I think, Zorki, that we are talking about the same thing, just from different angles. Of course there are attempts to deceive by a (mis)use of a photograph or a video, some are deliberate, some accidental. Some are just the nature of the beast, in a sense that only one image/footage could be shown at a slot allotted to that particular news item.
For example, I was in Moscow in 1993, when Yeltsin's tanks were shooting at the Parliament, with communists barricaded inside and protesting around it. It was a lovely Sunday morning, I was driving to the downtown, but couldn't park where I wanted, as the police was blocking the Ring Road around the Parliament. I could see from a relative distance why: special forces were battling demonstrators, there was some smoke from burning cars, etc. I parked in a nearby street and went for a walk through Old Arbat (a major pedestrian and tourist street). As I said, it was a lovely Sunday morning, and the street was full with mothers with strollers, street entertainers, kids enjoying ice cream, etc. It was a somewhat surreal scene: you look to your left and you see, in the distance, cars burning, crowds fighting, etc., and then you look to the right and see happy children faces. Later that day, when i returned home and turn on CNN, all I can see were close-ups of bloody demonstrators faces, cars burning, police beating elderly babushkas etc. The only impression, if CNN was your only source of news, was that the whole Moscow is fighting and burning.
Now, one can argue that CNN had an agenda and deliberately engaged in a "creative" reporting. I do not deny that it is quite possible, likely even. However, the question also is, what would you do if allotted a few seconds for the news? What exactly is the news here? That a dog bit a man? Big deal, right? The news here was not that Arbat was full of happy children, the news of the day was the fight around the Parliament, of course. If you are a reporter sent to the event, you go there and that is what you see and report. Then you rush to the station to deliver the news on time. You do not have the luxury to enjoy an ice cream on Arbat at the same time (as I did). So, from the perspective of that journalist, he reported honestly what he saw and experienced.
This is the curse of the modern media: 24 hours of sound bites, 10-seconds news, impactful imagery. No one has the time to analyze it and present from a different perspective. Of course, there are such programs on TV, but who of us has the time to watch all of the 60 minutes? Not to mention that even a 10-hour program could have a slant.
It is not easy to escape that trap of the modern media. I spent eight years in Moscow without a single incident (not to say that Moscow streets can not be dangerous, just that I was lucky in that respect). However, whenever I travelled to London, Brussels or Paris on business, I would be exposed to CNN or Financial Times news about Russia. After several days, I would question my own sanity of returning to such a dangerous, disastrous place Moscow looked like from their perspective.