I emailed Rush and reminded him that Dan Rather jumped the gun when he reported that JFK had passed away. It was purely a guess.
Everyone wants to be "first".
Another set of examples are all of the Howard Stern callers who get through with no proof as "eye witnesses", whether it is to the Princess Di accident or the 9/11 attack.
24 hour news channels have a lot of time to fill. Headline News channels offer periodic updates but the "live" news channels will stay with a story, even if there is nothing to report.
That pretty much sums it up. It's all about the bottom line and who gets the most ratings during live news events.
Even some of the stuff reported during Hurricane Katrina were so outrageous on their face, you'd think these idiot journalists would have brains enough to step back and consider the possibility that what they hold in their hand (the latest breaking news report) may sound too good to be true.
The media during Hurricane Katrina become so repugnant and blinded by their own bottom line and latest ratings report, they were inventing news reports like rapes and murders and "bodies stacked like cordwood" in the Superdome.
Interesting you should mention that. Ratherbiased.com had a video clip of Rather taking a Stern caller live during CBS News' coverage of JFK Junior's plane crash. He said something to the effect that he saw Howard Stern's body on the beach laying next to Baba Booey's teeth.