Maybe because their JOB is to accurately report the news. In the past that was done by either educating themselves or finding someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Sad that you apologize
for people who make a mockery of their chosen profession.
Atrdriver,
Journalism is one of the few industries I know with a bleaker outlook than aviation. Massive staffing cutbacks as the papers slowly lose circulation. I was once a newspaper copy editor, and not long after I started taking flying lessons, I would get calls from reporters anytime aviation came up in a story, because I knew more about aviation than anyone else there. Local news/TV focus on their bread and butter: crime, local politics, sports. Even on the big networks, crashes are too infrequent to have someone on staff, (Miles O'Brien was an exception, until he was let go) so they bring in "experts" to speculate, and with no hard data, you often get some wacky theories.
The problem with most crashes is the lack of information. Video of the crash site is pretty much all you have. Cops/NTSB won't say much, so about all they can do is stick a mic in front of the looky-loos who want to be on TV. This forces the TV anchors (many of whom were never reporters) to fill the hours with their thoughts, and we all know how that goes.
I must say in this case I'm shocked at how fast the NTSB released FDR data, but it looks like it will focus attention on the most likely culprit - icing. It'll take many months to uncover all the particulars, but in the meantime, we all know to pay more attention when the weather goes south.
Breaking news is impossible to get right. too much misinformation. you need time to figure out what's really correct, and I think you'll find the media gets it right pretty quickly. Of course newspapers often do a better job. I can't watch cable news on stuff like this - it's too infuriating.
