Agreed 100%. I know critique of media is one of your areas of interest, so further to both points had the media explored the testimony of those other two men - both of which were given under oath - it would have served the interests of both the accused and the accuser and the American people.
As you noted, people sympathized with the accuser because she seemed “credible”, a credibility buttressed by the certainty in which she asserted this memory. But the media let the he-said/she-said argument play out in part because that’s a better dramatic story, in part because in this “#metoo ‘believe her’” atmosphere they did not want to be in the position of contradicting her, and of course in part they simply refused to give proper examination to the story as that would be contrary to their political objective.
But the net result was they further damaged the reputations of two people with reckless disregard. Both the accused and the accuser could have been portrayed as more sympathetic characters. But that would not suit the larger interests at play. They needed for myriad reasons to amplify the sense of acrimony and force people to choose a side, which caused them both to be disparaged unnecessarily by one faction or another. The media could have gone another way - the correct way - which would have been as they insisted to “get to the truth”. And for X-Files fans, The Truth is Out There. They simply did not want to try to find it. They didn’t even pretend to try to find it.
Just so.