Cable Nets and local broadcasters churn out hours of content on mundane days, but Breaking News is when they get the big ratings. Any journalist knows that the information you get from sources, even the best sources, early in a major incident will not match exactly to the information you get hours or even days later. In the modern media age, most tend to report the information as soon as they get it, and then clarify or correct as "new information" comes in. Jon Stewart says we should put on the brakes and stop what he calls the "Wrongnado."
I usually agree with Stewart, but this time he's only half-right. He's right that we need to use the brakes a little more, but I don't think we can or even should put the newsmobile into park. You can never wait long enough for "all the facts" to come out -- historians who are uncovering new facts and new interpretations years, decades, even centuries after the events they write about can tell you that. Media is supposed to be the first draft of history, but Stewart is right that the rush to write that "first, first draft" leads to errors.
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