Do you believe that news outlets tend to exaggerate events to more than what they really are?

OMG YES, but they want to sensationalize it.
Years ago when working at the Rendering plant we got in trouble for the rank smell,the locals said we were polluting, a news crew came to the plant, and they filmed a steam trap releasing to show on TV, a steam trap releases nothing but steam.
A couple of winters ago driving into town, on a cold night listening to the radio,the news came on and they warned everyone to be careful around the super bad accident out on the highway by the weigh scale,at that moment we were going by the weigh scale and we were the only vehicle on the road, no accident at all.

@SQUEEKY2 : This is a very concrete example of this. Many thanks for this very detailed answer to my question.

Undoubtedly and unarguably, in my opinion. Fair and balanced reporting is—and has been since TV began broadcasting news—trumped by the never-ending quest for higher and higher ratings, Ferguson being a recent example. I so wish the peaceful protests had been broadcast as much as the riots.

@Pachy But that is just it, the peaceful protests are not the sensationalism the public wants to see from the news, sad but true.
The public or most of the public wants blood and gore,lots of violence and mayhem.

Cable news and the 24 hour news cycle has definitely made it worse. Everybody is offended by everything and nothing is clear anymore. It used to be, if you burned down a store, that was illegal AND wrong. Now it is justifiable protest to some. Hell, maybe that’s the non-violent part, either way it was not a debatable issue, and therefore got reported but not debated. Hell, maybe not even reported with only a half hour news show.

Sensationalizing and skewing news to fit a predetermined slant is, itself, old news. Dating to the newspaper era pre-TV news, the mantra has always been “if it bleeds, it leads.” Ferguson is a perfect example. The sensational aspects of the overall story were emphasized to the exclusion of everything else.

My dad was a reporter for the local paper in a small city in the late 1950s. The publisher at the time made his belief quite clear on a regular basis, namely that they couldn’t sell any newspapers unless there was a rape story above the fold on the front page. Hence TV & cable news outlets are merely keeping alive a time-worn tradition of print journalism.

@SQUEEKY2, I don’t know whether it’s entirely true that “The peaceful protests are not the sensationalism the public wants to see from the news.” Sure, lots of viewers are attracted to violent imagery (as long as they’re safely in their homes), but I’m fairly certainly many others (myself included) would like to to be able to see the positive side. Unfortunately, the media and constant stream of videos and tweets too often shows only the worst.

@Pachy yeah me too, that’s why I said the public or MOST of the public. :)

It pays the Bills.

If they weren’t covered, what makes you think the peaceful protests were really all that peaceful?

@Jaxk they would have to have been boringly peaceful, because if they weren’t they would have been covered by the rating hungry media.

Hell to the yeah they do. Actual news isn’t nearly as profitable.

Yep, sensationalism.
I call media a slow fear drip as well. Keeps all the drama mongers tethered to the IV of doom and gloom. I don’t watch the news, haven’t in the last 12 years. I quit cold turkey after 9–11.
Enough for the rest of my life. haha

Some do. Reputable ones don’t. I trust National Public Radio and the BBC.

Very much so, but often with a double standard. For instance, it was okay for Bush to hold hands with a Saudi ruler, but when Obama show’s the same ruler the respect due to a Head of State, He is a Muslim terrorist sympathizer?

@Jaxk The 24-hour news cycle is part of it, but also the vast increase in the number of sources allows for an unprecedented degree of cherry-picking as well. Why go for actual news when you have 37 channels and 62,873,169 web sites telling you what you want to hear in the first place? And, of course, they want viewers/visitors, so there is a lot of one-upsmanship as so many try to get a profitable share of that market.