I admire tsnake's attempt to reply with a modicum of reason to such loaded questions, since he must have had some idea of the vitriol waiting to be poured forth upon him (or her, as applicable) in the usual style of this forum. Were I a journalist I certainly wouldn't have bothered.
I remember it being 1977 when I first uttered the line that if everything I read in newpapers about my field of expertise appeared to be amateurish crap, how could I not assume everything else in the paper fit the same description? That attitude gave me the warm inner glow of a self-appointed expert who could pick holes in a newspaper article which is, as he said, composed in a limited space of time with limited facts available, and feel great about my specialist knowledge. Following that logic, I presume you all expect journalists for their 60K or whatever per year to have intimate and specialised knowledge of every subject that might ever be likely to warrant a news item? Umm, yeah right, as my kids might say.
Tsnake is quite correct in observing that certain fields take themselves very seriously, pilots being one of them. Unfortunately he is also correct in stating that the general behaviour of the whole aviation industry resorts very quickly and easily to schoolyard bickering. The fact that his reasoned attempt to state his case was immediately shouted down in such a childish fashion lends more strength to his case than the GA industry's.
I have grave problems with tabloid journalism, and I avoid it like the plague. I often wonder how intelligent people can write the crap they are asked to write and still sleep at night. On the other hand, the work of good journalists and their ability to sum up complex issues demanding lots of specialised knowledge as well as they do often amazes me.
So someone called a Cheyenne a Navajo? Well, ding my chimes! May as well read no further; the journalist is clearly a mug! In fact, I would have to ask the critics why they bother reading newspapers at all?
Think how long it would take you to compose a succinct article about a field you are not expert in given the amount of information available after an aircraft crashes.
Beware of high horses, people; you look a bit silly when you fall off them.