Thought I'd take a minute to point out one of many examples of misinformation and falsification from mainstream media in our country. Sure, there are all kinds of theories about media sources mangling factual information, but a lot of the time it's about something controversial that cannot be proven easily.

But today, one of the major news stations in Austin, News 8 Austin, published the following story on their website ("Hotels already booked for upcoming events"):

"If you think it's hard to get a room in Austin with the Republic of Texas bike rally in town right now, it's going to be even harder in September.

On the week of Sept. 15 - 19 three big events will be happening in the city.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Conference, and the World Mountain Biking Championships will bring a combined 50,000 people looking for a hotel room. "

Who knows how many Austin residents (even cyclists) are expecting the World Championships to take place in Austin later this year. But it's not going to be in Austin, or even in this country. If you want to be anywhere near the actual World Mountain Bike Championship in 2004, you'll need to get yourself to France (see the full UCI race schedule for September).

I expect that somebody will tip off the local news station to inform them of their factual butchering, which is why I copied the relevant portion of their news story above. I'd like to think that someday people in this country might question the media a little more often, maybe even think for themselves, rather than believing every single thing the tv stations and newspapers try to cram down our throats.

Update: I checked the link at the end of the day today, and see that they edited the story to remove any mention of the World Mountain Biking Championships happening in Austin.