Thanks to the social media world we live in, words and news move at a press of a button and are instantly in front of a million eye balls. The main stream media and we bloggers alike are in a hurry to break or push out aggregated news as fast as we can along with our own thoughts, views and breakdowns of the event to satisfy our readership. Everyone is in a race to be the first to report news or to provide one nugget more of information that no one else has. It is the nature of the beast in the media world and it has not changed since newspapers and media came about.
Over time we rely on what we hear or read from our reputable sources of information, whether it be from Twitter, a radio report or a newspaper writer. These sources of information we have learned to trust over long periods of time for accurate news and respected view points or opinions. News and opinion are two different things and opinions are sometimes regarded as fact, especially as it travels from one end user to another. It happens.
Even the best of the best team beat writers have their own sources that they trust at the top of the food chain. The famous and often unnamed, “sources” we have grown accustomed to hearing from all media outlets. The writers report it because they believe it to be true. Sometimes these sources end up being wrong and it happens in every facet of news known to man and it is part of this imperfect world we live in.
I do not pretend to know who told Jim Wexell that Daniel Snyder was on Sirius talking about a supposed draft day deal with the Steelers. Wexell passed on the information from what he believed to be a reliable source in my opinion. I doubt seriously Wexell would just make something like that up as it is not his nature to do so.
Several will question that Wexell should have verified the information, but Wexell evidently trusted the source of the info enough to just pass it on. Perhaps he just heard the information wrong as well. Mistakes, miscommunication and misinterpretation happen from time to time in the media. Everyone in media and news has made mistakes before. It happens. Tracking down and verifying a source with every ounce of news would be a full time job and often times media and bloggers will go with what other media members report. Once again it is the nature of the beast of how news travel.
I have read Wexell for a number of years and have gleamed some great information from him not found elsewhere. I consider him a trusted source as do many others who follow the Steelers. This one mistake does not change my future opinion of anything he reports as I am well aware that these types of mistakes do indeed happen even to the best of the best from time to time. It is not like he makes a habit of making these mistakes and it certainly is not purposeful. He apologized for the mistake and is trying to move on it seems and certainly has a level of embarrassment in addition. I guess he could further explain the cycle of events that led up to the error, but what would it matter in the grand scheme of things. It\’s out there and nothing will change that. As I said, we all make mistakes and errors. They are easy to point out and just as easy to get past.
Cut Wexell some slack here as I feel he deserves it. After all, it\’s not like he reported that Terry Bradshaw was killed. We all make mistakes.
