To get it better, you need an audience

When emotions fly high and information is scarce, is is very hard for media - old and new - to get things right. Western media have been told they did it wrong, and since the Chinese media are for important issues still at the leash of the censor, they hardly matter in finding the truth.
Online media have hardly been performing better, and also here we wrongly reported that a Dutch flag had been burned at Hefei and an American teacher had been attacked in Zhuzhou.
Getting it right has always been tough for any media, but nowadays we have a great new asset: our audiences. In the past they would sometimes gett annoyed by mistakes in the media, incidentally write a letter to the editor and sometimes it would get published, weeks after the incident.
Now the audience can hit a button and write back right away. That does not mean my commenters are always right: also my audience can make a mistake. But that is much better than the old situation.