How does the media and its subjective perception affect the way this incident was handled?

The media can affect how things are handled because they choose to believe what is true instead of finding out the truth. In this case, the media happened to take the two swimmers 'smiling' while pointing at the disqualified list next to a television monitor and hence assuming that they're happy the Americans were disqualified. So, are the reporters reporting the truth or are they just making their own assumptions? It will lead to undesirable consequences if the incident was not properly handled. The media made the whole incident seemed like the Singapore swimmers were at fault by not carrying themselves with dignity at international meets whereas the Singapore Swimming Association stated otherwise, insisting that their ties with America is very strong and such a thing would not happen. According to the article, the swimmers explained that they smiled because it was 'hard to believe' and not beacuse of happiness. The media and its subjective perception could be indirectly accusing someone. If the media handled it in a better way, there would not be a controversy over Singapore swimmers showing bad sportsmanship and the report would not be widely-circulated across the globe. Therefore, i think that the media handled this incident very poorly by only believing what they see and not wanting to probe further into it. 'Different people will interepret those emotions and reactions in different ways.' It is how we look at them and whether we want to believe what we think is the truth or whether we want to find out the truth.