News Misinformation

In the past few weeks, several news channels have been making mistakes. Two that come to mind are the media running a story on "Vaping Causing Popcorn Lung", and "El Chapo Declared War on ISIS". This misinformation has been nagging at me recently, hence writing a blog post on the topic. Misinformation in the media is no new occurrence. Validation of sources is no easy task, especially when said event is ongoing. It is understandable that information may become skewed, leading to the airing of false news. However, this is not the misinformation that has been bothering me. What has been irking me is the deliberate airing of news stories that are blown out of proportion from the original story. In the case of the Popcorn Lung story, the media took a study from Harvard that showed vaping contains the same chemical that leads to Popcorn lung. However, this was very uninformative due to the study itself. The study found trace amounts of the chemical that causes the disease. Also, cigarettes contain 750 times the amount of the chemical, compared to the levels found in the study. The study also didn't say which vaping juices were tested, which brands they were from, what kind of vaping device, if any, was used, and the specific settings that the device was used at. The media took the study, made a controversial headline out of it, and blasted it out to the public. Being the lazy Americans that we are, this headline was exploded around Facebook and social media, denouncing vape users. All because the media wanted a catchy story and social media users are lazy, uninformed idiots who fail to do research before sharing a piece of information. The same can be said about the "Facebook information use" post that circulated social media, claiming that just because you posted a certain status, Facebook can not use your private information. If anyone who promoted this bull even took 2 minutes out of their life to research Terms and Conditions, they would know that because they are using a service on Facebook's servers, that all information they put out their can be used by the company. If social media users would take a little initiative and research what they are sharing, it would not give any incentive to news sources to make these controversial headlines. But that would be too ideal, and in the end of the day, people are going to stay misinformed.