You would have to spend time in a news room during the early happenings of an event like yesterday to understand why there is much bad information passed along. Breaking news is a very competitive business, and being first on the air with even a little tidbit of info is very important to the bosses. Oh, they do lip service to accuracy, but the way they behave in moments like this conveys anything but a motive to hold a tip until it can be verified.
In today's MFM world the local newspaper, TV and online news gatherers and presenters often share a news room and personnel. Not a good formula for assuring accuracy in reporting.
In my case I worked for a newspaper that shared its facilities and personnel with both the area's leading TV station and the parent company's online version of the news. It is especially hectic when the breaking news story is happening at or near deadline time for the paper. Lots of people doing lots of things and consequently lots of opportunity for things to go wrong.
It does not help that many, actually most, of those in the news business are liberals, often flaming liberals, who desperately want any report, tip or hint of a Right Wing involvement in a story like yesterday's to be true. They have an entirely different mindset when it comes to handling news about liberals compared to how they handle news that might put Conservatives in a bad light. It's almost like a genetic thing with them. Most of them don't even realize how different they behave when dealing with one or the other. My job was often helping them find art work for a story and I've seen them firsthand bypass a better picture of a conservative in favor of a less flattering picture of the same person. They just can't seem to help themselves when it comes time to present information on a conservative.
I must hasten to add though that I've never seen them deliberately present false information, just spin the hell out of how the story is told.
As a story moves through the food chain of content for the next broadcast or edition it becomes less and less likely to have information in it challenged. By the time it reaches the managing editor he or she, often erroneously, assumes it's been fact-checked. If it's a line or fact that seems reasonable in the editor's view of the world and the news it can just slide right by them.
For a staunch conservative like myself working in the belly of the beast was often like I had died and gone to hell.
Your inside view is very valuable. I really think that in many cases journalism is like playing telephone. By the time the information makes it to the press, mistakes have become embedded and each subsequent repetition adds more.
But nobody at the end really has any way of verifying or clarifying the story, so not all of the "twisting" of a story is intentional. Perhaps the first reporter had a bias - or simply got his/her facts wrong - but the people at the end of the chain just go with what reaches them, regardless.