When it comes to big merger news, investors let the media get away with making sleazy deals with sources in exchange for access. The case of the aborted Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) -- Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) deal is no different.

Investors would be nauseated by the amount of butts that get kissed behind the scenes during these drawn-out sagas. Reporters suck up to companies, public relations people and investment bankers and vice versa. I saw some of this first hand when I worked for Bloomberg and would write about deals from time to time.

Since the number of people who actually know anything about an acquisition is fairly small, members of the media contort themselves into rhetorical knots to protect the identities of the people who are spilling the beans. That's why these types of stories are filled with phrases that no one would ever utter in daily conversation such as a "person familiar with the situation" or a "person familiar with (insert executive's or company's name) thinking"or my personal favorite "a person close to the company."

Forbes magazine needs a good map or two.

The business magazine's article "America's Wildest Weather Cities" lists two places that don't exist. Blue Hill, Mass, dubbed the windiest city, is incorrectly described as a Boston suburb. Actually, there is a place called Blue Hill, The Blue Hill Reservation, a 7,000-acre state park that seems lovely. The Web site lists its address in Milton, Mass. There is no town named Blue Hill in the Boston area, according to the Greater Boston Convention and Vistors Bureau.

More embarrassing is the description of Springfield, Mississippi. I could find no town by that name in Mississippi although there is a Springfield Plantation near Natchez which reviewers on Yahoo Travel seemed to like. Even odder, though, was that Forbes describes Springfield as "a slightly elevated city in the Ozarks at 1,266 feet." As this helpful map on Wikipedia shows, the Ozarks don't go into Mississippi. Interestingly, there is a city in Missouri named Springfield that happens to be located at an elevation of 1,266 feet and is known as Queen of the Ozarks. Perhaps, Forbes was thinking of that Springfield or the one where the Simpsons reside.

Though I hate to spoil today's company holiday at Forbes, there is a bigger issue at stake here. In today's age of instant communication, readers need to be more skeptical now than they ever have been. Wrong information can be spread with an alarming speed.

Should Forbes have caught these errors before the story was published? Of course. But the news gathering and writing process isn't fool proof. Mistakes, though unfortunate, are unavoidable. No one is perfect.

But what separates journalists from people who just post stuff is how they deal with errors when they are pointed out. I've contacted the reporter who wrote the story and will let you know if I get a response.

Update: Forbes has corrected the errors.