Purple People Vote

For another installment of, ‘Why the media completely lacks credibility,’ yesterday provided a double header. The most glaring of which was the media blindly chasing after the ‘balloon boy’ story without the least bit of critical thought. The main stream media seemed stunned that ‘balloon boy’ turned out to be a hoax and a publicity stunt, while Americans across the country were thinking, ‘really a boy went up in a weather balloon, like James and the Giant Peach?’ The Chris Sicuranza does an excellent job of running down the balloon boy story and all the ways the media dropped the ball in its reporting… POP! Balloon Boy Bursts Trust in Journalism.

Yet balloon boy was not the only media blunder of the day. CNN along with other media sources misquoted Rush Limbaugh as making horribly racist remarks. As someone who is not particularly fond on Mr. Limbaugh, my concern is not about the NFL, or a group not finding him to be a suitable partner, my problem is that main stream media sources did not verify quotes before running them on television or in their newspaper. Reputable news organizations are not supposed to be like high school rumor mills, where if you don’t like someone you spread rumors or make things up. This isn’t advanced level journalism, journalists are supposed to check their facts and only report sourced material. This isn’t a call for people to crack out their violins for Mr. Limbaugh, it is a request (which has been made several times before on this blog) that journalists do their jobs and report facts, not rumors or opinions.

Oddly NewsBusters pointed out that CNN’s Rick Sanchez was not able to apologize on air for misquoting Limbaugh because he was interrupted by ‘balloon boy’ coverage, in their article CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez Is Assembling a Pile of Retractions.