Ok, who broke the media?

So it turns out there is a major development coming out of the Boston Bombing case that has nothing to do with the Bombers, and its a development the media itself refuses to cover. And with good reason, see that development is that the media is absolutely totally fucking broken.......and no one really gives a shit.

Now when I mean broken I'm not talking about the right wing whack jobs out there, who are claiming the Bombers arnt Caucasian, despite the fact that the Bombers are from Chechnya, which is actually right in the middle of the Caucasus, the region of the world that is the namesake of the world Caucasian. No those people are idiots and usually fringe whack jobs so no one sane gives them any real attention anyways.

No what I'm talking about is the sheer number of supposedly credible and "mainstream" news organizations making massive blunders in coverage and the very low number (read: zero) of corrections or apologies that have resulted.

The most infamous  and pretty much the only panned and mocked example of this was on CNN, where John King announced police had identified a "dark skinned man" as the bomber and an arrest had been made. An hour later King went back on the air and read a statement from the police saying no suspect had been identified, and anyone who mentioned arrest was way too far ahead of the facts.

Here's the thing though. It wasn't just John King, a couple minutes before King's report the AP reported that an arrest "was imminent". And FOX news and CBS Boston followed CNN's reporting. The Boston Globe went on to add that not only was the suspect arrested, but he was on his way to the Boston Court House.

Just as an example, all the groups I listed had similar issues in about the same time-span. I just happened to find the meme about FOX

The Crowd outside the Boston Court House, following the botched reporting in the Globe

And here's the thing, All of those groups I listed were WRONG. But its important to note, NOT everyone was wrong. NBC went on the air minutes after King's incorrect report on CNN, correctly reporting no arrest had been made. Rutgers had actually beaten NBC, reporting even BEFORE the initial CNN report, that no arrest had been made.

So this isnt a case of the wrong information getting passed out, this is a case of CNN/FOX/AP/et al, sucking at their jobs.

So what happens when you get pretty much every aspect of a report totally wrong (no arrest, more then one suspect, dark skinned, ect). These days? Nothing.

As far as apologies or retractions only CNN even attempted to issue a statement:

“CNN had three credible sources on both local and federal levels. Based on this information we reported our findings. As soon as our sources came to us with new information we adjusted our reporting.”

In other words, we arnt apologizing for being wrong because it wasnt our fault we were wrong, its our sources. Its not like we are a news organization or anything, so their is no reason to expect we would be right or wrong about any issue based on hearsay.

None of the other groups even had the balls to say that though.

Nor was that mistake the only mistake.

The New York Post first reported 12 people had been killed in the blast (instead of 3, like everyone else was) then a few days later ran this front page:

Except not really. Cause these guys had nothing to do with anything.

They got the suspects totally wrong (read: found a picture of brown skinned folks with book-bags talking and decided that must mean they were guilty so ran with it), no apologies or retractions. And heres the more shocking thing, that was the SECOND time the Post had been wrong. On the day of the bombing itself, the Post had put an article online that said a Saudi man was a suspect, and being guarded by police at a local hospital.

That story was picked up and reported by NBC, CBS and the LA Times before it was debunked as totally false the next day by the Washington Post. Also FOX sent a camera crew to interview/harass the Saudi non-suspect's (he was actually a victim) college roommate. The Boston Globe meanwhile reported a different person of interest was being interviewed at a different Hospital. Also not true.

Other not true things reported include the "discovery of more bombs" which was reported by the New York Times and the Wallstreet Journal, and the reporting of an attack at the JFK library as well.

Although to be fair, the media SHOULD get a pass on that last one. That story was actually broken by the Boston Police, but still happened to be wrong. The thing is, if the media was doing its job, that would have been the ONLY incorrect story of the coverage.

And none of this even counts some of the inane and really fucking stupid things that were said and done by the major network's that were clearly legitimate mistakes, that didnt really effect coverage.

AND

Funny, they dont look alike

Actually they do have the same hair color.

Problem is though, while normally those errors might be funny or mockable, the sad fact is, the reason they didnt get much attention is because of how much of a joke the rest of the coverage was.

In fact I want you to do a quick search/find of this post right now, and I want you to look up the words "fired" "disciplined" "corrected" "taken steps to avoid such mistakes in the future"

Notice anything? except for the mention above, they never came up, and thats not because I didnt post the statements to any of those effects by the media.....its because the media didnt make them.

This isnt the first major story the media as a group botched (hello Obamacare ruling), but usually a single botch gets some kind of apology on air, at an absolute minimum even if the apology is ridiculous. Again take the CNN Obamacare example

"In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts initially said that the individual mandate was not a valid exercise of Congressional power under the Commerce Clause. CNN reported that fact, but then wrongly reported that therefore the court struck down the mandate as unconstitutional. However, that was not the whole of the Court’s ruling. CNN regrets that it didn't wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate. We made a correction within a few minutes and apologize for the error."

I mean apologizing for rushing to a camera before reading page two is pretty ridiculous, but at least its better then the current stratigy of pretending nothing went wrong and do nothing to fix it.

Near as i can tell this really is the news media equivalent of "maybe if we dont move they wont see us". The only question is, will it work?

And well the fact that it got this far in the first place, that its no longer a single mistake or slip of the tongue, suggests that so far it has been.

And thats the sad shitty shape of American media today.