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[carlos_thedwarf]

I've always wondered how often reporters, writers and others in media bother to check facts given to them by often hardly-disinterested parties. Yet more evidence that the answer is "hardly ever."

To be fair, I can see how the initial error here could have been an honest mistake. The problem seems to be that once it was made, a long line of people

Comments

[peace873]

Ban on breast implants for 14-year-olds lifted.

[ex_notthatg]

Why do I have a sudden urge to be in Junior High again? I hated Junior High.

[ex_notthatg]

That makes me want to kill myself.

[carlos_thedwarf]

Stossle is the man. One of the very few libertarians, and even more importantly, true skeptics in the national media.

[peace873]

It's the same problem we see with everything else... Everyone is relatively stupid, but we assume certain other people are not stupid. A doctor, for example, might be an expert in one particular subject, but people tend to assume that a doctor knows a lot about a lot of things. Most doctors don't even know anything about medicine outside their very specific area of expertise. Another example I'm sure you are aware of is Paul Ehrlich who is a very good entomologist but a hack when it comes to predicting, let's say, the future price of copper. Everyone assumes that journalists know a lot about everything (and I think they actually believe it, too) but really all they know is how to write X column inches of blabulation before the deadline.