Eric Boehlert points out a very silly, inaccurate assertion that swept through the press recently. It was the claim that when John Kerry announced he would not be a candidate for prez in 2008, he teared up, sobbed, began crying, whatever. That's not what happened and Boehlert provides a link to a video that proves that isn't what happened.
So why did so many media outlets report that it had? There are two explanations — they didn't check or they just figured the readers wouldn't — and neither speaks well of the reporters. The same thing was true when there was that big, televised funeral for Paul Wellstone and it was reported as three hours of Republican-bashing. If you actually watched the video, you saw it wasn't. And it makes you wonder about the accuracy of reporting in the majority of cases. If they're that far wrong when there is a video record, what's their batting average like on stories where there isn't?