Good way to put it. The discrimination skills are the same, but the information flow is faster.

I know that I have never, ever, seen a media report on a topic on which I had direct knowledge (either through education or personal experience) which was not in some way incorrect.

Many people have said the same thing. Yet we're conditioned to accept what we see in the newspapers and on TV as gospel.

My first experience where I really paid attention to this was during the 1989 earthquake. We had some "fall off the shelf" type damage in our house. My neighbors weren't home, and I had a key to watch the house. I checked them out, and a lit lamp was lying on a couch, smoldering. Could have been bad.

But most of the Bay Area, when I drove around later, you couldn't tell there ever had been an earthquake. A few areas did see severe damage, and that's all that was on TV. My relatives thought I was done for.

Although I wasn't on scene for the Katrina live coverage, the gap between what was broadcast at first compared to what was found out later, is another good example of media unreliability.

How much of our opinions and policies on current hot issues are based on such news "coverage," or on anonymous and uncheckable sources?