Eurolanche

Why the media should publish rumors

Rumor of the year: Parise to Avs

The worst issue of all sports rumors is their other side – most of them are products of the fantasy. They likely will never happen. Eurolanche fanclub has published one of the biggest rumors of this year. The main source was a man from the Avs forum who referred to the “reliable source”. The story has raised hundreds of reactions. Some of them refused this rumor immediately. Why the media should publish rumors even if they are not looking realistic?

Type “worst sports trades” in the Google. You will find thousands articles. Unexpected trades happen all the time everywhere around the world. Even after every trade there are fans who could not believe it. There is always surprise for somebody. If you would tell them about that upcoming trade, he would make a fun of you. You would be crazy or fool man until the moment when this trade would really happen.

There is nothing what we should not expect. The biggest all-stars could be trade for bunch of average players and draft picks. Did not happen in the past many times? All what I can now guarantee you is that it will continue and nobody would stop it. Behind the crazy decisions of managements will be personal problems of players, money issues and something more about what we could discuss and write rumors. Everything is possible. We could not choose what is not or what is.

Media which published rumors does right step. They firstly must underline the word rumor in their stories and did not misrepresent their readers. The lying is the worst part of this process. I do not understand people who start spreading the rumor like the fact. Pure fact. But I understand media which published them like the rumor, not like the fact. Media just want to inform you. And if they are not sure about it – and it is not possible to confirm it – they have to add this part to the stories too:

“This is just a rumor. We were not able to confirm it.” Of course I am not talking about the world events like deaths of presidents. I am talking about sports rumors when it is hardly to find out what is and what is not just a rumor. Believe me or not, I would not believe in 1995 if I heard the rumor about Patrick Roy ´s arrival to Denver.

One of the most important works of the media is the confirmation of the news from their own sources. The topic of rumors is very special. There are employers of NHL teams or friends of NHL players who used to open their mouth sometimes. They like the fact they know more than you. But then the rumor is spread in the world of the internet and it is almost impossible find the prime source. Even if the journalist would know the identity of the employer of the team, they could not publish his name. Why? Journalism has several rules when we could not publish it. One of them is “if the published identity would cause the problems of the source in his professional career”.

Sum up, media and journalists could not create their own rumor, publish them and then received great number of daily visits/readers. They firstly have to try to confirm this rumor somewhere. If it is not possible they could decided to publish it like the rumor, not a fact. Fans have then a place for the discussion and could spread other rumors. It will be always fun if the media would not lying like some of the “reliable sources”. It is offseason and as one of the fans has wrote: “And all the rumor talk is still more exciting than watching the NBA!”

(Sorry NBA fans, I really do not like basketball, but this was only joke.)