Wow, watching that news clip reminds me about why I never watch the news. So much bias and unneeded anger. There's no explanation as to why the canon ball missed. There's also no mention of the fact that:

a) the had firing experts on hand b) the fire/police departments were notified ahead of time and probably had someone on site. They also probably had veto power and input on how it was staged.

(* I don't know this for a fact. I'm basing this on every other Mythbusters episode I've ever seen)

My favorite line: "his elderly mother thought the sky was falling." Makes her sound like a simple nutcase. The son then says, "Yeah, she thought it might be a tree falling on the house or a meteorite."

A few months ago my brother and some friends went on an epic multiday hike. The previous year, someone attempted it and was never seen again.

They were all experienced and were very prepared. In the end they found themselves in a situation where they had to have search and rescue pull them out -- going forward or back wasn't an option. They had a locator beacon (part of being prepared) and decided to pull it. The other option was to head back, miss their return date and have S&R come looking for them anyway.

The local news portrayed them as inexperienced idiots who were totally unprepared. They misinterpreted or manipulated quotes. They didn't actually understand anything -- just regurgitated facts with their uneducated and biased tones and extrapolations.

In conclusion, TV news should be ended in all forms. Reporters aren't experts in the subject matter they report. Even though they should be trained to know better, modern news programs make no effort to disguise their bias.

I was just demoing the convenience of the repl to Ev Kontsevoy of Mailgun.