is it their right to just report whatever "sources" tell them, and us to decide, even if there may be little reason to believe it to be true for a variety of reasons?

some reports have demonstrated a hesitancy to report rumors, while others do not. that's why, for example i tend to trust howard beck, because he doesn't report every single b.s. rumor like isola or berman who clearly have a different agenda than fact checking their rumors (like seeing if more than one source is saying the same thing, and asking whether they might have ulterior motives for telling you what they think and how that might affect their credibility).

tabloids like the daily news and post are rupert murdochian in their philosophy: "give the readers what they want," which means constant rumors and news to "entertain" us, where integrity and ethics are less valuable. the news tends to try to keep that out of some of their reporting, like serious investigative journalism, but for the post it's across the board...and duh, owned by rupert murdoch (owner of fox news)

if we put our critical thinking caps on we know that...

of course, organizations, agents, etc. have different interests in putting out "rumors." Could be a team's desire to to send a message to another team, maybe their own player, or the other player that they are interested in them. Maybe a person trying to make another organization look bad or lower or raise the perceived value of a player.

who knows?

but i do know that when i see rumors about supposed trade proposals i am not going to assume they are automatically what is happening.

PresIke wrote:Hold on.

Tommy D is not the source of the rumor.

Yes, he did post a quote of the article and the link, but it comes from here:

http://www.fanfeedr.com/nba/2010/09/07/the-works-oscar-on-lebron-depressing-anthony-randolph-trade-rumo

Was it a good idea for him to report it? I'd say that's a fair question. Such is the pressure of trying to get attention in the sports media world, where we see rumor's flying around and being reported no matter how little substance there actually may be to it.

Regardless, Tommy D is infinitely more responsible than Isola, Berman, Vaccaro and Lawrence.

The other part of it is that it is up to us as readers to use some critical thinking skills to not just take what is being reported as rumor and opinion as factual. You are always going to get b.s. rumors because of the nature of that business. I don't like it either, but if we take a more critical approach to reports it becomes more clear what one should believe and what one might be more hesitant to take as anywhere near to "bond."

Tommy may be more responsible than some of the others you mention, but he does post an article and comments on it; I guess that doesn't by definition give the article credibility but I guess Tommy did feel it was good enough to mention. Now, you read the article itself, and it's a really bad summary of a blog post by Newsday (which I am sure Tommy also already posted about too).

For me, he takes a hit for commenting on a retarded article. Nothing new in the article and the some of the content is a mis-characterization of what someone ELSE said, so why bother.

PresIke wrote:fair assessment, martin.

so let's summarize today's journalists and this particular sequence (with the full understanding that their employers are full on pumping that each and every one of them justify their own salary by readership and hits, etc):

1. Rumor happens, and it's not even remotely believable in the first place (AR/Indiana first rounder/Rudy 3way trade)
2. Hahn posts a blog about it.
3. FanHouse dude posts a blog thing about Hahn's blog post, most of it is not 100% accurate.
4. Tommy posts a blog article about FanHouse blog article.
5. Fans freaks out.

Great. And welcome to the offseason.

martin wrote:

PresIke wrote:fair assessment, martin.

so let's summarize today's journalists and this particular sequence (with the full understanding that their employers are full on pumping that each and every one of them justify their own salary by readership and hits, etc):

1. Rumor happens, and it's not even remotely believable in the first place (AR/Indiana first rounder/Rudy 3way trade)
2. Hahn posts a blog about it.
3. FanHouse dude posts a blog thing about Hahn's blog post, most of it is not 100% accurate.
4. Tommy posts a blog article about FanHouse blog article.
5. Fans freaks out.

Great. And welcome to the offseason.

lol...nice one.