The media trumpeted a ‘missile’ on the evening news, but it turned out to just be a contrail. The media is being too excitable and not doing enough fact checking before reporting.

“Mystery Missile: Who Launched Missile Off California Coast?” and “Mystery Missile Launch Seen off Calif. Coast” were two of the recent headlines published by CBS and ABC News. But it was clear enough that our most trusted organizations trumpeted the words “missile” and “launch” without first establishing exactly what made the contrail.

This situation wasn’t just harmless media scare; small groups of conservative moderates were seriously considering gathering all their canned goods and heading for the Borrego Desert because they thought an ICBM was incoming with a warhead attached to it.

The media has the power to scare us into just about anything. We rely on it to deliver us important information and more increasingly that information is clearly misleading or skewed, and raises red flags.

The mystery missile was just a jet contrail, but for many Americans who know only what the media first told them, it will be remembered as the time California was attacked by missiles.

In order for the major news organizations to set things right, they’re going to need to go out and tell people they were wrong in their initial suggestion, and although the Pentagon took a disturbingly long time to accurately assess the cause of the contrail, it was the media’s fault for claiming the sky was falling.

When the media grabs hold of a breaking news story regarding an unidentified incoming missile that turns out to just be your average 747 returning to Phoenix from Hawaii and doesn’t suck up to its mistakes as greatly as it sucked to hear them lie about it, it makes people frustrated.

We need the media to stop being that red headed stepchild that screams about their problems kicking and screaming on the floor. We need them to move on and help us reach more moderate conclusions on our own.