Some guy working in the FO (low level guy though) comes up with a trade idea involving guys on the trading block. He writes up a proposal, or schedules a meeting or maybe even just tells someone he’s going to present the idea to the GM or assistant GM and then some media type gets wind of this and assumes it’s a deal in the works. I don’t, however, think that they’re making it up though, there’s some game of telephone going around that they latch on to.

Yes, anybody can start a blog. But that doesn’t many anybody has to read it.

The concept that the mainstream media has a responsibility not to speculate and report without checking facts stemmed from the reality that, at one time (and for a long time), “big media” was really the only media. When there’s one source of water in the village, it’s got to be clean. If you take away the construct of the one-source model, and the faceless “big media” profile is interspersed with authors who connect with their readers/viewers/listeners more intimately, the unwritten contract that what is being said is absolutely true falls by the wayside.

There’s a meta-definition of what is “news” – that is, reporters traditionally reported on what was fact, and always spoke on facts. But, when the fact is that something is unconfirmed, that “fact” is reported, and gets conflated with confirmed news. If what is being reported is a rumor, then yes, the fact that there is a rumor is fair game to be reported. It’s that the old guard has been so conditioned to only expect confirmed news as truth, so when rumors get reported many people become angry because they feel it’s being disseminated as truth.

Because of the nature of the media as this inanimate blob, it’s not the reporting side of the news relationship that’s going to change, it’s the consumers who need to adapt to what is news, and more importantly, what is fact.