First Line Reporting Skills

All across our planet, as newer and stronger technology is being developed, "unusual" things are being seen. As someone who believe that human capabilities are in their infancy, it is easy to get excited about every new report we hear about.
It is important however to keep in mind that we want to be taken seriously and if we expect others to take us seriously, we must treat our reports of various unexplained happening as seriously as we want to be taken.
Don't rush to report every little new and/or strange thing you hear about. Approach each instance as a reporter to facts, not a reporter of the bizarre and unusual meant only to tease the populous.
A good example of this can be seen by comparing my own report titled Fire On mars? with the various reports around the web proclaiming a "man on mars".
When I first noticed the light colored speck in the background of one of the Mars Rover images, I thought it looked like some sort of reflection. It was only via research and looking are a series of photos from the rover that showed the area in question from several different angles and with differing amounts of daylight that I was able to see the area in question did not dim as the daylight decrease and it actually had movement, much as a fire would.
Even with multiple photographs and links to the original photos on Nasa's web site, I still do not claim the image is of a fire, only that my efforts of determining what it is leaves no other explanation I can personally think of except to say it is a fire.
On the other hand, this so called Man on Mars photo that has made it all the way to being on CNN, not only had zero investigating done on it prior to anyone claiming it was a man on mars, but every report on it neglected to say the image is of an area that equates to about a 2 inch high area.
I personally have not seen many 2 inch high men running around lately, have you?
Think for a moment how that makes non-believers feel. It simply gives them more reason to remain a non-believer. If we want to be taken seriously, we have to treat our finds seriously and do a little leg work prior to releasing the information to the public. Otherwise, we will lose more ground than we gain in the public eye.