Cowboy Bebop At His Computer - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Fact Check Failure

How wrong is this clip?
Let me count the ways...

Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.

As Abraham Lincoln once said, Journalism is the first rough draft of history. Or possibly it was Thomas Edison who said that. I'm pretty sure somebody said it, because you often hear journalists quote it in an effort to explain how come they get everything wrong.

—Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)

Seems like some people just can't be bothered to do any fact-checking.

The caption on this news article is just wrong. You can be pretty sure the article is also going to suck. This kind of screw-up can be understandable, or at least comprehensible, when someone Did Not Do The Research. Let's face it — sometimes, it's not easy to do, or the points are so minor. And come on, it's fiction — it isn't as if people are going to take everything written as truth.

But what about the news? Newspapers, a News Broadcast, national news...? You would think they have a responsibility to do at least some research, to make sure they aren't stating factual untruths.

You would think.

Sometimes, it seems, the entire process of fact-checking gets left out of the news making process — especially when it comes to Those Damn Youngsters' Pop Culture.

Of course, sometimes, the news media doesn't seem to care as much about the truth. See New Media Are Evil. (If you find yourself constantly annoyed by this kind of thing, you probably believe Old Media Are Evil.)

Much more often, though, it's because the media for all its glitz and glamor can't afford to fact-check relatively unimportant stories, and yes, there is an ironclad assumption that media stories are relatively unimportant. Editors know from personal experience that although media stories might attract viewers, getting them wrong doesn't carry the same risk as does making a mistake in an article about a serial arsonist or a local murder trial. Given modern news budgets, TV and newspaper editors don't have the time or the personnel to fact-check both: they have to allocate their resources where it matters most. And media simply does not matter, on an objective basis, as much as real news. Getting an anime character's name wrong is not going to prejudice a jury pool and put the newspaper in contempt of court.

With anime, it doesn't help when the title often has little or no meaning.

This may result from the media trusting a trailer. (One would think they'd have learned better by now.)

Sometimes the mistake is nothing but a misstatement — a simple slip of the tongue or pen made in the heat of the moment. Even so, count on the crazy fan community jumping on the speaker and calling them an idiot or even a liar, no matter how insignificant the error is, because they take the show so seriously that even a tiny error is magnified into the mistake of the millennium.

Compare Complaining About Shows You Dont Watch. See Gannon Banned and Pretty Cool Guy when it's the fans (usually trolls) that get the names wrong. I Am Not Shazam is a key Trope involved. Can sometimes reach Critical Research Failure proportions. Also compare Dan Browned, the version for fictional works.

Warning: Facepalms ahoy. Epic Fail off the port bow. Don't say we didn't warn you.