Ancient years ago, about 6, CBC journalists could be heard explaining to crowds how bloggers might one day be eating their lunch, but for the time being the responsible journalism was being done by the Main Stream Media.
Then an armed gunman shot a soldier at the War Memorial before charging into Parliament with a rifle. Peter Mansbridge reported there were “reports” of a shooter at the nearby Rideau Centre. People hunkered down at the Chateau Laurier hotel on the other side of the Canal. In hindsight these were reasonable precautions given erroneous or exaggerated reports of there being another shooter seen coming out of the car of the first. Also in hindsight, it was a mistake to report them because the information turned out to be misinformation, and were never properly confirmed. Ivison reported there were two people coming from the car, and that Canada had lost its innocence. The shooter made it past second base, I suppose, but Canada is no virgin. Ivison remained wrong on both claims.
https://twitter.com/AndrewMitrovica/status/526521515228270593
At least one journalist figured it out:
Ottawa journalists are too close to the story to be objective, as Mitrovica made very apparent:
https://twitter.com/simonhoupt/status/525071847113904129
If you’ll allow me to recycle one tweet from my last blog post about this subject, Frank Magazine raises an important question that applies to the supposed benefit of having live, unconfirmed news coverage of an active shooting scare:
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 
https://twitter.com/EganYune/status/526553680406130688
To report what isn’t true in the heat of the moment just to be making noise IS irresponsible journalism. I’m not a journalist. I’m just an old retired woman who wants the truth. Canadians want the truth. If you can’t write the truth you are not a journalist. If you can’t report the truth don’t report anything. I am a political junkie and never have I had less respect for the main stream media. It grows less by the day. Thompson, Ivison, Milewski, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Just a comment from one of your consumers.