details matter

I was watching Olbermann's Countdown tuesday night, and a minor point has been irritating me all day.

He was discussing the infamous "Mission Accomplished" stunt four years ago, and his guest, who I think was a radio show person, made some sarcastic comment about the receiving line for Bush being colour co-ordinated for show - she was quite scathing about it (Bush walking through a line of ~ dozen brightly clad crew, paired in bright primary colour shirts - blue, yellow, red etc - to be welcomed aboard by the ship's officers).

This instantly hit my "you gotta be kidding" button.
It seemed obvious, without doing any research into the issue, that the line was the flight deck operation crew that was on duty, and that of course they wore colour coded dress - this told other people on deck who had responsibility and authority for what act in a crowded, noisy and dangerous enviroment.

Two minutes googling, 23 hours later and we have flight ops

"...On the Flight Deck the crew wear a variety of brightly colored shirts. Here is who they are and what they do:

Yellow Shirts:
Flight Deck Officers and Plane Directors.
The only people on the flight deck authorized to move aircraft, or to give hand signals regarding taxiing the a/c, or moving it.

Blue Shirts:
Flight deck crew, always work under the direction of a Yellow Shirt Director as part of a designated crew...

Green shirts:
Catapult and Arresting Gear people.

Brown Shirts:
Squadron personnel. (No ship's company wear brown shirts.)

Red Shirts:
Aviation ordnance crews.

Purple shirts:
Aviation fuels people.

Checker shirts:
Squadron maintenance Quality Control people.
Responsible for final overall checks of a/c readiness before launch.

White shirts:
Mail or people handlers for carrier on board delivery (COD).

White shirts with a Red Cross
Medical corps"

This stuff matters.
If you want to get to people, and you're pontificating on national television, do some research!
Otherwise a lot of the people you're trying to reach won't listen, since the first thing you say is something they know is wrong.

I keep seeing this in the media - people speaking authoritatively on stuff when they have not done the slightest actual research into what it is - not even a quickie google and check of secondary sources.

This damages the argument and it annoys me. So stop it.