There are many lessons to be learned from the horrific events that took place at last
Friday’s massacre in Connecticut.  Debate on gun control, dealing with people who suffer from mental health issues and how, we as society cope with what can only be described as unimaginable are all being talked about around water coolers and dinner tables.

There’s another part to this tragedy that we can’t over-look; the way the media is covering breaking news stories.  In an effort to “get it first”, they threw out misinformation with reckless abandonment.  The best of the worst was identifying the shooter as Ryan Lanza, 24, and tweeting his Facebook profile picture around cyberspace.  The news outlets had to correct themselves when it turned out that the shooter was 20-year-old Adam Lanza, his brother.  (Ryan ended up posting “Fuck You CNN, it wasn’t me” on his Facebook wall in an attempt to help clear up the confusion)

There were also reports early on incorrectly reporting Lanza’s mother taught at the Newtown elementary school which again, proved to be flat out wrong and massive confusion as to what, and how many, weapons had been used.

And, even before the dust had settled, there was a statement attributed to actor Morgan Freeman in the wake of the shooting that spread faster than nude photos of Princess Kate Middleton that spoke of how the media is making these psychopaths into super heroes.  The problem?  He did not write it, nor had no idea where it came from.   It doesn’t matter though, because it’s still being shared on Facebook and Tweeted at warp speed.

All of this is misinformation is leading us down a very slippery slope.  Why is anyone going to pay attention, and much less believe anything the media reports from the scene of breaking news, when so much of it turns out to be wrong?   It has become such common practice that most outlets don’t even bother to acknowledge their mistakes anymore, but simply remove the page from their website in the hopes no one will remember and then let some PR flak try to explain it away.

Can you imagine what it must have felt like if you had a child in that school, or knew somebody that worked there and you were trying to find out what happened?  In a world where instant gratification is quickly becoming the norm, perhaps a little more homework and a little less rush to be first would be one lesson we could learn this horrible tragedy.