Historically, we’ve expected that once the din of theories, hypotheses, and manufactured realities had quieted, we could count on getting the real story (or at least part of it) when we heard the thump of the morning paper landing at the foot of that stoop. But these days, the thumping starts right away. Instead of patiently correcting the mistakes and hearsay understandably spewed by the emotion-filled masses, the mainstream media has joined the fray. The thump no longer clarifies, it obscures.
This is the shooter’s name. Thump. His mother worked at the elementary school. Thump. She was the teacher in that classroom where are those poor kids were killed. Thump. Thump. Thump.
As you’d expect, the various bits of false details about the Newtown shootings spread rapidly throughout our virtual front stoop. But they didn’t originate there. These “facts” were coming from (or at least being repeated by) the media sources most of us have come to trust the most. Instead of correcting our hyperactive distortions, the mainstream media added to them by mimicking the haste and inaccuracy of social media. The wildfire of burning inaccuracies needed to be doused by a pail of water. Instead we got a bucket of gasoline.
We’ve seen this trend coming. Gabrielle Giffords was prematurely pronounced dead after being shot in Arizona. Both CNN and Fox got the Supreme Court’s ruling on health care’s individual mandate exactly wrong. The standards once applied to reporting are now often reserved for correction writing.
(excerpt from post on Tweetage Wasteland: Get Off My Stoop)
blow, winds, and crack your cheeks
Originally Posted by Fuchs
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