[Verv]

I have found that there are generally two ways that the news can be very inaccurate...

(1) One usually only comes up on little, interest stories -- my example is simple:

- An asian man goes to an internet cafe. He is there for "12 hours" (OMG) and he dies and nobody notices that he is, in fact, dead... However, anyone who has lived in a nation with internet cafes resembling those in Asia is well aware that 'internet cafe' is a misnomer and the notion of someone dying of natural causes, then going undetected for long periods of time is not incredibly unbelivable and there also is no one that can really be blamed for that.

It paints an inaccurate picture -- the view of it as an 'internet cafe' when in reality it is far different; perhaps as many as 40-80 people actively gaming, some people even coming to sleep there; one, solitary worker who is busy cashing people out or handling computer hiccups and otherwise is playing on a computer himself...

The media will portray this in all of the wrong light to make it more than what it is...

In reality, it is not unlike a man dying of natural causes in a public park and appears to be only sleeping, people ignoring his presence because they do not think anything fishy.

It can be damaging for the images that some people have of Asia but overall it isn't a big deal...

The second one that seems more common:

- Polls that point to the stupidity of people, e.g. "X-amount of Mississippi and Alabama voters think Obama is a Muslim."

Where are these people? I am sure that there is a portion of the society which regularly does not follow news and does have some gross biases but... Is this at all representative of Missippians and Alabamans?

Or is this constructed and engineered news?

I want your honest opinions on the two because it does seem to be an extreme circumstance (especially in the latter)...

The issue is that we have news outlets turning everything into 'shocking' stuff in order to generate the most viewers and thus the most revenues when, in reality, this could be quite dishonest.

[GandalfTheGrey]

I'm assuming these are actual stories published by some news agency?

I can think of plenty of problems with news reporting, but I'm not really seeing any in the examples you cited.

1. the audience this story is directed to would not be computer/gaming geeks who are at all familiar with the internet cafe world. To them, this would seem unusual/interesting, and therefore newsworthy - at least in the "human interest" category. If your objection is that it portrays an innacurate picture, then it would seem its not the story per se that is the problem, but how it is presented. But to comment on that I would need to see the actual story you are referring to.

2. the "Obama is a muslim" thing was invented by the right, not by the left as you are clearly inferring. When fox news and right wing commentators spend so much time and effort in planting this lie, its natural for pollsters and news outlets to follow up on how influential this right wing campaign has been. Its pretty clear in this instance who is "constructing" and "engineering" opinions, and its not the news reporters who are merely following a monster that had already been created.

[Lexington]

- Polls that point to the stupidity of people, e.g. "X-amount of Mississippi and Alabama voters think Obama is a Muslim."

Where are these people? I am sure that there is a portion of the society which regularly does not follow news and does have some gross biases but... Is this at all representative of Missippians and Alabamans?

A stunning 52% of Mississippi respondents to a survey done ahead of Tuesday’s presidential primary have bought into the false notion that Obama worships Allah, Public Policy Polling reported Monday. Some 36% said they weren’t sure.

In Alabama, 45% responded in the affirmative when asked the same question and 41% said they weren’t sure, pollsters found.

PPP, a non-partisan outfit, surveyed 656 likely Republican voters in Mississippi and 600 likely Republican primary voters in Alabama.

source

So...not a fabrication.