Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. Simply put, the Gell-Mann amnesia effect states that if journalists understand little about your field of expertise (in Nobel-winner Murray Gell-Mann’s case, physics) they probably know nothing about anyone else’s either. But when you turn the page, you forget the errors and assume the next story is somehow accurate. Amnesia.
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Long time ago there was this incident on the campus where I was teaching that was significant enough to make the national news. Now, I was indirectly involved in this here incident and when it made the local papers, they got it kinda right - missed a couple of things, but mostly true - now, when the nationals got hold of it - it got twisted up so bad it turned into a completely different incident than the one I saw.
Since then, I try to find as many places I can to hopefully get most of it right - I find that checkin in with the local, not so big, news agencies ya get a lot closer to the truth.
Good story. Sorta related is the way hollywood screws up details and the public accepts it. Movies with a Yamaha 2 stroke that sounds like a Harley or back in the fifties my Dad a fighter pilot walking out of a movie that had one model plane take off then showing a different plane as it was flying, stupid enough to really piss off the knowledgable but the numb, dumb ass public don't care.
The difference between the media and a dog is that the dog knows it's sh_t stinks.