In any form of media, but particularly in the world of sports journalism, the need to be the first to break a story reigns supreme.
The advent and constant growth of social media platforms such as Twitter have provided people, professional journalists or otherwise, a place to spread news, accurate or not.
While sports media still acts as a bridge of information from the athlete to the fan, the modern professional athlete also has multiple avenues available to them to promote their brand and tell their story.
This has created a landscape where being first and getting clicks means more than the truth, in some circles.
Connor Letourneau, Golden State Warriors beat writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, said he has seen the problem of “fake news” proliferate into sports media.
“We live in a world where everyone is trying to be first,” Letourneau said. “A lot of times that leads to people not double-checking their sources . . . and they end up putting out information that’s not accurate. I see that on an almost daily basis.”
Fake news in sports, which is to say stories that have been born out of a fabricated quote or event, are not as rampant as someone on Twitter blatantly creating a trade rumor out of thin air, but there are some examples out there.
Sports and politics fused in the NFL when some athletes protested during the national anthem, which hit its boiling point during the 2017 season.
A website called TheLastLineofDefense.org published a story titled, “BREAKING: Fox Sports Cancels ALL NFL Broadcasts ‘Until Players Respect the Flag.’”
This of course, did not happen, as Fox continued to show every football game as scheduled. The story then went on to quote a fictional Fox spokesperson that supposedly made the announcement on a different Fox program.
The website, which claimed its content was satirical in a disclaimer, is now defunct.
Tracking sources
One way a rumor can spread to the point of it being believed by the masses is when someone with real industry acumen gets involved.
In late 2016, an NBA rumor spread that Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson was supposedly involved in trade talks with the Boston Celtics.
The story originated on a website called the Morning Ledger but spread after former Celtic power forward Brian Scalabrine raised it on an NBA satellite radio show.
On the show, Scalabrine said, “By the way, this weekend I heard that Klay Thompson might be available.” He failed to identify a source while on-air but later tweeted that he got his information from the Morning Ledger article.
People thought it had legitimacy because someone who played in the NBA and had ties with the Celtics organization spread the rumor.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr even addressed the rumor at a press conference later that same day. He mostly laughed it off, but in the span of a weekend, a completely falsified rumor made its way to the head coach of a professional franchise.
“NBA Twitter is kind of an infamous thing, there is a lot of speculating that goes on and a lot of rushing to judgment,” Letourneau said. “That can lead to misinformation and rumors that aren’t accurate.”
This kind of rumor can cause distrust among professional athletes and the media that cover them.
“It can make players a lot more wary of the media, less trustworthy of the media and not feeling like they are credible,” Letourneau said.
Durant rumors
In February, free agency rumors were swirling around then-Warrior power forward Kevin Durant that culminated in a back-and-forth with media at a press conference.
While Durant was not opening up about his free agency plans, media organizations knew the gravity of his eventual decision.
“We know that a player of his caliber changing teams changes the league by so much,” Mercury News digital sports strategist Michael Nowels said. “We see an [then-ESPN reporter] Ian Begley tweet that [says Durant] is considering going to the Knicks, we say ‘We gotta write that.’ ”
Nowels said that he and the rest of the reporters at the Mercury News have to walk a fine line between giving fans the news they want versus making sure that news is credible.
Grant Cohn, sports columnist for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, wrote a piece in April that called for Durant to leave town.
“He’d come into post-game press conferences with his hat pulled low and a frown on his face like he wanted to be on any other team,” Cohn said. “I couldn’t admire it.”
Most NBA talking heads were convinced that Durant was headed to the New York Knicks, as this Bleacher Report headline from May suggests: “[Colin] Cowherd: ‘Very Connected’ NBA Player Says Kevin Durant to Knicks Is ‘100% Done.’ ”
Cohn, however, was not convinced.
He thought that it was possible that Durant was toying with the media, fully knowing what team he wanted to play for all along despite the constant rumors that he was a shoe-in for the Knicks.
Durant eventually signed with the Brooklyn Nets.
While Cohn never heard from Durant in regards to his opinion piece, he knows that most players he writes about will see his work.
Sports personnel react
In the sports media world, it’s not uncommon for athletes to not like what a journalist has to say, even if it’s factual.
Cam Inman, 49ers reporter for the Mercury News, also said that he’s not going to please everyone that he writes about, otherwise it would essentially be public relations.
“Athletes and coaches respect your opinion if you take a credible stance based on an educated thought rather than a ‘hot take,’” Inman said in an email.
During one of his first years covering the team, Inman said that Jeremy Newberry, former 49ers center, was upset with something he wrote about him.
Inman approached Newberry and asked him why, and Newberry told him that he heard second-hand that Inman “ripped” him in a story.
The article actually said that a holding penalty by Newberry nullified a touchdown run, without anything specifically accusatory in it.
“[Newberry] agreed he should have read it himself and he had no qualms with me going forward, partly because I told him I’m always open to discussing such concerns in a quest for factual reporting,” Inman said.
While covering Oregon State athletics for The Oregonian, Letourneau had a similar run-in, but this time with a coach.
“I reported that the head coach, who is actually [President] Barack Obama’s brother-in-law, was going to get fired,” Letourneau said. “I broke that he was going to get fired before he was even notified.”
Naturally, the head coach was angry with Letourneau, and he blackballed him at press conferences, barred all media from practice, and attacked his credibility and character publicly.
The head coach was eventually fired, but it didn’t come until a week after the report.
“There have been plenty of times where I will write or say something that will upset a player or a coach,” Letourneau said. “It’s not information that they wanted to be public, but it is my job to report the news, so that comes with the territory.”
The media, of course, is a two-sided coin, with players and coaches having their own opinions about how the media covers teams.
San Jose State women’s soccer head coach Lauren Hanson said her experience with the media has been positive thus far in both her playing and coaching career.
Hanson also said there are pros and cons with how sports media covers teams since the news cycle sped up.
“I think it’s positive in the sense that there’s more media coverage,” Hanson said. “Unfortunately, sometimes doing their research and fact-checking and making sure that there’s two sides of the story told isn’t a priority I think, especially with social media.”
Whether it’s a tweet that wasn’t checked for accuracy or a story that is completely falsified, the landscape of sports journalism has changed. Real sports reporting still exists, but it has to fight through heaps of misinformation to rise to the top.
