Information about #MH370 is in disarray, as the so far fruitless search for missing airliner operated by Malaysia Airlines enters its fifth day. Mystery has turned into confusions and doubts.

The 11-year-old Boeing 777-200 jet, with a total of 239 passengers and crews on board, disappeared between the Andaman Sea, the Malacca Strait and the Gulf of Thailand during early hours on Mar 8. Baffling reports and conflicting rescue messages have been everywhere on Twitter and TV since the news broke, while confusions that followed which angered the families of people on board, misled global media and upset the nations involved in the unprecedented search, bringing new frictions into the unprecedented multinational search.

The question of where (the hell) the flight had been during the two hours it was still in the air, now seems to become more of a tactical issue, less of a question of life and death. Authorities have swung between different versions of the flight’s course — but here, let’s assume the worst scenario, in which the pilot flew the plane out of radar surveillance for another hour, after the plane lost initial contact with the traffic control.

Media organizations have flown reporters to the area overnight, but the public has seen too many possibilities, and yet only a few reporting of facts. Let’s assume the worst scenario again, suppose the multi-government search is to result in vain and leave the public bewildered for months ahead, the media will then not only fail its job of gathering helpful information, but fail the information war.

So why not start to make sense of the messed up information battle and stick to the oldest and simplest fact check trick? Play a chess game in the studio, keep track of who said what, and hold these statements accountable as the search goes on. Draw some white boards and keep them in your studios. That might just be the right thing to do now, even if the media will have months (or years) ahead to find out what actually happened during the past four days and one night.

In the end, the ultimate value of a serious investigation is not rushing to any conclusion, but the meticulous quest for truth.

UPDATE on 4:33 PM, Mar 15, 2014: The Malaysian government concluded one or more pilots with significant maneuvering experience hijacked the jet, switched off communication devices and steered it off-course for at least 6.5 hours without getting tracked down.