Kurtz criticizes Politico for publishing memo before verifying its authenticity

Verify ? facts get in the way of a good story ? what an annoyance

That is not and should not be a rule of journalism to publish first and verify later. Because sensational stories that are bogus nearly universally achieve far more fame before the correction is made than following it. And corrections reach a fraction of the population that mistakenly believe the error. This is why there is such a huge misunderstanding over MMR vaccines and other vaccines causing autism after extensive research has disproven this and why people continue to believe that birth control can cause cancer even though combined oral contraceptive appear to have no increased risk of breast cancer and protect against other cancers and progestin contraceptives show no evidence of increased risk. But no one cares about the retractions.

No one wants to hear about no link or no news or no story. They just care about the story and the more insane sounding the better. So critical think and objective examination of the evidence goes out the window as people see what they want to see anyway due to the innate confirmation bias. This is the problem with our society - the people that believe something end up clinging to it to the bitter end. Climate change cannot be addressed or even discussed because both sides are extreme and unwavering in their convictions having read or seen parades of evidence to fit their preconceived idea and disregarded the opposition.

This is also why people cannot be convinced when every piece of evidence points to the contrary - those who deny evolution are seeking out every little shred of evidence on the planet in order to discredit evolution while ignoring the vast and enormous sums of information that support it in addition to the numerous implications of it that they will readily believe without being aware of the link like nearly every aspect and application of biology like genetics, molecular and cell bio, artificial selection and genetic engineering, evolutionary computation in computer science, adam smith's capitalism and game theory in economics, adaptation, and evolutionary psychology.

...Burn.