g. some journalist infiltrated the rationality community under a fake identity, joined one of their meetups or workshops, talked to a few people there, and then heroically exposed to the public all the nefarious plans... or the lack thereof. Shouldn't be that hard, I think. New people are coming all the time, no one does a background check on them. Yet for some mysterious reason, this never happens.

Notice how this article describes more bad things in the community than a typical outsider-written article. Three specific rationalist cults were named! The difference is not insider vs outsider, but having specific information vs vibes-based reporting.

Every reporting is always based on the reporter, so you’re never going to escape the need to just make your own conclusions and decide for yourself whether you think that the piece makes sense or not. There is no conspiracy against rationalists, they’re being reported on with the same methods as everything else; whether you trust journalism in general or not is up to you.