If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain
Nowadays news really needs to begin with a disclaimer: "Based on true events. Dialog, characters and facts have been altered or fictionalized for dramatic effect"
The amount of truth and distortion in news is determined by the values the media outlet or the reporter lives by.
If their values are Foundational American Values (FAV) then all their stories are corroborated and researched. Fact and opinion are rigorously separated. Opinions are clearly stated as such and many sides are presented so that analysis can be properly done. Words are chosen so as not to foster gossip. No influence or conflict of interest is allowed.
If their values are to get fodder for the 24 hour news cycle and to keep in front of other media outlets, you can bet that the first breaking news is usually unverified Gossip and Rumor.
Remember the Tiger Woods Story. Initial reports placed him in the hospital with life threatening injuries. Turns out his wife found out about his Whores and beat his car with his own golf club. Ok not much better. LOL Remember 2000 when Gore won… wait Bush… wait Gore. Or the Duke LaCrosse players that were convicted in the media of raping a black woman who later turned out to have made up the whole thing. The players were completely innocent. Their lives were ruined because of an ideology that assumed guilt just because the victim was a black woman and they were white men.
Stories are concocted by taking quotes out of context. For example I just learned today that Sheryl Crow's comment to "use one square of toilet paper" as a remedy for Global Warming, reported by the media as serious was in context just a joke. Sheryl was made to look stupid and fodder for the gossip machine and late night jokes at her expense.
How about the rest of the story that is left out of the news, or the reports that are never even mentioned?
Many times news is fabricated. Remember the forged papers that brought Dan Rather down. Communist and totalitarian countries use news outlets for propaganda. Palestinian "Sources" about Israel are about as reliable as getting news about Jews or Blacks from the Ku Klux Klan or the Neo-Nazis.
The focus of the news on murders, rapes, crimes, wars and rumors of wars, in itself is a distortion of reality. Life is not reflected by a sensationalist drive for ratings.
Did you know that our History is rewritten by committees that determine what student textbooks say based on Political and special interests or which State buys the most books. For example, we are not taught that the Pilgrims had a bountiful harvest only after they changed their Socialist ideas of everything belonging to the community to those of property ownership and reaping the rewards of each individual's efforts.
We are never taught about the eugenics movement to kill defective children and all inferior races actually began in the USA. Why? Because Planned Parenthood has its origins from that same eugenics movement and their initial founding was to sterilize all black women.
We are not told of the founders vehement opposition and the unconstitutionality of Income taxes especially Progressive Income Taxes which Karl Marx felt was the best way to force a society into Socialism and Communism. Why? because the Politicians don't want to give up their ill gotten gains and power.
We are not taught about George Washington's warning not to have Political Parties or factions. Why? So as not to get on the bad side of the two parties' power and influence. We are not taught that George Washington took no salary and imposed a term limit on himself as an example to all later politicians so that Politicking would not be a career and lead to the destruction of our Nation as it is now doing. Just to mention a minuscule portion of the distortions and missing information.
Until the news is held to the standard of FAV, it is up to the individual with FAV to be careful not to judge their fellow human beings until they find out the whole truth.