After many years in broadcast news, I couldn't agree more with most of what is said above. However in the case of the tank car stories, we have excellent examples of local politicians getting lots of free publicity to help provide name recognition in the next election. After all, advertising costs money. So what if his local jurisdiction does not have any authority over tank car shipments, he can appear to voters as doing something about a problem.

Also pity the poor reporter. No reporters can have expertise in all the many different things that are in the daily news. For example, the same reporter may have covered a story about a cancer cure and then the next story is about a train wreck. So in many cases, the reporter is at the mercy of people involved in the incident who frequently have their own agenda. Because of all the competition for advertising dollars, most media today cannot afford to employ reporters to specialize in only a few subjects.