It has now been confirmed that Cho Seung-Hui did not use extended capacity ammunition magazines. Will the various media outlets that peddled theories on high capacity ammo clips being one of the reasons for the high body count retract their claims and issue corrections? I doubt it.
Meanwhile, there are those who seek to forgive the shooter for his murderous rampage. I just don't get it.
There's an interesting USA Today piece on the way the big media outlets and bloggers handled the news of the crisis and how they disseminated information. The hook used against the bloggers is that they jumped all over a possible suspect, Wayne Chiang, who was a gun enthusiast and met the description of an Asian man behind the shootings. It is certainly true that some bloggers jumped on that possibility, but then again, as I note above, the media also had no trouble jumping to conclusions about high capacity ammo clips being involved, when no such thing occurred. That news item has not been retracted and continues to shade coverage including the possible legislative response to the crisis.
The USA Today piece notes that some news outlets simply rewrote the history by posting over prior incorrect versions with new and more accurate versions without noting the earlier stories and the corrections made.
As with any crisis, there are those who manage the fine line of getting the news out in a timely fashion as accurately as possible, and then there are those who jump to conclusions without having all the evidence in hand.
What I try to do when I post on breaking news stories is to post updates in running order, from oldest to newest at the bottom of the respective postings. You can see the developments as they occur, including references to corrections or adjustments in the prior text.
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