Error of Fact

It's hard to get the story right sometimes, especially if it's still developing. This holds true for the devastation surrounding recent Typhoon Haiyan. The details of the storm have been difficult to report and that is readily apparent across the news media.

This is an excerpt from a CNN article regarding how many people "were driven out of their homes."

Here is an excerpt from an NBC article also regarding the number of people "forced from their homes."

It is understandable at this point in time that news organizations do not have an actual, agreed-upon number of people who were affected by the storm. Since this is the case though, what is purpose of reporting a number at all? More and more readers get their information from a multitude of sources these days and they can easily be lead to confusion if the numbers aren't matching across news media.

Here are four additional fact errors regarding the wind speed of Typhoon Haiyan:

So, what was the actual wind speed? How many people were affected by the storm? I guess we will wait and see.

Full articles for these stories can be found on the Washington Post's website, the New York Times' website, NBC's website and CNN's website.