Fix the Mistakes
Many by now heard the story of the woman who was attacked by a “big black man” who carved a backward “B” on the side of her face. Several of the staff here at The Winkest Link had said that this story stank to high heaven long before it was revealed as a hoax Friday. Why was the “B” backwards if he was staring at her face while carving it? How did she know he was exactly 6’4”? But that’s not the point of this post.
As soon as the story became public knowledge, the McCain campaign directed as many people to it as they could. All the major news corporations mentioned the story a dozen times through the course of the day. Of course, this story took place in Pennsylvania, a major swing state, so everyone in Pennsylvania got the news that an Obama supporter assaulted a McCain supporter.
A day later… Oops! Turns out, she was faking the whole thing. I congratulate Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews (maybe a few others, these are just the ones I saw with my own eyes) for reporting this story as a hoax. Unfortunately, no other news source on television seemed interested in fixing this. CNN and Fox News may have reported it once, but then they dropped it, apparently assuming everybody that would watch their channels would be watching at exactly the right time to hear it. Most people won’t be going online to see the news when there is a perfectly functioning television in their home.
Big misconceptions are made – the “I can’t believe somebody would attack her!” misconceptions – when the news sources don’t fix this. These sources are not doing their jobs. Their jobs are to inform the viewer. The viewers are being slighted by this oversight on the part of these sources. I don’t care who you are or who you work for. Fix your mistakes before people get the wrong idea.
Unfortunately, for some news sources, the truth isn’t nearly as important as drama.
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