On Mike Wise, Fake News, and Real Reporting

The last couple of days have been like watching a media glass menagerie. Washington Post columnist (note: columnist, not reporter) and local sports talk host Mike Wise tried to conduct a rather unscientific experiment. If he made broad, unsourced, fake claims about rather innocuous stories, who would pick them up without doing the proper follow-up?

The answer, in the end, was mostly Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. When Wise boasted on his radio show about his Weekly World Sports News lab project, the burnt Florio called for Wise's head. (He probably still is.) Instead, Wise was suspended by the Post for a month for what he said. At least Wise still has his radio show to keep him occupado until the MLB playoffs.

In light of the situation, I did a whole bunch of reading on the subject - ranging from Wise's conversation with Dan Levy, to Florio (albeit briefly), to Barry Petchevsky at Deadspin, who has turned into a really solid beacon of reason. All made great and salient points.

Yesterday, WaPo teammate and DC Sports Bog proprietor Dan Steinberg then went on the offensive when discussing the Wise situation with hyperlocal outlet TBD. Admitting later that he was flamed about the Wise suspension, Steinberg laid into SB Nation DC - one of this company's city-based sites - by saying they "steal shit." That's a pretty specific jab though Steinberg (and almost every blogger on the planet) does such a thing now and again. His point is about aggregation and, to an end, in line with Wise's about sites running with things that are reported in the rush to be first. For what it's worth, a lot of outlets do that - some more egregious than others, but run the gamut from independent and niche, to completely mainstream.

There's a modest set of points to be made in all of this, I think, though. And they all center on one thing: respect.

I found myself offended when being lumped into a conversation about stealing content, not attributing it, or anything like that. That's not something we do here at Waggle Room. In the small golf reporting community, it's kind of hard not to read great work of colleagues (I still have a hard time lumping myself in that crowd since I'm not sure that's true, so take that how you will). Someone reports some news, they'll get proper attribution from me if it didn't come from a press release.

Fortunately, the same thing is often reciprocated in the handful of times per year that I might have some good info or a story. This whole Ahn/Chung situation is a great example. I felt flattered and honored to get the comments I did in response. I was equally flattered that other outlets picked up on the story and took it even a little further. Those outlets didn't link to me, for whatever reason, but I don't see that as something about which to be offended.

For me, satisfaction comes in the form of digging into a (potential) story, finding out all I can, and sharing it. If that's the end of it, then great. Should it spur on more reporting - with or without attribution - then I'm just as happy. I don't need the universe to know if I started the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning. There's a quiet acknowledgment in the phrase "reports indicating" that should be enough for almost anyone.

I can imagine a lot of bloggers - not just in golf, but everywhere - feel kind of miffed when any outlet or website rips their content word-for-word, barely attributes the source (if at all), and gets eleventy billion hits from it. The reality is that doesn't often happen, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Why get mad? 

The big photographs of the year that I took were the message plane at the US Open and the Ben-Tiger shirt. The latter made national TV (thanks, Jenn Sterger) with full attribution. Hell, a full minute, which is a lifetime on an hour-long show. On the former, TMZ took the picture and put it on their site, crediting me (sans hyperlink, though). In other words, the big boys played by the rules.

I'm sure other sites totally ripped those pictures, put them on their site, and never gave me any credit. And I'll never find them, nor am I going to try. There is a certain point at which a reporter/blogger/whatever loses control of their message. It becomes a part of the consciousness of the collective, and the second and third and fourth kastes to hear it will do what they wish with the information. For many, they feel finding information presented elsewhere is good enough. Have your fun - that's not my thrill.

But back to Wise's point - and he does have one, though terribly demonstrated. A trusted reporter is someone who can make a claim and give the audiences a very reasonable expectation that it is true. Wise complained that people will take a rumor and run with it just to make a name for themselves. That's probably true, but a trusted source isn't to go punking their audience to prove a point. This won't destroy Wise's career or anything, but I'll probably just resign myself to reading his opinions sometimes and not caring about his acumen for breaking news. (Seriously, how many talk shows break news? That was an alarm right there.)

The broad brush by which Wise wanted to castigate the ether of social media and blogging is a bit offensive as someone who has simultaneously embraced both media, fortunately been embraced back, and still maintains a healthy skepticism about everything I hear.

Wise might really have wanted to paint his brush even wider, to be honest. People - not just bloggers, et al - are gullible. I cannot tell you the number of things I have heard other people spout with certainty about sports stars, celebrities, and the like. They have no clue. But they read it in a magazine (or Wikipedia), so it must be true. People are quick to trust. They want to trust. The world of information depends entirely on this notion. This is what Mike Wise's experiment proved.

It might have cost him a month at his writing gig, but Wise showed us two things: (1) people are gullible and (2) the world needs - and fortunately has - skeptical voices willing to seek the truth to save us from our trusting ways.