re: When the media reports on something you know a lot about

I used to work in an industry that got a lot of press, plus, I was the PIC when things went wrong, so I had to do news interviews, mostly local, some national. One of the biggest things I was involved in was marine related, so when water is in the story, CNN was there. Every evening, with the Coast Guard we'd have a small press conference. CNN and the locals always missed the real facts in favor of dramatizing the most awful thing that could possibly happen. For instance, "is there a chance the vessel could break in half and spill its cargo?" Of course there was a long shot chance of that happening, but it was very unlikely, besides there were containment booms.

I explained all of that, but the lead story was "DANGEROUS CARGO COULD BE RELEASED". The best part was the USCG told the reporters that there wouldn't be anymore press conferences because the facts were being distorted. The next day they moved on to something else and we went from page 1 to almost no mention.

Usually the local press did a better job because you could get to know them, but there was always some jerk trying to make a name for himself.

What most people don't realize is that reporters are very rarely subject matter experts on what they're reporting on.

They generally research a 100,000 foot view of something with no context and paint a narrative of what they believe.

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they are usually lucky to get 50% of the facts and context correct. Often there are more misses than hits.

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I'd say you're about 50% right....In other words, the media's right about 25% of the time.

The really frustrating thing is they don't seem to care about being wrong and misleading their readers. They also don't seem to have any interest in developing a base of knowledge about the topic.

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Been saying for many many years, nothing will make you lose faith in journalism faster than watching a report on something about which you are an expert.

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Yep.

And this is compounded when companies have media relations who don't know the subject matter either but make public statements.

One of the major networks did a "government boondoggle" report on an expenditure of $100k to research the best ways to store onions. According to the network, this was a total waste of time and money.

Actually, the research showed a way to store vidalia onions where they would keep for up to 6 months, which allowed a boutique crop only grown in a small area to expand greatly. Now it's about a $150 million dollar crop for the state.

Just read a novel set in 1941 in which the terms "diverse" and"hate speech" were used.

I work in the medical field and they leave all kinds of shite out, they are also very vague when reporting on certain medical things.

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I find they generally seem to run about 60% accuracy

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That's too high. It's much lower than that.

Aviation enters the room.
Embarrassing. I think Hollywood portrays it more accurately, and that’s saying something.

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how often did the media "get it right?"

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Larry Leo cannot not even spell much good less get "grammer" right.