As noted in passing in my bio, I worked briefly in broadcast news. Back in 2005, I was working in local TV news helping produce a local morning newscast, assigned specifically to cover national/international news. By far the most stressful period of my time there was the London terrorist attacks. One of the things that made it so difficult was the wide range of assertions coming out of London. Nobody – BBC, Sky News, CNN, WaPo, nobody – was in agreement on even the basic facts: the number of trains, the number of buses, how many were injured, how many were dead, etc.
So take it from somebody who has been there: for at least the next 24 hours, take everything you read on the Boston bombings with a grain of salt. Right now, nobody is really getting it right. That’s not an indictment of the news organizations involved, either – that’s just the nature of this sort of thing.
And, of course, my thoughts and prayers are with the people affected by this horrible event.