Who Needs Facts? Post Columnist Reports Fiction On Twitter
Posted by Seth in INTERNET on 08-31-10 No Comments
If the demise of sports media as we once knew it wasn’t already a certainty, this would have sealed the deal.
Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise intentionally posted an erroneous Tweet on Monday afternoon, saying he’d been “told” that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would end up with a five-game suspension as a penalty for his little bathroom rendezvous a few months ago in Georgia.
Yes, you read the words “intentionally erroneous” and “Washington Post columnist” in the same sentence. Welcome web media culture, circa 2010.
Apparently Wise was trying to make the point that in a world where Twitter and Facebook and blogs are considered legitimate news sources — where sports reporters are compelled to push information to the web and mobile platforms as quickly as they can — a rumor can still make its way around the world before the truth can hitch up its pants. Indeed, AOL Fanhouse proved as much, linking to several media reports that mentioned the Roethlisberger rumor and referenced Wise’s Tweet as the source. To its credit, at least the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh did its due diligence and actually talked to the Steelers in an effort to confirm Wise’s claim.
Meanwhile, we’ve got a columnist for one of America’s great media outlets deliberately publishing misinformation. And for what? To prove that people will believe whatever they read in 140-character bursts on Twitter? Sadly, we were already painfully aware that this is true. Seems like a pretty foolish thing to do, and he did apologize for it on his Twitter feed. But then again, all it’ll cost him is his credibility. If people believe whatever they read on the web, who needs that anymore?
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