Allow me to share one of my favourite anecdotes from my time in journalism that nicely illustrates this point.
A very long time ago when I was a journalism student in Winnipeg, I was fortunate enough to do internship at the top-rated news and talk radio station in Winnipeg. It was all talk, all news, immediate and continuous. Feeding the news machine was top priority.
We got a press release from a small, local RCMP detachment that said they had seized dynamite from a town up North that was being used improperly or stolen from or blown up by a group of minors. Minors with explosives! This went straight to air. Calls were placed to the detachment and we waited to get a police spokesperson to live-air interview and, I'm certain, the other newsrooms in the city started chasing the story about minors up north with dynamite too. Salacious! Children with explosives, where are the parents etc. Every editor, reporter, producer listened to this station all day so as not to be left behind on breaking news, so I can bet everyone nearly danced with glee about a lede this juicy.
Finally, we get someone from police and one of the veteran reporters is interviewing their spokesperson with questions such like, "Well, where did these minors find explosives?" when suddenly it becomes as apparent as a ton of rocks that the story was NOT about minors. It was about MINERS and the police person who typed the press release picked the wrong version of a homonym.
Hasty retreat and the story died.
So, in terms of breaking news based on eyewitness accounts, whether the burning truck was filled with mail from Canada Post or UPS is fairly benign. At least they didn't assign gender to the male truck and start chasing the wrong angle. 'Well, how to you know the truck identified as a man instead of a woman?'
It happens.
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