USA Today fooled by a fake internet rumor (relatedly, Jalen Milroe is NOT in the portal)
Some fake news site started a rumor on X that Jalen Milroe is in the portal. USA Today ran with it without doing the thirty seconds of diligence it would have taken to debunk the rumor. Speaks to the quality of journalism these days.
January 14th, 2024 at 3:03 AM ^
Unlike the USA Today editor, Jalen Milroe appears to have at least seven functioning brain cells, which should be enough to convince him that Not Tommy Rees is an upgrade from Tommy Rees. I suspect he'll stick at Alabama with deBoer.
January 14th, 2024 at 3:07 AM ^
Not surprised. Have you read a news article lately? It's rare to find one without glaring typos, horrible grammar, etc. I even pretty frequently come across ones with entire sentences, and sometimes paragraphs, repeated verbatim (i.e. the same sentence or paragraph twice in the same article). Editing died years ago, why would anyone expect there to still be fact checking?
Honestly, I kind of think that pretty soon AI will do a better job with journalism than the current crop of "journalists"...
January 14th, 2024 at 3:49 AM ^
Indeed, it's so annoying when I read articles that are so grammatically lacking, I end up having to read it correctly in my mind to be able to tolerate it.
Another thing that bugs me is they try to lure you in with the headline and go on to blab ad nauseam for paragraph upon paragraph till they finally get to the point of the headline, fuck everybody that does this.
I just end up quitting reading the article instead of indulging in their narcissistic writing.
January 14th, 2024 at 6:01 AM ^
That would be the fault of whoever wrote the headline (almost always a different person).
January 14th, 2024 at 8:46 AM ^
I like the stories where they dedicate 500 words to summarize their headline. Ugh.
January 14th, 2024 at 11:38 AM ^
Normally a headline is written after the article (and not by the article’s author).
January 14th, 2024 at 7:28 AM ^
I mind the typos less than writers using big words that don't quite mean what they think, aiming more to seem smart than be clear.
January 14th, 2024 at 9:49 AM ^
Like ‘ironically’ when it’s just a coincidence. Sometimes serendipity is the right word. Bugs the hell out of me.
January 14th, 2024 at 11:09 AM ^
And everything is an allegation-even though thousands, even millions view/hear it.
January 14th, 2024 at 12:24 PM ^
You mean, like rain on your wedding day?
January 14th, 2024 at 1:17 PM ^
More like 10,000 spoons when all I need is a knife.
January 14th, 2024 at 8:23 AM ^
Journalism, at least the journalism I knew growing up, is dead and buried. Back in the day reporters would simply report on what happened. Was there bias? Sure, they’re human but it was very subtle and hardly noticeable.
Today we have activists with a platform. Nobody reports anymore, Seemingly everyone enters into a story with a pre-disposition on what they want the viewer, reader, what-have-you, to believe and massively distort the optics to fit their pre-supposition.
This runs across both parties in politics and is seen in sports too. There’s a reason why Pete Thamel has never tried to find out how this mystery third party received the information on Stallions. There’s a reason why NFL reporters spread rumors about Jim wirhout bothering to actually ask Jim (or the Chargers for that matter) if they’re true.
Journalism is dead. Activism is alive and doing fine.
January 14th, 2024 at 9:39 AM ^
I think you have misjudged the problem here. Activism doesn’t drive journalism, clicks drive journalism. You see the activism when clicks and activism overlap.
Media outlets are in a race to the bottom, all trying to obtain the maximum number of clicks for the least amount of money. This means they have no interest in paying journalists enough to write quality articles. That’s inefficient and doesn’t maximize clicks per dollar.
January 14th, 2024 at 9:54 AM ^
Have you seen the videos of local news broadcasts from around the country saying The Exact Same Thing? It’s freaky hearing all broadcasts overlayed on one screen.
Someone wrote that script and sent it out for a “read this” message. Let’s train the masses.
January 14th, 2024 at 10:14 AM ^
Sure, there are ideological bents to media sources and that can be a problem, but if we want to address the issue of quality, the primary culprit is economics. Conglomerates have bought up local news sources and they’re trying to streamline things to maximize profits. Local stories are the most inefficient so they get eliminated.
January 14th, 2024 at 10:53 AM ^
But that's exactly why all these local news programs have the same view on national events. They're written at the corporate level and distributed.
I agree it's wrong to blame the journalists. Journalists now work crazy hours for low pay and can't afford to do good investigative work. Can't afford an editor or don't have time for one.
January 14th, 2024 at 11:02 AM ^
I listened to Amanda Knox on Sam Harris's podcast a few weeks ago and she made the point that her trial coincided with the deep cuts in newsrooms across the US, so much of the trial reporting both within Italy and outside it relied on recycled social media reports rather than reporters actually going to Italy to get the facts firsthand. These reports got recycled as newspapers relied on them and on each others' coverage for their stories.
Regardless of what you think of her (I happen to think what happened to her was a gross miscarriage of justice) no one should be tried in the press by a social media lowest common denominator.
January 14th, 2024 at 12:57 PM ^
And that's why people should support newspapers, especially local ones, rather than just criticizing them; the reason newspapers are shrinking and disappearing is because people won't pay for them and instead get their "news" from crappy social media feeds. There's a reason ignorance and misinformation and anti-democratic forces are growing just as journalism is being starved to death.
January 14th, 2024 at 1:14 PM ^
Let's be clear if you're talking about it, every one of the videos come from an actively (not merely ideological) right-wing media corp Sinclair Broadcasting. Yes, in this case the politics of matter.
January 14th, 2024 at 10:02 AM ^
Amen to that!
I downloaded the Ground News app awhile ago which is more of news aggregator, but it allows me to adjust the settings to give me the “just the facts ma’am” articles on current events. There’s other interesting features in the app, but check it out if you’re as fed up with journalism these days as I am.
January 14th, 2024 at 11:45 AM ^
This is rose colored version of what journalism used to be. Examples of the "nobody wants to work anymore" article have been getting published since, at least, the 1800s.
January 14th, 2024 at 3:37 AM ^
A lot of Bama fans wanted Milroe out after Michigan destroyed their offense but after witnessing what Michigan did to Washington Joe Moore Award winning oline & AA Penix jr they now realize Michigan D was the standard.
January 14th, 2024 at 3:39 AM ^
I'm surprised that the ESPN AI didn't beat them to it.
January 14th, 2024 at 6:07 AM ^
There is a rumor going around that both Milroe and Penix have PTSD after the harassment both got from Michigan's D and that both are having recurring nightmares of where they are being chased by a ravenous wolverine. Also rumored that Michigan gave Penix Peyronie disease.
January 14th, 2024 at 9:33 AM ^
"If you have a four-man Michigan pass rush lasting more than four hours, seek medical help immediately."
January 14th, 2024 at 9:59 AM ^
Woodson and George tried to warn them, they weren't paying attention.
January 14th, 2024 at 8:24 AM ^
Good thing for ESPN that GameDay is done for 9 months.
Paul Thamel & Pete Fartbomb would have filled an entire 50% of their three hour airtime on this eventual - nothing to see here - story.
January 14th, 2024 at 8:24 AM ^
This kind of trash 'journalism' is what brought SignGate to its peak and what still fires the rumors about what everyone will do in the future. (And by 'will', I mean might...) Nothing can be believed unless there is substance behind it - a date, a direct quote, a photo, etc. When some reporter tells me "sources say", or "I'm told to believe", or some other shit like that, blow it off as rumor-mongering.
January 14th, 2024 at 11:16 AM ^
Nothing beats that tripe of a piece about what the ANONYMOUS B1G coaches thought about Michigan.
January 14th, 2024 at 12:51 PM ^
That's a really lazy and unfair take about reporters. Good ones use reliable sources all the time.
You're talking about all the self-proclaimed "reporters" who cover CFB, mostly untrained stans for fan sites who aren't actual reporters.
January 14th, 2024 at 8:50 AM ^
Crappy paper runs with wild rumor because it wants to be one of the first to report the “news.” When has that ever happened before?
January 14th, 2024 at 10:03 AM ^
The guy who started the Lanning rumor apologized for it. I don't care enough to read the article, but what is worse than this are all the outlets that 'reported' this as if Lanning was half-way out the door. Sources, y'all, sources.
https://awfulannouncing.com/local-networks/brandon-kamerman-dan-lanning-oregon-apology.html
January 14th, 2024 at 10:16 AM ^
Someone with an education really thought Milroe's Twitter handle was Big Orange Punch?
January 14th, 2024 at 11:22 AM ^
Probably AI generated..
January 14th, 2024 at 12:49 PM ^
I still think Milroe will eventually transfer. He doesn't seem like Deboer's kind of QB.
January 14th, 2024 at 1:07 PM ^
Milroe best be looking around. He processes much, much too slowly to be a good QB in DeBoer's preferred offense.
January 14th, 2024 at 2:29 PM ^
Counterstrike is the only reliable source.