Yellow journalism is, apparently, still a thing.
This much is clear when examining the content of many national news media outlets.  It seems like they all report on the same topics constantly, and try and drive half-baked ideals down the throat of the American people. Stories that aren’t “sexy” are ignored, and numbers that don’t support the views and arguments that the media outlet usually supports are ignored.
Even when numbers are reported,  they are doctored just enough to support claims that are not always fact. Here is a small, and non-controversial, example. Just check ESPN.com really quick. Go ahead, take a peek.
Pick a statistic from one of their columns, preferably one from Rick Reilly, or one of their may “lead NFL experts” like John Clayton or Adam Schefter.
Done looking? Okay, now head over to pretty much any Web site that specializes in statistics, like Pro Football Reference, or Basketball Reference, or possibly even FanGraphs. Compare the stats that ESPN uses, to the actual, non-sensationalized version of these stats. Now realize, that this is the process that people need to go through every time they see a news story.
Fact checking is no longer a tool made for journalists (term used loosely in the case of ESPN these days), writers, and anchors. So much of the news and the facts backing up the news are just opinions being voiced by writers and on-air personalities in a sensational manner.
Its not just ESPN reporting these kinds of stories. For years, news outlets like CNN and Fox have reported on sensationalized political stories, like the issues with Ghadafi in Lybia or the issues that are currently arising in Egypt, while completely ignoring stories that are not as profitable, like the protests currently happening in Turkey, or the riots and battles between the rebels and the government in Syria, or perhaps even the recent delinquency of Israel.
Mass media news outlets these days are extremely unreliable.
Luckily, the Internet exists. This makes looking into the media’s stories much, much easier, and in the process, can keep anyone with access informed.
Taking advantage of the internet will help curb the many factual issues with the stories published by the larger media outlets.