O Sung,
You mentioned the events of the last few days in S.A, what specifically?
I follow a retired South African journalist on Twitter and she's practically a 24 hour news feed in her own right, even to the point of giving real time updates on breaking news from that country.
https://twitter.com/AdrianaStuijt
If you can provide details of the incident to which you refer we can compare it's treatment in various media.
In general the mainstream media will ignore or misrepresent any story coming out of South Africa which shows the ANC as incompetent or corrupt and they refuse to cover any of the euphemistically described "Farm murders".
I find that in general Twitter is the best source of news because you can cross check facts via multiple sources very quickly and gain a better picture of the story.

OSW all media that purport to inform us of “news” should have a legislated warning at the beginning of their “news” transmissions and publications along the lines of:

WE DO NOT GUARANTEE AUTHENTICITY OF THE REPORTED EVENTS

People may learn to think for themselves, or not.

Hi there SONOFGLOIN...

A headline providing a warning of 'no guarantee of authenticity', a brilliant idea my friend ! Though I suspect that any media outlet doing such a thing, mightn't last for long. It seems that we all have 'controls' placed on us - in the corporate world, government, law and order, in fact all of us have 'controls' of one sort or another applied to us essentially on how we must co-exist.
Save for the media it would seem ?

Sure they have the Media Council of OZ, I think it's called, that's it really ? Other than a general oversight by the relevant Minister in Government charged with Communications or whatever ?

They're so jolly powerful. I guess that's why the current Govt. is thinking of establishing some further controls over 'Broadcasters' at least, often referred too as 'Shock Jocks'.

I'm not personally worried about all that. What annoys me significantly, is the absence of Truth in some accounts. There are those journalists who are quite prepared to besmirch the reputations of people based purely on some premise, even some speculative rumour they've heard around the traps ? If it sounds a good story, then lets run with it ? No matter if they're wrong, and in doing so, they 'trash' the good fame and character of some other poor bugger.

Because police pull-up next door and speak with your neighbour for an hour or so, and he accompanies them back to the police station, it means nothing. Yet on one such occasion, I and another detective had to allay the many wild rumours that abounded, as a consequence of our enquiries ?

In another similar situation, that almost busted up an already rocky marriage, again based purely on rumour and speculation. All of which was precipitated by a very nosey, annoying neighbour, calling into a talk-back radio programme, contemporaneously with our visit.

Whereby, a charge of 'creating a public mischief' unfortunately, wouldn't've held water. Again, the media didn't bother to establish the facts. Ah well...?

Here's a good example of lazy journos on a recent happening here in oz about birthday cakes.

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2013/02/06/australia-bans-kids-from-blowing-out-birthday-candles-on-cake-at-childcare-centers/

We all know here that it's not banned yet anyway.

Hi there RAWMUSTARD...

Thank you for the link. Yes you're right, one eye on their current story, and to hell with accuracy or 'the facts', and the other on the next newsworth event, hopefully with a little more 'bang for the buck' to it.

I've always held the view, if you're completely oblivious to a city or place that you've not previously been and you were unsure of exactly what you're walking into, and wanted to measure the prevailing 'temperature' of a place or situation, one could do far worse than listening to the local 'talk-back' radio station.

One tends to hear the common man or woman articulate (usually anonymously) exactly what's worrying them. Given the Presenter, can of course, arbitrarily, cut 'em off. Though generally speaking, much of what's said is unexpurgated and unsullied by anything the presenter may care to say.

In my opening remarks for this topic, I mentioned a friend who attempts to keep me abreast of events in RSA. Amongst other things she directed me to their top rating talk-back radio station - 702 Talk Radio, in Johannesburg. So, I've been listening to them for the past six or seven months on my little Internet Radio.

You'd be surprised, as was I, to hear of what issues concern the ordinary citizens, the 'Mums & Dads' in the big cities in the country.

Off Topic, I know - Road accidents, involving a fatality between, 01 December 2012 to 25 December 2012, a staggering figure of 1008 persons were killed on RSA roads just in that three week period ! As an ex copper, I was astonished ! That, and many other issues, leading up to Christmas, were discussed.

And now, early February, political corruption, crime, and more crime comes up ad infinitum, as does the declining economy, serious youth crime and unemployment. And some horrid, gang rapes and murder. Much of this, though reported in the media is (apparently) somewhat sanitised. Still all vigorously discussed, without the usual imput of spin, occasioned by the media and proposed by Jacob Zuma and his cohorts.

The problem with the idea that talk-back radio is where "one tends to hear the common man or woman articulate exactly what's worrying them" is based on the notion that they are reacting to the truth and not some manufactured narrative.

Talk-back radio is based on emotion - anger in particular - and has little basis in fact.

It's a place where people addicted to rage can be made to incite the same feelings in others.

When an "expert" is invited to be interviewed and the evidence goes against the general mood of the subject (ie factually proves them wrong), those factual arguments are dismissed and the caller typically denounced.

The biggest problem in mainstream media is censorship, in the form of "creative omission" where relevant facts are deliberately avoided in order to perpetuate a story or impression.

It's not what said, it's what is NOT said that makes the difference.