It’s not every day the media is held accountable. The press, at its core, is supposed to hold those in charge accountable.

But Flyer News is holding the local media responsible for the  minor slips of misinformation about the St. Patrick’s Day incident.

There was no riot.  Remember, just because the police are wearing riot gear, doesn’t make it a riot.

Even more, most local television news said the “riot” (their term, not ours) happened on Saturday night.

There might only be a moment demarcating Saturday night from Sunday morning, but there is a big difference between reporting live on Sunday and saying something happened yesterday night as compared to just earlier this morning — UD students know the difference. Like the police, the media misunderstood the nature of the party.

It was especially humorous to hear one reporter claim “11 police cruisers were damaged” during the incident. That would be news, incredible news, if only it had happened. There were 11 cars damaged in total on Sunday, including one UDPD police cruiser.

In a situation where police are wearing riot gear trying to contain a thousand drunken college students, vast amounts of information will float around. It is the job of the media to gather and disseminate that information to paint an accurate portrayal of what actually transpired.

Most of all, however, Flyer News gives credit to UD media relations. Since the early hours of Sunday, these same administrators have gotten out in front of the story, trying to provide the media with all the information available to them to quell the misnomers coming out of this story from media outlets. Not once did Flyer News have trouble covering this story — the information was always there.

Flyer News asks since the university is, for once, trying hard to push information into the open, shouldn’t the local media do its job, too?

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