Do You Trust The “News” Media?

I don’t. And I’ve got a recent example to illustrate why I don’t.

You may have heard about a Virginia teacher allegedly shot by a six year-old student.

The first report I saw about this, on the day it happened, said a teacher was shot but no students were involved. At that point I suspected some domestic dispute, or maybe an angry parent. That report also said the teacher had a non-life threatening injury.

Then we heard that a student certainly was involved, and was the shooter.

Then the teacher’s wound became “serious.”

Then she was in critical condition.

This morning, I found a newsfeed headline that said she had died. But clicking the link and reading the new report, she’s alive and has been upgraded to stable condition.

Whatever “stable” might mean. I saw her reported in “critical but stable” condition at one point; that status shows up in a lot of news muddia reports about shootings (and other injuries). It drives me nuts, and it pisses off my RN sister.

If you’re in critical condition, you’re on the verge of dying. If you’re somehow “critical but stable,” it only means that they’re constantly working to stave off death. A good example (which my sister has seen) is pumping new blood in as fast as the patient is bleeding out from multiple perforations.

“Critical but stable” really means, “He’s close to death, but we don’t want to upset his family by admitting it.” And reporters are too stupid to figure that out.

So, no; I don’t trust the news. Nevertheless, I still read a lot of news reports. Mainly in an attempt to gather enough random hopefully-facts to piece together a narrative that makes sense. And I damned well never take initial reports on a high profile incident as even semi-related to our reality; most reporters are out to “scoop” the competition with whatever rumor they can get, the more outrageous and click-baiting the better.