This is a great example of why the media is no longer trusted

This is a great example of why the media is no longer trusted.

A prank caller somehow got himself onto MSNBC on Thursday, where he cursed at host Krystal Ball during a discussion of the Malaysian Airlines plane crash.

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No one bothered to find out if this caller was for real or not. They are in such a rush that they don't seem interested in investigating anything and even less time researching what we expect them to know.

Gregg Zoroya of USA Today wrote this yesterday,

One of the first comprehensive efforts to explain record suicides among soldiers during and after their deployments in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan finds an indirect link between deployment, combat and self-destructive urges, according to a paper published Thursday.

It didn't seem to bother him that it was already reported in March of 2014

Study shows infantry soldiers more susceptible to suicide
Rates tripled from 2004 to 2012
Jacksonville.com
Clifford Davis
Posted: May 9, 2014

For most soldiers, their suicide risk is low before their first deployment, the study found.


During deployment, that risk spikes and then comes back down after the soldiers return home, though it is never as low as the pre-deployment level, Schoenbaum said.

Among current service members the suicide rate is remaining steady but historically high while the number of veterans killing themselves represent one of every four suicides in Florida.

It didn't seem to matter that the Department of Defense had already confirmed what most veterans knew in 2008. DoD Confirms Role Combat Plays in Suicide Epidemic and it also stated this.

Army researchers have come together with the National Institute of Mental Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs to increase the nation's awareness and understanding in suicide prevention, Dr. Philip S. Wang, director of the Division of Services and Intervention Research at the National Institute of Mental Health, said.


The five-year partnership is the largest research initiative on suicide ever conducted in the civilian and military sectors, Wang added.

"The National Institute of Mental Health is honored and committed to working with the Army to understand the urgency, to identify risks and prevention factors, to develop new and better intervention," he said. "The knowledge will not only extend to soldiers and their families, but to the civilian population as well."

Along the same lines Report: DoD does not know if PTSD programs work on Army Times in 2012.

In 2009, Dr. Manion was hired by Spectrum Healthcare Resources and Nitelines Kuhana JV LLC, two healthcare contractors, to provide psychiatric treatment to members of the military who recently returned from combat duty. Many patients suffered from PTSD or TBI.

According to the suit, Dr. Manion believed that he was "under constant pressure from his superiors to rate patients as acceptable for deployment…even in circumstances where patients were diagnosed as posing a violent threat to themselves or others or were dangerous for combat deployment due to the presence of a significant mental illness."

As for the news report of how the DOD and the VA don't know if their programs work or not, again, flashback to what was reported in 2008.

APNewsBreak: Report: Pentagon doesn't evaluate its 200-plus programs on PTSD, brain injuries
DAN ELLIOTT
Associated Press
First Posted: November 14, 2011

DENVER — A study commissioned by the Pentagon says the military has more than 200 programs devoted to brain Injuries and the psychological Health of its troops, but no uniform way to evaluate whether they work or to share their findings.

The Rand Corp. study says some programs duplicate others and that the Pentagon risks making a poor investment of its resources without better coordination.

All of us know that none of the problems with the VA are new but reporters pretend they are as if they are in competition to get the scoop instead of getting it right. Instead of informing the public on how bad the truth really is, they want us to get angry for today and just forget about it.

As with the prank phone call going into MSNBC, I am not sure which bothers me the most. The fact someone thought the deaths of hundreds of people was of such low importance he would pull a prank call or the fact that MSNBC actually allowed it to happen. Both should make us sick. It is the same way with reporting on the suicides and ignoring what we already knew.