Rumors, Tweets, Lies, and "SOURCES:"

[MineralMan]

OK. I am in a really bad freaking mood today, so, I'm just going to say this:

We need to stop believing everything that is on the Internet. Really we do. Just because someone tweets some shit does not mean that it's true. Just because someone types "SOURCES:" in front of a tweet does not mean that any such sources exist.

Sometimes, it's true. Most often, it's either speculation, bullshit, rumor or some game someone's playing. Why are we on DU so quick to accept any bullshit someone writes as truth?

If CNN and WaPo are investigating something, there's no doubt that they'll publish what they find when they have the story put together. Why would we listen to someone who tweets in textspeak about this? Why would we not wait for the real journalists at CNN and WaPo to tell us what they found?

We just watched Al Franken announce his impending resignation, based on a bunch of half-truths and outright lies from "victims." One of them is currently carrying on a flirty Twitter conversation with Donald Trump, Jr., for Jebus' sake.

We believe crap that shows up on the Internet far, far too quickly. Why don't we wait and see if that crap is real or not before getting all excited, afraid, worried, or ecstatic over what my turn out to be nonsense?

With that, I'm out...

[LenaBaby61]

1. Agreed.

+1,000

[Cattledog]

2. Yes indeed!

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. The last one was a peach, revealed on "Politico" anonymously.

And it was the deal breaker apparently.

[OnDoutside]

4. +1.

[MelissaB]

5. In reference to the thread you are referring to, a NYT reporter retweeted it.

That's how I saw the post.

I don't like quite a few threads I read on DU, but I'm not about to tell other posters what to or not to post. (https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029943614)

Yeah, I'm pissed of today, too.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. Amen

I am in a phenomenally foul mood today.

I honestly have never understood how people could get so twisted up and turned on by internet / social media chatter.

I'm listing to "Collusion" by Luke Harding right now. I'm at the part where he talks about the media's dilemma over whether or not to publish the Steele Dossier. I wish regular people would apply that type of rigor to their personal decisions over whether or not to repeat gossip and innuendo as fact. Standards people, standards!

[Jan Levinson]

7. I could not agree more

The cable news political pundits are too reactive. They need a lesson students learn in middle school: how to distinguish reliable sources from unreliable sources; unsubstantiated sources vs. substantiated sources; stories with sources that have been corroborated vs. blog post/citizen journalism. Before there is mass hysteria, people need to comment on the source, especially if pundits want to help people understand what the meaning of “real news.”

All this time they could have been reacting to real substantiated news articles and problems: i.e. explaining the tax bill and not simply saying it benefits the rich but delve into how it would cause suffering to teachers, grad students, parents and students impacted by student debt.

[Willie Pep]

8. I agree with you although I am not sure the MSM is much better.

The MSM is now reporting accusations as fact. They want clicks and views and ad revenue. The media has a bad history of contributing to political witch hunts. They largely went along with the swiftboating of John Kerry and helped to lose Hillary Clinton the election with their BS coverage of the email non-scandal.

But yeah this is why I generally don't follow the Twitterverse. I notice that the political Twitterverse is full of cranks and extremists anyway. There is a reason Trump uses that platform to communicate with his crazy far right base. The rest of the Internet is not much better. I like DU because the people here are more grounded than most other places with their pseudo-intellectuals and other baloney.

[Turn CO Blue]

9. Dude, it's not a rumor. Rep Jackie Speier had a press conference - and finding the names is

MERELY part-two of an CONTINUING, ongoing well-sourced story by NYT.

Reporting part-one (secret settlements) without following up with details (names and amounts) is failing at journalism by definition.

So, that is not a scoop, not a rumor. It is just stating the fucking OBVIOUS and who cares? Compared to other tweets, this doesn't deserve scorn like those silly fake stories and "scoops" and conspiracy theories from bloggers and attention hounds.

The moment Speier announced to the world that congress had paid out $15M in secret harassment and discrimination settlements, the second part of the story (finding names and amounts) was an outright OBLIGATION of the press. Period.

IF CNN, WaPO and NYT didn't file FOIA requests immediately then somebody from each of the major media outlets should be fired, fired, fired.

Yeah, I'm in a freaking bad mood too.

Love ya, though.