TexasCHLforum.com

baldeagle wrote:

Keith B wrote:Unless it is from a trusted source (wait... wait for it...) like the news media, then I am very skeptical. Now, even with the news media, they get stuff wrong, but I think at least are trying to get the basic straight scoop 99% of the time. That other 1% is when they have inaccurate information to feed from (I am excluding those times when the news media is purposely twisting things they report to sway them in the direction of their liberal views.) However, the base story line is usually fairly accurate about base line of the story.

Let me disabuse you of that notion.

A few years ago I started a blog (now defunct) named Antimedia. Its purpose was to point out the flaws of the media; what they reported wrong, what they didn't report and the biases they introduced into their stories. The first story I featured was an Associated Press story about a meteorite "the size of a car" hitting just south of a town in Washington state. The first thing I did was Google meteorites and size, because I thought a meteorite that size would probably do a lot of damage. Sure enough, it would leave a crater the size of a football field and cause terrible fires as much as 10 miles from its impact. I thought, "Wow! That must have killed a lot of people!"

So I Googled the town, found city hall and called. Their response? "What meterorite?"

No meteorite of any size had struck anywhere in the area. AP never printed a correction. They simply removed the story from their wires.

This is quite common. Any time a lot of people die (mass shooting, mine explosion, airplane crash, etc.), the media will get the dead and injured count wrong almost 100% of the time. Later on, as time passes and the story progresses, they will get the numbers right, but early on they are almost always wrong. You could consistently make money betting on that. Particularly when it comes to politics, the media consistently reports inaccurately, often reporting debunked stories long after they should have died.

You have to remember, the media isn't interested in truth. They're interested in what sells. The more outrageous, the more amazing, the more stunning a story is, the more likely they are to believe it without question and report it as they were told, without fact checking and without questioning their source. Especially when the source is anonymous, they will run with a story which is completely and utterly false, simply because it makes for good headlines and sells.

So, when it comes to the media, don't trust, always verify. The less "sexy" a story is, the more likely it is that they got it right - and vice versa.