How the Media Failed in Its Coverage of the Boston Bombings

It's been a tiring week for anyone in the media — and a sobering one for anyone in the media with a conscience. The coverage of the Boston Marathon saga, from the bombing on Monday to the capture of suspected bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday, brought out some of the very worst features of news in the digital age. Here are the ways the media fail when they cover a big, breaking story — and a simple reason why.

1. The Media Get a Lot of Things Wrong

There was CNN, desperate to be first in announcing an arrest, then clumsily backtracking. The AP did the same, as did the Boston GlobeThe New York Post stubbornly kept exaggerating the death toll, long after confirmation to the contrary, and repeatedly identified the wrong guys as suspects. In social-media land, a vigilante army witch-hunted the wrong people on Reddit and Twitter. Then there are the more right-wing outlets, with their increasingly rabid conspiracy theories that the real perpetrator is a Saudi or that the whole thing was a "false flag" attack, i.e., a put-up job by the U.S. government Read more...